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No Albertans visit this forum? Am I all alone? There is some misinformation some have here about Alberta.
Ok...to answer the first question, to eliminate the PST....
To do so, the provincial government would have to restructure itself first and foremost. It would have to eliminate waste at every concievable level, eliminate redundant jobs, streamline as much as possible. Do that while still maintaining a level of services that are acceptable to the populace.
While that is going on, start empowering the mentality of the populace, re-educate if you will, on being self sufficient, to reduce reliance upon the government for socialized dogma related programs.
When these measures start taking effect, revenues from the PST and income taxes will naturally rise. Start reducing them. Little by little. The idea being that the more money in the pockets of the families, the less reliant upon the government they will become for the services that the government was providing.
Aside from representing the province on the national level, I do not want much more from them aside from maintaining provincial roads and parks, and managing federal transfers for medicare.
As for Alberta. This province has never had PST. And unlike what others seem to think, oil revenues are not the sole reason for this.
The government was small to start and infrastructure costs overall were quite low some 50 years ago. Even though oil is a strong player, it wasn't always this way. Ranching and farming were likely larger portions of the GDP up to the mid 60's. Some drilling and exploration projects helped grow the oil industry, but the government was not making a lot of money from this in those days. Not until the mid to late 70's. Enter the NEP program introduced by the Trudeau government in 79, trying to reduce the cost of energy by socializing this commodity. Though it looked good for people in the east, this severely undermined the industry in Alberta and many companies who initially invested, closed shop and moved to other areas of the world to drill for oil. Afterall, would you drill for $20/barrel oil in Alberta or would you drill for $40/barrel in the Beaufort?
This severely crippled the province, and as a result, personal and corporate and land taxes slowly crept up. Still the lowest in the country, but not enough to attract industry, the province started to incurr the highest per capita debt load across the country. Eventually the feds repealed the NEP, but the damage was still present. Early 90s, Ralph Klein came to power as the provincial PM. He started to reduce the government load. He cut many programs outright. Many redundant services were eliminated. AGT, Alberta Government Telephone was sold to private. Natural Gas suppliers were also sold to private firms, along with electric companies. Some hospitals were closed, while others were expanded. Redundant staff was let go. School boards were merged, older neighborhood schools were closed and students shifted to newer locals that had fewer students in those. Corporate taxes and personal income taxes were also cut little by little.
By these measures, over the span of 8 years, the deficit was completely reversed and the debt payed off as a result of attracting business to the province due to the tax cuts. Oil revenues did play a large part towards the end of this 8 year period, however oil was still $55-60/barrel. Companies that used to have headquarters in other parts of the country pulled up stakes and moved out here. Canadian (CP Air), CN Rail to name a couple of the more prominent companies. NorTel and other major technology firms also set up shop. More investment in natural resources was also seen. Mining and surveying increased. Population boom occured, raising the population of Calgary from roughly 700K in the early 90s, to over a million in 2003. Construction jobs expanded exponentially and is still going strong.
All this had a ripple effect of stimulus directly as a result of those early cuts. The provincial debt was paid in full by year 10, where oil revenues started to take hold and taxes generated from those royalties started to climb. As crude prices rose, it became profitable for companies to start going into the oil sands regions and start tapping those. Up to roughly a year ago, before this recession came along, we were booming. The provincial government a year ago last March vowed to eliminate the health care premiums, which happened as of January 1st this year.
As Canada is still reeling badly from the recession effects, Alberta is by far still better off than the rest of Canada, relatively. Oil is down to $50-60 or so dollars a barrel. Our per capita spending on health and education outstripping all the other provinces.
I would imagine that people aren't stampeding from Quebec to Alberta, for the same reason that people aren't stampeding from New York City to Nevada.
Nevada has no state income tax at all, while New York City residents have to pay both state income taxes AND city income taxes, so NYC residents are paying a LOT of extra taxes for the privilege of living in a world-class city and cultural hub.
In the meantime, Nevada remains an almost-empty desert with a few small cities/large towns... while New York City has 8 million people inside the city limits. In the end, I think that quality-of-life considerations have to take into account many more factors than simply the level of taxation.
Wasn't the thread about sales tax though? That is different from income tax. NYC actually doesn't have sales tax on items under $100...but go outside the city...Long Island has an 8.25% sales tax (one of the highest in the country).
and everything Klein had done has been un-done by those that replaced him. You now have a government that spends like a drunken sailor on shore leave, is conservative in name alone, and has put the province back where it was with Don Getty.
Since Alberta doesn't have elections, as much as coronations, it's time for a new party to come forward, much like the Conservatives and Peter Lougheed did to Manning and the Social Credits in 1971. There's a record for you, one party in power for 38 years, with not even a sniff of an oposition. It does help to have all the opposing parties run by idiots though.
Texas, Florida and Washington have no state income tax as well, and those are all prosperous places to live in.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kristan
I would imagine that people aren't stampeding from Quebec to Alberta, for the same reason that people aren't stampeding from New York City to Nevada.
Nevada has no state income tax at all, while New York City residents have to pay both state income taxes AND city income taxes, so NYC residents are paying a LOT of extra taxes for the privilege of living in a world-class city and cultural hub.
In the meantime, Nevada remains an almost-empty desert with a few small cities/large towns... while New York City has 8 million people inside the city limits. In the end, I think that quality-of-life considerations have to take into account many more factors than simply the level of taxation.
The abundance of jobs in Alberta is a myth now. Unemployment across the board is at 7.3%
House prices, interestingly enough, have remained fairly stable, right there next to unattainable.
Other costs are on a par with the rest of the country however the no PST - even if it is a bit of a nebulous thing - keeps Albertans smiling. Still a great place to live and raise kids but no cheaper than say London ON or Winnipeg MB.
and everything Klein had done has been un-done by those that replaced him. You now have a government that spends like a drunken sailor on shore leave, is conservative in name alone, and has put the province back where it was with Don Getty.
Since Alberta doesn't have elections, as much as coronations, it's time for a new party to come forward, much like the Conservatives and Peter Lougheed did to Manning and the Social Credits in 1971. There's a record for you, one party in power for 38 years, with not even a sniff of an oposition. It does help to have all the opposing parties run by idiots though.
Yes and no. Some things have been undone by Stelmach, but for the most part, he has kept things as they were when Klein was gearing down to leave office. About the only issues I have with Eddy is his inability to make sound financial decisions and I fault that mostly with his cabinet, who are primarily made up of rural mp's. I doubt any of these people are of value where financial decisions are concerned, simply because they are mostly rancher/farmer/small town kinds of people, who are not technically savvy in the world of high finance because of those roots. Klein had people who were industry experienced, and this worked well for him. Bad decisions like the royalties debacle, and eliminating health premiums. The former was a flip flop that did absolutely no benefit to anyone, and the premiums was a popular move for people who paid into it personally. Mine was automatically paid by my employer, so I didn't see any benefit to my bottom line. The provincial deficit, the first since Klein outlawed that move, is almost exactly that of what the province would have brought in if the premiums were still continued. That said....
You assert the MSM dogma of "drunken sailors". I have to disagree. This is why...
When Klein came to power, he slashed everything the province was responsible for in order to reign in that deficit and ultimately the debt. Services such as infrastructure, health and education were the primary victims. There were an assortment of other areas as well, but were negligable in comparison. When the deficit was eliminated and the debt was being paid down, the world experienced an unprecedented rise in oil prices. Blame Gulf War one, Gulf War two, problems in Israel, problems in Iran, problems in the Balkans and so on....all contributed to this inflation of almost 200% in oil costs. Alberta benefitted greatly from this as our revenues were heavy from this boom. It sparked interest from oil companies, now willing to spend money on the oil sands and other fields because of the profit stood to be made in spite of royalties to the province. A huge influx of people moved here, somewhere between a half to three quarters a million moved to Alberta, for jobs directly and indirectly related to this. Income tax was reduced right across the board, increases in the tax benefits, minimum wage exemptions amongst those was brought about.
What was also brought about was the catching up that was greatly needed, and still is needed, in the infrastructure that was neglected, the increases in education and health to answer the calls from an already upset population because of the cuts previously, along with that 3/4 million new people who moved to the province and are now needing those services.
Now, ask yourself, what choice did the Government have? Keep taking that money and not give out tax relief, not spend on infrastructure and health and education?
Spending like drunken sailors? Indeed. NOT! Quit listening to the reporters who are "reporters" and NOT financial experts. If they were financial experts, they would be doing THAT job instead of being reporters.
And as for increased cost of living? Goes with that old adage, "supply and demand". The influx of 3/4 million people and not enough homes and rental properties has that kind of effect.
And finally, NOBODY, and I say that confidently, nobody foresaw this recession coming a year ago last May, and similarly, nobody saw a 200% drop in oil prices either, when much of the current budget was projected from that period.
As for unemployment....unless you worked for an energy company or had a job dependant on that industry indirectly, most people remained employed. Those energy industry jobs were reliant on the cost of energy, both NG and Oil. The layoffs were as a result of the market correction of those commodities and had little to do with the recession. The recession just happened to be happening at the same time and was due in large part to poor US mortgage lending laws and practices.
My company I work for is international in scope. Alberta as a whole saw very few jobs lost in this company, compared to EVERY where else, Canada, the US and every other country affected. Toronto saw half the staff cut, about 100. Calgary? Less than a half dozen. Red Deer saw none, Medicine Hat saw none, Edmonton saw a couple, Lethbridge saw none cut.
Odd that in a recession, people were still buying homes here, buying cars here, crowding Walmart and Canadian Tire and Home Depot in incredible numbers, down only slightly compared to this time last year. Says a lot about the effects of that recession in these parts.
After I posted, I thought about that, but wasn't sure. So Alberta has no pst, huh? Has there been a palpable affect in terms of business and/or people moving there, or did the provincial government just raise taxes somewhere else? What do you think is stopping people from moving from the highest pst n taxed province (not sure if it's Quebec) to Alberta? One would think that theire would be a substantial savings over a few years.
That's probably why my brother remains in Alberta--he's a businessman and runs his own company, too. He has a very good standard of living, pays his own way, too.
No wonder I love that province so much.
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