It’s time for the UCP to drop its newfound interest in picking winners and losers
It’s a sad day for taxpayers when their government that has “committed to being responsible stewards of taxpayers’ hard-earned money” starts bragging about its corporate welfare spending. Premier Jason Kenney should immediately scrap the new business subsidy programs his government just announced and go back to focusing on cutting taxes for everyone rather than picking…
Businesses need help, but it’s important to provide the right help the right way. Premier Jason Kenney’s economic strategy has so far revolved around three core principles: lowering taxes, cutting red tape and pushing back against Ottawa. Kenney should double down on these principles to help Alberta recover and stay away from corporate welfare. “The…
Kenney should fulfil his campaign promise, committing to a culture change and reaffirming the role of citizens as boss
More than a year into the United Conservative Party’s mandate, Albertans are still waiting for two key accountability reforms: recall and referendum rules. If government belongs to the people, then the people should be able to vote to recall misbehaving politicians between elections and initiate referendums to introduce or repeal legislation. Premier Jason Kenney can…
Federal wage subsidy should go to struggling Albertans, not to a political party with plenty of money in the bank
The United Conservative Party said it would stick up for taxpayers, but now the UCP is exploiting the federal wage subsidy and taking money meant for struggling Albertans. The federal government’s Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy provides employers affected by COVID-19 with a 75 per cent wage subsidy. The intent of the program wasn’t to force Canadians to subsidize…
Four years after retiring from talk radio, he has things to tell you about the state of the Canada, Alberta and Calgary. And he has a new YouTube show to get you up to date
Dave Rutherford is a longtime broadcast journalist and commentator in Calgary. What are you up to? Rutherford: It's been four years since I was on the radio full time and I'm not going to lie, it has been a difficult transition into retirement. A year or so after leaving the airwaves, the NDP was elected…
There are ways to reorganize some of our basic services, and we can rev up a new research-and-development engine of growth
During an early-morning chat over the fence, Chuck seemed more subdued than usual. “Just read the blue-ribbon panel’s report on Alberta’s finances,” he moaned, referencing the provincial-government-commissioned report led by former Saskatchewan finance minister Janice MacKinnon, “and it’s bad. We’re in debt up to our necks, the oil business is up the tubes and after…
Weaken the regulatory framework at your peril. Sloppy regulation begets sloppy industrial operation. And that drives investment away
Grant Sprague and Bev Yee, Alberta deputy ministers of energy and environment respectively, are very capable senior bureaucrats. Here’s hoping they bring to bear all their skills for the review of the Alberta Energy Regulator. They should keep in mind that the review ought not to be the witch hunt the current political framing suggests…
Calgary Herald columnist Licia Corbella wrote a column in favour of Jason Kenney while a member of the UPC. Is this misstep a fate worse than death?
Having been a columnist for more than two decades, I obviously understand this profession inside and out. Yet I’m still constantly amazed how little the average Canadian knows about column writing, even if he or she has been reading a publication’s opinion/comment section for the equivalent of a lifetime. Here’s a recent example. Sean Craig,…
Labour regulations granting mandatory benefits simply make workers pay, through reduced wages, for those benefits
A main priority of Alberta’s United Conservative Party government, given the province’s relatively high unemployment rate over the past few years, is job creation. It’s right there in Jason Kenney’s two-line Twitter biography: “Premier of Alberta. Focused on getting Alberta back to work.” The proposed corporate tax cuts will certainly help attract business investment and…
Albertans are mad as hell and won't take it any longer – at least that's the message to the rest of the country. But is that enough to succeed?
In the end, this week’s election outcome in Alberta seems like it was preordained. No, Jason Kenney was wrong when he asserted early in his tenure as leader of the United Conservative Party that the NDP was an “accidental government.” The decision by voters nearly four years ago to hand power to an unlikely suitor…
It’s a sad day for taxpayers when their government that has “committed to being responsible stewards of taxpayers’ hard-earned money” starts bragging about its corporate welfare spending. Premier Jason Kenney should immediately scrap the new business subsidy programs his government just announced and go back to focusing on cutting taxes for everyone rather than picking…
