Supplied - Roy LuckAny therapist would say the Alberta government’s relationship with oil is a toxic one.
The Alberta government is truly, madly, deeply in love with oil. I mean, you know how loyal the government is. It’ll spend any amount of money on oil. It’s very protective and it’ll never let anything happen to oil. It’ll do anything for oil.
But really, the government has been in denial this whole time. It refuses to admit that oil doesn’t care about Alberta at all. Oil has absolutely no feelings for the government whatsoever. Yet in every budget that the government makes, how much is put aside for oil? Every time the government talks, how many times is oil mentioned?
I mean, I can see why everyone wants oil: totally hot… luscious… crude, but in like a down-to-earth, sexy way. I mean, I’m a total environmentalist, but I’d totally frack that.
But oil is crazy unpredictable, dawg. Oil will do whatever, whenever it wants, and the government will chase it and spend any amount of money to get closer to it. And then the government gets really frustrated when oil refuses to leave, like now, and the government tries desperately to get rid of it. What an emotional roller-coaster.
The government has a problem. Oil has basically cost the Alberta government $500 million dollars. That’s how much the province’s new deficit is. The government has kept pumping money into oil throughout the past few years, at the expense of funding towards important areas, including cuts to post-secondary education funding in the past few years. As a result of this, the government recently accepted the U of A’s proposals to raise market modifiers that would increase tuition for Law students to $15,995/year in 2018-19, and for MBA students to $34,712.21/year by 2017-18. This is just too much. Not only is the government hurting itself, but it’s also hurting the people it’s supposed to help.
Students have been really angry about this whole rising tuition situation, and have been reacting in the wrong way. 300 students even went to the legislature in November to basically yell at the government. But the government has feelings too and doesn’t like being yelled at, which explains why the Legislature building’s big front doors are no longer open to the general public.
I suggest we take the government out on a jovial night on the town to loosen up a bit. We can dress like hipsters and go to the Buckingham. Thomas Lukaszuk would look great with a man-bun. Or we can go to Mixx, but someone would first have to tell Stephen Mandel that chains aren’t allowed in most clubs anymore. The tab will be on us, the taxpayers. After that, we can jump from party to party like we just don’t care! #noregrets!
Then after we get the government good and drunk, we could go to Steel Wheels, and who’ll show up, but everyone’s favourite, Students’ Union President William Lau. He’ll be friendly, kind, reassuring and trusting, and give the government a nice, judgment-free environment to express their true feelings, and not the bullshit they say every night on the evening news. I suspect the government will just start talking about what’s really been bothering them. With understanding rather than anger, we’ll find out what the government really thinks about oil.
We need to break up this relationship before the government hurts itself and everyone else.
When the #Conservatives privatized the #power lines it killed the Alberta Advantage and moved us into the Energy or nothing world. Companies left Alberta in droves because the price of power was too high.
The Conservatives as part of their plan turned the power into a source of #indirect taxation while cutting the amount of funding they passed down to cities. Now, cities are in charge of the power and there are no controls about what they can charge while Conservatives brag about low taxes. There are 2.5 million meters spinning in this province! If the utilities took a one line charge on your utility bill for janitorial services, it would return them 5 million dollars a month 60 million a year new income!
The Conservatives have leached the Heritage Trust fund out of over 700 billion dollars. They have discounted our oil prices 30% going through the door. These figures from the Canadian High Commissioner. That is trillions of dollars that should have been in our provincial revenue is in oil pockets.
They have not collected royalty due us for the past 15 years, There is another trillion dollars missing from our provincial revenues.
Yes, Universities take a hard hit but in my mind they deserve it! Statistically Universities do not vote; there is no risk to the Conservatives there.
LIkewise people who live in apartments are not included in the population figures that shape the policies of our province and, being left out is what they deserve too! Statistically they do not vote!
Norway to whom we are compared turn out 70% of their vote in every election! They have consistently elected socialist Governments! This last time around with the nationalistic massacre shocking them all they elected a minority conservative Government who has nothing at all to do with the wealth they amassed.
Every Norwegian is guaranteed a free university education! That is socialism.
I will be supporting Raj Sherman and the Alberta Liberals. I want to keep my home! I want #solid trustworthy leadership I will find in the #Alberta Liberal Team.
Things are going to get a whole lot worse, The world is storing oil in tankers; no markets. They say this is better than 2008 because they are more tankers! Alberta is loading rail cars. Where these cars are going I have no idea My bet is they are sitting or being unloaded into ships east or west coast. Rail cars charge huge demurrage which will have to be picked up by tax payers at some point which brings me to the newly announced price increases to the Electrical system. They are asking for another billion dollar to build that. Who made a billion dollar error? Where is the money going to go. Again it is 20 bucks on your utility bill per month. We so need an honest Government.