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Episode 571: Alberta Budget 2016: Governmentinaction

2016-04-15

Stephen Carter and Corey Hogan talk about the Alberta budget. Did it do what it needed to do? Were there any missed opportunities? And how much of this can be laid at the feet of Stephen Carter? Zain Velji, as always, picks the questions and keeps everybody in line. Get Thursday episodes, access to hundreds of old episodes, and bonus content on Patreon

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:03
This is a strategist episode 571. My name is Zain Velji with me as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. Guys, what's up? Happy budget day, Zain. Oh, man. Big day
Carter 0:13
Zain. Look, it took
SPEAKER_01 0:13
only two tweets to summon us to this table. Two people. Big like hair. You guys doing an episode? A little pitiful how much
SPEAKER_01 0:20
we actually just want
SPEAKER_01 0:21
to talk about the
SPEAKER_01 0:22
budget. It's true. Just
SPEAKER_01 0:23
Just looking for an excuse.
SPEAKER_01 0:24
Looking for an excuse to talk about what was a budget of epic proportions, Carter? Can I call it that? No. No,
SPEAKER_01 0:31
you cannot call it that
Carter 0:35
number of pages it was printed on. We
SPEAKER_01 0:37
We haven't even gotten into it.
Carter 0:38
it. I don't even know why it would be like that as though this is some sort of transformative budget. It's
SPEAKER_01 0:43
Okay, so here's what we're going to do. We're going to do a quick episode today just on this topic and this topic alone. We're going to talk about the Alberta budget. budget. It just got put down today. A lot to talk about. Corey, you were riled up today on television. Carter, you were riled up today and everyone's excited to talk about it. So let's get into it.
SPEAKER_01 1:02
The budget. I've got no segments. We're just going right into it. We're here.
SPEAKER_01 1:06
Stephen Carter, tell us what got
Carter 1:08
got us here. First, what got us here? Okay, here's what got us here. We have had a revenue problem from some people's point of view or an expense problem for other people's point of view in alberta for the better part of 20 years this debate's been going on
Carter 1:23
yes so let's just forget about whether it's a revenue problem or an expense problem okay and so let and let me break down for those listeners who who aren't in alberta or maybe who those albertans who haven't been paying attention bottom
Carter 1:35
bottom line we rely on resource revenue to balance our budget or to produce surpluses it has been as high as uh 12 or 14 billion dollars in a year or
Carter 1:46
or Or in another way of looking at it, some 40% of the overall budget or overall revenue that we have in the province of Alberta, it has been that high. And it has been as low as it is right now. In this projected budget, it is $1.4 billion. It's lowest number since 1974. Right. So we're talking like decades and decades of time since we have seen a number this low. And
Carter 2:12
And even when it was high, we
Carter 2:14
we were having deficits. And
Carter 2:16
the reason for that is that we created this so-called Alberta Advantage. So the Alberta Advantage that Ralph Klein created in the 1990s was
Carter 2:26
was that we would have the lowest tax regime and
Carter 2:29
we would have all the same services.
Carter 2:32
So people remember Ralph Klein as the guy who cut the spending, cut spending, cut spending. And that was one Ralph Klein. But
Carter 2:39
But there was a second guy. Yeah.
Carter 2:41
The second Ralph Klein, the second coming of Ralph Klein and the second coming of Ralph Klein spent money like he was a drunken sailor and he escalated all of the spending. He gave back all of the money that he'd taken from nurses, all the money he took from doctors, all the money he took from teachers. He gave that all back. Plus then some.
Carter 3:00
And we became the highest per capita spending province in the country on things like health care, education, human services. as we continue to be in that position now moving forward. Again,
Carter 3:11
Again, I don't care which side you want to be on. We're spending too much money? Sure, case can be made. We don't make enough revenue? Sure, a case can be made. All that really matters is the fundamental principle in accounting, which says that if your revenues are less than your expenditures, you have a deficit.
Carter 3:29
that's where we are, and that's where we've been in the province of Alberta for eight of the last nine years because apparently Corey has pointed out that we we managed to barely balance a budget one time in the last nine years the last nine years most of which were boom years in the province carter
SPEAKER_01 3:46
carter is it fair to say that this concept of the alberta advantage has kind of stuck within the zeitgeist and has been a constant political sort of initiative that everyone's tried to go after is that true
Carter 3:57
true i'm going to set up my good friend cory hogan okay because this is the setup to what he's been wanting to talk about So here's
Carter 4:03
here's our reality. We have published in our budgets and we have published in our, you know, we've had spoken about many, many times the difference between the taxation rates in this province and every other province across the country. And even when we were showing massive deficits and today's massive deficit biggest ever. Yeah, we have we
Carter 4:26
are taxing our population for
Carter 4:28
for the exact same services. In fact, more expensive services than any other province. Yeah, we are taxing them less than any other province in the country. The next closest province, Corey, Saskatchewan.
Corey 4:38
Saskatchewan. So the government of Alberta, in a
Corey 4:41
a move that I can only assume came from some wonk in the finance department that really should have been killed by the political masters, but they put together a chart that showed if Alberta went to the tax rates of any other province where we would be, we were by far the lowest. if we went to the next lowest province's tax rate, Saskatchewan, we would bring in an additional $7.5 billion. If we went to sort of the middle of the pack, we would be bringing in about $16 billion. Now let's put that in perspective. We have a $10 billion deficit and it's our largest ever. The sky is falling, right?
Corey 5:16
I cannot understand for the life of me how you brag about a $7.5 billion tax advantage when you have a $10.4 billion deficit. That would be like like bragging about your house and failing to mention that it's in foreclosure. Yeah.
Carter 5:30
I own a $1.3 million house, but I have an income of $148,000. I mean, this is the equivalent of what we're talking about when we're bragging about it. Sorry,
SPEAKER_01 5:39
Sorry, I want to phrase this with the whole concept of the Alberta Advantage, Corey. We've got this thing that we've all been striving for. Take us to where Carter talked to us about the context to where we are today. I
Corey 5:51
I hate that phrase, the Alberta Advantage. This was something that was cooked up by Ralph Klein. Legend goes around his kitchen table. It was the new slogan. It's part of why when Alberta went to a new, new slogan at some point in the past 10 years or so, everyone's like, what? We spent money on that? The last one, just some guy came up with. The Wild Rose has used some version of bring back the Alberta advantage before. It is definitely something that the right talks a lot about. Ralph Klein has moved into this realm of pure
Corey 6:21
People forget, for starters, that when Ralph Klein balanced the budget originally, it was with much, much higher taxes than we have now. People
Corey 6:28
People forget the fact that, as Stephen mentioned, Ralph Klein eventually went back and spent far more on services. And by the way, if you want to talk about why services are so expensive in Alberta, probably because in this boom-bust world, we're either hiring and paying hiring bonuses or firing and paying severance every year. Like clockwork. It's crazy. And we just need to get off that roller coaster and get something more consistent. But what do you do? I mean, yes, let's just throw this out here right now. We are more expensive. But, of course, Alberta also makes 50% more GDP per capita. We're going to be more expensive. Salaries are higher. You've got to compete with the private sector here in Alberta if you're the government. And you're going to have to pay them a bit more money. That's the reality of the situation. So that's good.
Corey 7:13
good. Go ahead, Carter.
Carter 7:13
Carter. I just want to go back to the Alberta advantages for two seconds. OK, why was the Alberta Advantage instituted? Why did we put in such a low taxation rate? Because I want to understand
Carter 7:22
how that influences thinking
Carter 7:23
So why we put it in place is because we were afraid in this era of the 1990s with the Kretchen government, with Paul Martin in place, that if we showed too big a surplus, it
Carter 7:33
it was going to be grabbed by Ottawa.
Carter 7:35
Right. So the thinking at the time was and I'm not saying it's correct thinking. I think it's ridiculous thinking. But the thinking at the time was we were sitting on the golden goose. We couldn't possibly save a nest egg like Lougheed had done in the 1970s because that actually was what brought in the national energy program. Well,
Corey 7:53
Well, there's something to be said for that sense of resentment. You also have to keep in mind the context. Alberta was playing around with the health care system and privatization. There was this sense the federal government could hold back money through the Canada health transfer. There was a lot going on. and uh and there was a lot of paranoia and there was a lot of ill will on both sides which which led to this notion of let's just give it all back let's lower taxes let's create this uh i don't know ayn rand style playground of alberta the problem that we have now today is that um we
Corey 8:25
we still live in that playground in fact it's gotten worse every time a government gets in a little bit of a little extra change in their pocket a little more jingle they'll cut a tax right because all of of a sudden resource revenues are back up for 30 seconds and uh spending just
Corey 8:42
just gets yanked in every direction it's just a nightmare okay
Carter 8:45
okay it's just curiosity cory zane quick let me take your role for a second is
Carter 8:50
is it easier to raise a tax or lower a tax if you're a politician right
Carter 8:53
right so yeah i wonder yeah yeah which direction do they tend to go when you've got lots of money they go the you know down yeah regardless
Carter 8:59
regardless of what the future looks like now i'll give you back your show okay
SPEAKER_01 9:02
okay so this is this This is actually excellent context. The Alberta Advantage, how we got here, the dynamics at play over the course of the last 20 years. I'm
Corey 9:09
I'm sorry. There's one more person we need to credit for where we are, and that's former Chief of Staff Stephen Carter to Alison Redford. Who ran a campaign which I believe promised us no debt, no tax cuts. Can we
Carter 9:21
can we – can we – No tax cuts, no service cuts.
Carter 9:26
No tax increases, no service cuts, and no deficit. And
SPEAKER_01 9:29
And he's admitted on this very show that that was an impossible thing to do. He has admitted that he did not know how to bend the laws of physics and math to be able to do that. But did it work, Stephen?
Carter 9:41
Well, actually, no. It was horrible.
Carter 9:45
we found homophobia and we were able to eke out a victory. Let's
SPEAKER_01 9:50
Let's get to today because I think that's what we're here to. We're talking about the analysis of the strategy for today's budget. I'm holding it right here, some element of it. The Alberta Jobs Plan. Corey Hogan, that's what it's called. That's the budget. Tease me or give me, if people have not been following this for listeners outside of Alberta or even ones that haven't followed this, some
SPEAKER_01 10:10
some of the Coles notes. What did we see within this document today? day well
Corey 10:14
well there's definitely what the government wants us to see and that's an alberta jobs plan that's why they called the budget the alberta jobs plan um now
Corey 10:21
now if you sort of go through it there are certainly a lot of things in the job creation um vein
Corey 10:29
i think most prominent of them is that the government will not be cutting right so the jobs that do exist in the public sector they're going to stick around they're
SPEAKER_01 10:35
they're going to stick there
Corey 10:36
there are a lot of i wouldn't go so far as i call them boutique but smaller in the tens of millions credits that are being made available different partnerships whatnot ways to access capital to try to to create additional jobs as well and that
Corey 10:52
that i you know i think it depends on what kind of company you are and what you're doing whether or not you're going to find much interest in that the
Corey 10:59
the other things that in the budget had been announced before but i think really have to be talked about and where i disagree with steven a a bit is we he said off the top like this is not a big budget yeah it's true what we learned today is not big but this was also the budget that brought in the carbon levy and made real uh the work of shannon phillips's panel uh on on climate change and that is pretty big uh it is a lot of money it is a new tax it is supposed to essentially roll back to to lower income albertans in different ways offset some of business expenses in different ways pay for the greening of the the alberta grid etc etc and that's pretty transformational pretty fundamental and i love it i think it's i think it's a great piece of legislation because it also gives a bunch of tools to the government to then ramp up like it even says in the budget like hey we're going to set it at 30 but it may go up it will have to go up at some point but we're going to wait for the federal government and for our neighbors okay
SPEAKER_01 11:57
okay so we saw carbon what else did we see we saw jobs obviously at the front of this on the title page right we see carbon what else are we seeing within in this thing ah
Corey 12:04
well i mean that's where you start to get into it right is a lack of action action and i think in this case you sort of have to say it is because they didn't do a lot of cuts okay
Carter 12:16
a lot of cuts as a whole in
SPEAKER_01 12:17
in in health care and whatnot
Carter 12:18
whatnot some pretty good spin buddy uh
SPEAKER_01 12:21
we'll get to you one second i want to i want to get the index of what we have and then
Carter 12:24
then we'll go it's
Carter 12:27
action i want to take
Carter 12:28
take a moment on that words is the lack words are what
Corey 12:32
what don't even worry about it um
SPEAKER_01 12:33
um cory's bumper uh bumper sticker like empire has grown significantly i'm
Carter 12:37
i'm not gonna lie i'm
Carter 12:39
i'm loving this are you impressed you're just sitting there eating your orange
SPEAKER_01 12:41
orange slash apples you're doing well right you know what sorry cory please please okay so we thought like your action lack of cuts so action in action look the
Corey 12:49
the alternative in alberta has always been that whiplash i talked about and we're getting off that roller coaster and it's about time so okay that was really good uh there
Corey 12:58
there were some sort of like hey look we're making some cuts none of them amount to significant money in a 40 plus billion dollar uh budget if we're going to be candid you know moving getting rid of some agencies boards and commissions merging some other ones giving a freeze to certain to
Corey 13:15
to certain employees of the government and whatnot a couple small things they will you know you take care of the pennies and the and the dollars will follow so that's good and they should be doing those kind of things what
Corey 13:25
what i do need to kind of talk about and sort of put on the table we don't need to we don't need to get into anything now was on the revenue side yeah
Corey 13:33
we'll get to it not make any big revenue moves outside of the carbon levy which admittedly is it's pretty significant but it's sort of supposed to be revenue neutral right um but
Corey 13:44
but they actually cut the small business tax rate which by how many percentage points
SPEAKER_01 13:49
points cory well fuck
Corey 13:49
fuck 33 because it was only at three points and now it's two and i really do think we need to talk about that
SPEAKER_01 13:56
that at some point okay so i will effectively split it as jobs, carbon, expenditures, and revenue. But Stephen Carter, I want to get to you. I'm looking at this document right here, Alberta jobs. Talk to me about, before we get into the depths of this conversation on the policy and the strategy of that, how do you feel of the branding of this budget at this moment in time? Are you a fan of this being called the Alberta jobs plan slash budget going forward? I'll
Carter 14:21
I'll tell you what. If you are an 18-year-old or a 16-year-old or my 15-year-old daughter who has to get up off of her butt this year and get a job, This summer. She is going to have a much easier time because they put $10 million into a STEP grant program. STEP is back. STEP, Student Temporary Employment Program, is back. I got one when I was a kid. Everybody deserves this grant.
Carter 14:45
It's a great way to get job experience, great way to get the summer youth employment market moving.
Carter 14:50
Those people will find jobs. The
Carter 14:52
The rest of this, we're
Carter 14:55
Like, we are talking tinkering. It makes the agency boards and commissions work look like it was major restructuring compared to the amount of jobs that will actually be made in this economy at this time by this budget. Sure, there will be jobs in infrastructure. Yes, they did not cut any jobs from the civil service or the extended civil service, if you will.
Carter 15:14
So that has to count, I guess. Yes, but in terms of creating jobs, in terms of if I was one of the 9.8 or 8.9 or whatever percent of population in Yagri is currently unemployed, I
Carter 15:26
wouldn't be looking at this saying, well, I think my problems are solved, right?
Carter 15:30
right? I think if you're 15 years old, your problem is solved. Other than that, this
Carter 15:35
this jobs plan is a pretty crappy plan. Corey,
SPEAKER_01 15:38
Corey, we know that this document is a policy document, a political document, and in frank, a communications document. on the last two on politics and communications what do you think of of the alberta jobs plan as as a thesis statement for this budget i
Corey 15:54
i think it's it's exactly what it needs to be of course they need to be saying that they are making a push on jobs and of course as steven mentioned there's actually not a ton the government can do on that short of like a frank underwood uh you know everybody gets a full employment situation alberta works alberta
Corey 16:10
works there were a couple couple of things we sort of bounced over because they've been announced before but they are worth mentioning we also saw the alberta child benefit brought in which is a nice change and will certainly help lower income albertans in general i think that this budget if
Corey 16:24
if you are a job hunter as steven mentioned you're gonna have to hit one of those niches that i talked about earlier for really to be compelling to you um but if you are a lower income albertan or an albertan who has lost their job there is a lot to give you comfort in it and i think that realistically that is something government is much better poised to do than create jobs in the free market okay
SPEAKER_01 16:46
okay let's move it on to to carbon steven carter the strategy of of the the carbon tax or
Carter 16:55
talking to by the minister well here we go let's let's
SPEAKER_01 16:57
let's let's start there actually is this and and maybe we can admit it and it's totally fine is this a backdoor pst t no
Carter 17:06
okay and i'm gonna tell you why tell me why he has mentioned it is i hate crediting cory you know that right yeah
Corey 17:13
yeah it's tough especially
Carter 17:14
especially when he's in the room it's weird you
Carter 17:16
you like blushes and everything revenue neutral okay so we have to take we have to break that apart for a minute
Carter 17:23
and and just take a look at what revenue neutral means almost
Carter 17:26
almost one-third 30 well i guess a little over one-third is going to be immediately redistributed okay
Carter 17:32
okay so uh almost a million Almost $1 billion gets redistributed of the 9 point whatever, 9.6 I think, gets redistributed to small businesses.
Carter 17:42
$2.6 billion gets redistributed to low
Carter 17:48
Which sounds like low-income families. That's a small number. It's actually about 60%. 60% of Albertans, right. 60% of Albertan families are going to get a rebate on this sucker. It's a lot of money. You've got a lot of money being redistributed, one-third of it already being redistributed. You've got another one-third being
Carter 18:05
being put into rebuilding the electrical grid, replacing the power that was being generated by coal and making it now renewable energy.
Carter 18:17
this is already less than what the Leach Report predicted that we would get.
Carter 18:22
Our economic activity is stagnating. Right.
Carter 18:25
Because the economic activity is slowing, we're
Carter 18:27
we're getting less money out of this tax already. ready.
Carter 18:31
less carbon is being generated. We get to tax it less because there's actually less economic activity. The
Carter 18:38
The thing with this particular levy, okay,
Carter 18:42
okay, is I'm not sure it's going to do enough to really change the way that we're getting our carbon output. It's not a huge tax. I know it sounds like a huge tax, but
Carter 18:52
but it's also a very inefficient tax. I'm not sure how efficient it's going to be a reducing carbon and i know that as a tax it's not efficient at all because we're redistributing 35 of it already and we're not putting any of it into general revenue okay
SPEAKER_01 19:07
okay so there's three questions there number one how how effective it is in reducing carbon number two it's taxation cory i'll get to you in a second carter i want your strategist point of view on this though as a strategy putting it into this document and how it was rolled out today was that was that a yay or a nay for you in terms of uh in terms of how that was presented beautiful thing thing about this is they foreshadowed
Carter 19:26
foreshadowed exactly what was going to happen and it happened exactly the way they said. Right. They primed the ground effectively. Yeah. I mean, they said this, hey, buy everybody. A new tax is going to come.
Carter 19:34
Yeah. And it came today.
Carter 19:36
And no one could stand up in the opposition side or the general public or the media and say, holy
Carter 19:40
holy crap, they dropped a two and a half billion dollar revenue bomb into this.
SPEAKER_01 19:44
this. Yeah. That attack was not available to
Carter 19:46
to them. Even though, as Corey has rightfully pointed out, we have a 10.4 billion dollar deficit deficit and we pay $7.5 billion less in taxes than everybody else, you could have put a
Carter 19:59
a $2.5 billion revenue bomb in there and still been faced with a $7.5 billion deficit, right? So let's put these things in perspective. Sure. Sure. They foreshadowed it and it worked. I think that they did a fine job. Corey,
SPEAKER_01 20:16
Corey, there's three sections here. The strategy, the actual tax and its effectiveness as an instrument, and then finally, will this actually reduce carbon, which is ultimately the goal. So tackle them as you wish. Strategy,
Corey 20:28
I think I already talked about. This was about building the toolkit. This wasn't about necessarily fixing it all right now. What they've done is they've created
Corey 20:36
created an expectation that there will be a roaming carbon levy, I guess we'll say that, and that, yes, it's 20, it's going to go to 30, and it will go higher. And that's just how it's going to be. And I think that right there is probably – that
Corey 20:50
that would be a home run if that was the only thing it did. But the fact that it keeps the money in Alberta, redistributes it towards some greening of the grid and things like that, very, very good stuff. Now, on the basic point of everybody
Corey 21:04
under a certain income is going to be getting almost a TST checks, one
Corey 21:08
to four checks a year. A quarterly check, yeah. Here's your cash, right? Will that have any impact?
Corey 21:14
Yes, it will absolutely have an impact. because at the end of the day it doesn't change the fundamental economics of it which is that if if the price of carbon is going up you
Corey 21:24
you have an increased incentive to reduce your carbon consumption you get to keep that cash even if you produce no carbon right
Corey 21:29
yeah this is almost as though the government gave everybody in those income brackets a raise and yes it will minimize in the short term uh
Corey 21:39
the the reduction in carbon but in the middle to long term everybody's just going to absorb that and they are going to be rational economic movers and say if i can reduce my bill by using less carbon i'm still going to do that and
Corey 21:50
and so it's not exactly like it just neutralizes and balances out because fundamentally when you get right down to it people
Corey 21:57
people are not that causal about that check it's not like they get that check and it immediately goes on a debit card which reduces their carbon tax at the pump right they're just getting a new check so let's let's let's say what this actually is and i have no problem with it but let's be clear it was a it was a it was
Corey 22:14
was a bit of a bait and switch in that it is actually as much a social program in my opinion as it is an environmental program it's about reducing the burden on the lower income and redistributing uh wealth from those who have the most of it to those who have the most need i
Corey 22:28
i think that's awesome i just don't necessarily think that's an environmental policy however as i already mentioned by
Corey 22:36
by doing this through a levy like this this whole car here
Corey 22:39
in alberta we get to keep the money here in alberta so we get to introduce a carbon tax and create a social program and all we have to do is pretend that it's an environmental program i'm totally down with that cory
SPEAKER_01 22:49
cory any any political or strategic danger by uh not having municipalities exempt uh as part of the uh the the levy i
SPEAKER_01 23:00
heard this yeah because you
SPEAKER_01 23:01
and i both were heard this today where it
Corey 23:02
it came up and i'm just maybe you can explain the context as well okay so apparently Currently, some in Calgary and I assume other cities are mad that they will have to pay this carbon tax and they're not being exempt from it. The municipalities themselves, right? Who cares? You
Corey 23:15
You know what? Just pay your damn carbon tax. That's how it works.
Corey 23:18
The fact of the matter is it will
Corey 23:21
will ultimately funnel down to us, but that was true also of corporations, not just municipalities. It's going to make things more expensive, not exorbitantly more expensive, but more expensive, and that will have to be burdened. that's why you as an individual are getting this rebate in theory right this rebate is not just about your personal carbon consumption this rebate is about your whole orbit that now has to pay higher carbon taxes and how that trickles down to you so for the city of calgary to sit there and be like well we're just going to pass it on to consumers no
Corey 23:50
no fucking shit that is exactly why they got a check right that that is exactly why they're getting a check in this plan so let's just move on from what is an absolutely patently absurd argument
SPEAKER_01 24:00
argument by the cities stephen carter Let's move on to expenditures.
Carter 24:05
You know what? I mean, yeah, because ultimately it does boil down to how do you spend this money? Yeah. Who are you trying to make happy and how? Yeah. I mean, so there's no surprise that the very first group that this government is trying to keep happy is the, you
Carter 24:19
you know, I can't remember exactly how many people there are, but there's only about 40,000 people that work directly for government and then another, I
Carter 24:26
I don't know, a couple hundred thousand that work between the health region and the school boards and stuff like that. Right.
Carter 24:31
So you have a lot of people that kept their jobs today, right?
Carter 24:33
right? And this is different. And that wasn't a given before today. No, I mean, the pattern, as Corey has alluded to, a lot of cred. A lot of cred. Last two episodes. Jesus Christ. I don't know what's going on with me. But the pattern
Carter 24:50
we have no money. Let us dump this shit on the top of the people who can afford it least, right? And, you know, I mean, some people are hilarious, right? There was people tweeting today. Afford at least,
SPEAKER_01 25:02
least, you said. Yes. Yeah.
Carter 25:03
There's people today tweeting 100,000 people lost their jobs in the oil patch and the government's going to hire 3,000 more. This is crazy. Like,
Carter 25:13
fuck. We got 3,000 of that 100,000 back at work. Like, where do they think these people are coming from? That we have a special clone factory for public servants and only clones get hired into the public service? These are genuine, real, live, walking, talking human beings that stay employed today, that keep paying income taxes, that have the ability to buy shit at your small store, sir. Stop it. We have the – keeping people employed in a downturn is a fundamental responsibility of government. And that makes me a left-wing pinko like my good friend, the orange apologist, C
Carter 25:48
C'est la vie. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 25:49
Yeah. So I'm going to effectively ask you, this was not an austerity budget by any means as it related to expenditures. Go ahead. The
Carter 25:56
The only thing that I think was a steer was the idea that you have to hold healthcare spending to
Carter 26:06
know, I mean, I can hear the right wing's head spinning when we say that. But health care expenditures are growing in an average clip of 6%, right?
Carter 26:16
right? And sometimes more because they just...
Corey 26:21
leeches anymore. I think that's what it gets down to. These things get more expensive. There is more expertise involved. We have much more end-of-life care. It is very expensive. It's extremely
Carter 26:31
extremely expensive. And we haven't had a conversation about what makes sense in our health care system. Right. We've always talked about private versus public as though that's the only thing that the Canada Health Act articulates. It articulates comprehensive. It articulates access. I won't worry about the other two because no one cares. But access and comprehensive are what we have to talk about in our system. No one's talking about it. So comprehensive means the latest, greatest, most expensive treatment.
Carter 26:57
That means that it grows at more than 3% a year. Corey,
SPEAKER_01 27:01
Corey, does the opposition have an angle as it relates to expenditures as part of this budget? I mean, the NDP broke their own self-imposed 15% rule, which you can explain to us in a second. Talk about an own goal. Yeah,
Carter 27:13
Yeah, can you explain that? I think you're
SPEAKER_01 27:14
you're probably more articulate in laying that out than I would. Well, in
Corey 27:19
in the fall. Six
Corey 27:22
the fall of 1942 i mean like last fall the ndp government uh created
Corey 27:28
created a a debt to gdp limit like a ceiling in a ceiling of 15 to say like yes we're going into some debt but don't worry it's never going to be more than 15 we've legally mandated that and that was their policy that was their policy nobody was asking for that policy at the time it was like okay that's pretty good it took the mickey out of some of the attacks that was a clever it's only clever if you don't have to go back less than six months later and like reverse yourself then it's egg on your face like crazy uh and they did that today let's
Corey 27:56
let's be clear yes and you know and right now there i think it was saying like 15.5 is as high as it's going to get yeah it's not exactly like it was going to blow that ceiling out of the water but
Corey 28:05
but it's embarrassing it is embarrassing and i yeah and
Carter 28:08
and that's this year's that's
Carter 28:10
well i know that's
Corey 28:11
that's leading up i believe it will ultimately get to with
Carter 28:14
with the projections in
Corey 28:14
in place yeah debt not
Carter 28:16
right no but that's again though oh I hear what you're saying. Okay, yes.
Corey 28:20
– which is why they didn't just raise it. They just said like, you know what? It's gone. So good on them for realizing – Yeah, they didn't replace it with another number.
Corey 28:27
Good on them for realizing
Corey 28:27
realizing that was a
Carter 28:27
a mistake. They shot themselves in one foot. They did not reload and shoot themselves in the other.
Carter 28:32
That's smart, I guess. I think it's pretty good.
Carter 28:35
I've been known to do both feet.
Carter 28:38
I have. Multiple times. So, okay.
SPEAKER_01 28:41
of that, anything else that the opposition can hit on on the expenditure side?
Corey 28:46
mean, we do spend a lot, right? Right. I mean, that's just a reality. And if you're looking at nothing else, I mean, I can't tell you how many versions of this conversation I've had in the past couple of days. Yeah. Because I wrote an article for CBC that essentially said our taxes are too low. Right.
Corey 28:58
Right. You writing that article?
Corey 29:03
That wasn't actually like that became the lead because that's how articles work. But that wasn't the only thing it said. Sure.
Corey 29:10
But basically it was if we just raise taxes to the next level, we don't really have a deficit, which is true. true and
Corey 29:19
and then people are like well if we just cut spending to the average we don't really have a deficit either which is also almost as true but it's
Corey 29:26
it's it's not that simple i mean i know it's not that simple to raise the taxes either but the fact is as i mentioned this is a more expensive province that's the kind of nuance though i'd like to jump in though oh
Corey 29:37
oh sure why you
Carter 29:37
you clearly have not been listening to rick mciver leader of the progressive conservative party Carter, you're derailing us. Okay, what? Because he indicated there is $4 billion, so roughly 8% of the budget that
Carter 29:52
that could be cut that
Carter 29:53
that is in fact low
Corey 29:56
Yeah, that's – well, why didn't he do it when he was in that job then? I don't know.
Carter 30:00
that's a good point. But listen, this is where I come back to when I said at the beginning. You're
SPEAKER_01 30:04
You're talking about the balance, right? This revenue versus expenditure.
Carter 30:07
expenditure. This comes back to the beginning.
Carter 30:10
certain respect for those people who say, get in there and cut the expenses, who don't want the services. They understand that cutting these expenses means we will eliminate certain services. They know there's a cost to it. I respect those people. There's
Corey 30:23
There's an ideological consistency. I respect those people, too. I don't agree with them, but I respect those people.
Carter 30:29
My problem is with the Ralph Kleins of the world who want to use make-believe money to
Carter 30:33
to pay for things or fantasy money that they think will come every year. This resource revenue that has been proven time and time again to be volatile is
Carter 30:43
is the ultimate problem. If we wanted to cut $8 billion in spending,
Carter 30:48
a significant amount of spending,
Carter 30:54
could do that. But let us keep in mind that if we were to cut $4 billion, Rick McIver's fantasy money,
Carter 31:00
we'd still be left with a $6.4 billion deficit. We still have the structural imbalance. balance so no one proposed even the wild rose didn't propose more than four billion dollars in cuts which gives you a real sense of how deep the hole is that we've dug for us cory
SPEAKER_01 31:15
cory finish up then i've got a question for carter there yeah yeah
Corey 31:17
look there's going to be an audience for this notion of we can just cut because on its surface it looks pretty reasonable so
Corey 31:25
here's my recommendation to the government you
Corey 31:27
you have to force them to make those cuts real yeah
Corey 31:30
and it's not just a question of cornering them and pinning them and saying hey make
Corey 31:34
make those cuts And this is
SPEAKER_01 31:35
opposition you're talking about.
Corey 31:36
about. Yeah, like show me what you mean because they'll just duck and weave and they'll say, oh, there's fat to be trimmed and that's how the conversation ends. Administrative
Corey 31:44
Yeah, exactly. What they need to do is really put them in a box with a bunch of crayons and say, draw your plan, chimps, because
SPEAKER_01 31:53
because this doesn't make any
Corey 31:54
any sense. My recommendation to the government right now is afford the official opposition the ultimate of privileges. privileges say you have the finance department to create your alternative budget you have access to here are the resources you have not go
Corey 32:09
go for it go for it and present it and we'll see which ones albertans want more you think you can cut four billion have at it i want to see real cuts i want to see actually what you're proposing i don't want to be talking about just 10 off the board because that's nonsense i want to know what programs you would put on the blog and you know what just stop it there don't let the pcs do it because the pcs will just do something that's half cuts half half revenue and they people might actually like it but people will hate what the wild rose come up with they will hate it so you know what don't fight it go with it turn into the skid and let's see what
SPEAKER_01 32:41
what these assholes if they're confident in their position carter this is interesting because i was going to go down this road with you as well your recommendation to the government going forward on this expenditure question but before that how
SPEAKER_01 32:53
how did you think they rolled out with the expenditure today did you think that strategy was good effectively saying saying, here are the five or six groups we want to please, and we're going to pump money into them and ensure that we can either sustain or grow these areas, and all the naysayers or all the haters are going to hate, and that's cool. Did you appreciate that strategy by the government today?
Carter 33:14
weakest strategy in the world is one where you waffle,
Carter 33:18
And this government did not waffle. This government said, this is what we're going to do.
Carter 33:22
We're going to be proud of it. Boom, Boom. Yeah. Done.
Carter 33:25
And including the boring, including all of that. Yeah,
Carter 33:28
we're not. They didn't make any modest cuts that they pointed to and said, look, we're we're actually really thrifty. Right.
Carter 33:35
They said, no, we're keeping every every government, every civil servant employed. Period. End of sentence. Yeah,
Carter 33:42
that's massive. Right. They didn't play both sides of the coin. They played one side of the coin and they played it well. Would
SPEAKER_01 33:48
Would you have done that if you were in a position, let's say, with that ideological mandate? date um
Carter 33:54
obviously i didn't we did the zero you know the zero-based budgeting uh activity facade
Carter 34:00
facade one could say um you know the implication the government is incredibly wasteful sure as much as any private corporation i've worked for um i mean everybody's wasteful there's always waste it's just the nature of the world look
Corey 34:16
look oversight's expensive and if you want to to live in a system with a bunch of oversight it's going to cost a little bit more that's just the reality of it yeah
Carter 34:23
yeah so i think that they did i think that the expenses were were actually you know like they said we're
Carter 34:29
we're going to try and curtail the growth yeah
Carter 34:31
right right and let's be clear they're you know they're curtailing the growth far better than the pcs over the last five years have right
Carter 34:39
right so if they are able to hold to these numbers yeah which is a big if because i went through some some of the specific numbers and i'm like how are you going to do that like you've got income supports uh for unemployed people staying relatively close to the same right yeah and you're looking at it going i'm not an expert in math but um this is not going to work right
Carter 34:58
right so i'm kind of i'm
Carter 35:00
i'm partly you know i'm impressed by their discipline yeah but i'm concerned by their optimism uh on being able to hold and constrain there's
Carter 35:09
there's a bigger there's foundational questions here right we got we're spending 20 billion dollars this year on
Carter 35:15
on health care in
Carter 35:16
in my day it was 17 but in my day which really wasn't that long ago yeah right i was there in 2011 2012 it was 17 billion dollars it's now 20 billion dollars um we will be growing at a billion you know like they're trying to project constraint forward
Carter 35:33
forward which is one of the things that we always But let's
Carter 35:36
let's say we grew at a billion dollars a year.
Carter 35:40
That's a ton of money. We
Carter 35:41
We have this giant thing growing.
Carter 35:47
And ultimately, I think that the fiscal conservatives have a point. And the point is, what
Carter 35:52
what is the level of service that we want to have through our systems? I think our level of service, for example, in education,
Carter 36:03
people are pretty comfortable with that, right? You're not seeing this outrage anymore about class sizes. Sure, there's minor blips and things like that. But for the most part, we've got a good education system and it does what it's supposed to do.
Carter 36:13
We can have an argument or a little discussion about post-secondary education. We can have a little discussion about human services. But no one's really railing about whether or not you should get more money or less money. Right. People seem pretty comfortable with it. the
Carter 36:25
the area that jumps out is health care and that's where the expenditures when you go through the document and
Carter 36:32
and any when you got one department taking 40 plus of the operating but i mean it's 46 47
Carter 36:39
of the operating budget of the government we
Carter 36:43
have to have a conversation about how it
Carter 36:46
it should grow if it should grow at all cory
SPEAKER_01 36:48
cory any any final words on expenditures before we move move it on to revenue? Yeah,
Corey 36:52
Yeah, not really. They did exactly what they had to do on expenditures, and that was good. I like that they stayed the course. That was good. Stephen's point about healthcare, it was good because it is 40% of the budget, which by the way is why, because we haven't, and this is like no one outside of Alberta probably cared to get to this point in the episode, but if you're really outside, the
Corey 37:13
the health minister caught flack for supposedly supposedly intervening in alberta health services unbelievable yeah that was health care is over 40 of our budget not intervening would be criminal dereliction of duty of the highest caliber it just does not make any sense it is big it is essentially we are so close to the point where it's not like the government of alberta it's just let's just call it all alberta health and by the way we have some schools attached to some hospitals i
Carter 37:39
i tell you well keep in mind when we when we put these things together yeah
Carter 37:43
uh zane because it's important to put these things together every once once in a while everybody
Carter 37:46
everybody talks about their tax dollars where the tax dollars go your
Carter 37:49
your personal income taxes are 11 billion dollars in total our
Carter 37:53
our health care expenditures are 20 billion dollars your
Carter 37:55
your personal income taxes ladies and gentlemen albertans of the of this province don't
Carter 38:00
don't cover your health care expenditures to the tune like 50
Carter 38:05
50 we're covering 50 cents on the dollar on health care everything else is free yeah
Carter 38:10
yeah well what a great segue into revenue
SPEAKER_01 38:12
yeah let's let's get Because I know you want to talk about revenue. Of course, I'll start with you, and then we'll see where that discussion takes us.
SPEAKER_01 38:19
Revenue for this government, not bold enough, good enough? What do you think? Look,
Corey 38:25
not good enough. That's not to say that they didn't do what I expected them to do, which was hold the line on revenue. But ultimately, this is not a plan. This is a prayer, right? We're hoping that revenue will rebound from resources. And even if it does, what? So we're out of deficits as long as resources hold high? And that's very unlikely. I don't know that many people expect resource revenue to get to $10.4 billion above the $1.4 billion.
SPEAKER_01 38:52
That is right now,
Corey 38:52
now, yeah. That is outrageously optimistic.
Corey 38:56
Here, fundamentally, is my concern with the budget. I like what they did on
Corey 39:01
on environment. I do. I like what they did on expenditures. It's what I would have done.
Corey 39:07
I don't know how defensible their position on revenue is because at the end of the day, this
Corey 39:14
this problem will not fix itself. This problem is something we've been carrying for a very long time and some government somewhere has to deal with it. And my great concern, not just as an Albertan, but as a strategist, if I'm the NDP, my great concern is I go into 2019, I have way more debt, I'm still in a huge deficit, I have no way to get out of it, and I've got to go to the polls. Because even though right now, across the Western world, there's an anti-austerity thing, and that's good, and that's the right way to be in my opinion, but this
Corey 39:46
this is a pendulum, and it swings faster every five years it feels like to me. and at some point somebody is going to say this is nuts we can't keep going down this road well
SPEAKER_01 39:55
well and so a pendulum with a decreasing half-life maybe that's interesting like
Corey 39:58
like most pendulums yeah
Carter 40:00
but here's here's our reality oh dear yeah
Carter 40:03
get into that let's get into that so so we're strategists we're let's you know uh your your traditional question of us is if you you know if you were the strategist for right so if i'm if i'm advising uh i ask these hacky questions
SPEAKER_01 40:16
questions all the time yeah if
Carter 40:16
if i'm i have premier advising premier notley or brian top here's what what i have to say you put yourself in a bit of a pickle now overall
Carter 40:24
overall or with this revenue question specifically question specifically so
Carter 40:28
when do you get to play with revenue you
Carter 40:31
you don't get to play with revenue moving forward wait tell me why what what are you missing play with taxes
Carter 40:38
one year 18 months before you know 36 months right now you do it in your first budget this was their chance you're saying well look at let's even look at the progressive tax rates right they tinkered with the progressive tax rates in the last budget right yes they they introduced progressive taxes for people who are making more money can we hear a peep about it today nope
Carter 40:58
nope nope because they did it last budget right
Carter 41:01
right so if you've done it last budget and you really dug in and this budget was really i think your last chance before you have to start doing your election shifting if
Carter 41:09
if you wanted to address this thing and i mean and when i say address this thing i mean let's try and get the deficit back under four billion dollars yeah
Carter 41:19
if you wanted to do that you need to implement taxation changes this year that
Carter 41:24
that will then come into effect and then you get some some wiggle room at the end of this at the end where you can say cash
Corey 41:30
cash to splash well
Carter 41:31
well now all of a sudden you can you can do a few things you can make people happy you can project a surplus in two years which is the great uh progressive conservative strategy for for 44 four years there was always going to be yeah
SPEAKER_01 41:46
politically opportune surplus well
Carter 41:47
i'll tell you something there's one other thing uh i i in revenues that needs to be addressed and that is that uh we have for years we were always for like five or six years we were always two years away from payout so
Carter 42:01
so payout for those again who aren't that familiar with oil royalties when
Carter 42:05
when a company has finished paying the capital expenditures on a on a oil sands project let's
Carter 42:11
let's say you're digging
Corey 42:11
digging a really big wall skyrockets yeah
Carter 42:13
yeah their rate goes from one or two or three percent to 45 okay
Carter 42:18
so that i don't know a lot of money and if the if oil is a hundred bucks a barrel that means the government goes from getting three
Carter 42:25
three bucks to 45 bucks yeah
Carter 42:28
so in the progress projections for the progressive conservative party budgets
Carter 42:33
budgets we were were always two years away from hitting payout and that was companies
Carter 42:37
companies fuck with payout all the time right
Carter 42:40
right we're two years away we're two years away well we need to do some more investment we're two more years away well we need to do some more because the incentive is so high right
Carter 42:49
right you're paying three bucks of royalties versus 45 bucks when does it ever make sense to stop doing capital improvement or making your your mind never never i
Carter 42:59
mean but in this particular budget it's gone
Corey 43:03
And we've just stopped
Corey 43:04
it's going to happen.
Carter 43:04
happen. There is no payout because literally there is no way at oil prices being what they are and what they're projected that they'll ever reach payout.
SPEAKER_01 43:13
Corey, maybe this is just for my curiosity, but I know you say this does not go far enough. And Carter makes a compelling point about the political opportunity that was available to the government right now. Yeah,
Corey 43:22
read somebody write something about that.
SPEAKER_01 43:24
Yeah, I wonder who it was. this but listen to me there are as you know many smart people within this government tell me what their mindset was not going that far tell me tell me what they
SPEAKER_01 43:34
they were thinking i
Corey 43:34
i think they were probably thinking uh the difference between being strong and suicide is razor thin in politics and that maybe albertans wouldn't follow them that far and maybe they would go past you're
SPEAKER_01 43:47
you're not being facetious are you thinking that yeah i
Corey 43:49
i i think that uh we talk in politics occasionally about what we term the tipping point right
Corey 43:54
and and if i can detour on that for a minute please basically uh strong
Corey 44:00
strong stay strong right if you've got an area of support it's going to stay strong weak stays weak you got an area of weakness it's hard to move it up from that and then you have the middle and the middle uh has a tipping point right where everybody flies almost as though like you think about when you're holding a level in your hands and you're trying to get that bubble right in the middle and you can kind of keep it in the middle but if you go slightly too far it's going to fly off to one side right the
Corey 44:25
the tipping point goes both ways and the concern has to be that the tipping point is going to fly them into it's really negative right you're
Corey 44:31
you're past the point with calgarians they're done with you they're so pissed and they're never coming back because
Corey 44:36
because psychologically if nobody is a new democrat supporter nobody you're
Corey 44:41
you're not you just don't have the ground is salted it becomes very difficult to move back into that space right Right. It's just people pissed off about it. So they didn't want to go that road.
Corey 44:51
I understand it. I think it was the wrong move because what they did is, in my opinion, they
Corey 44:57
they they they solve today's problem at the expense of tomorrow's. And tomorrow's is more important because today's is about governing in the doldrums. Tomorrow's is about an election. I don't know how you go into 2019 with a seven billion dollar deficit or whatever. Just imagine.
Corey 45:11
Right. Can't do it. I don't know how you do it. Because even though the Wild Rose and the Conservatives are never going to say today or tomorrow or next budget, you should have raised taxes. By
Corey 45:21
By the time 2019 comes around, they get to talk about this fantasy parallel universe of theirs where if you just listen to us and cut, we wouldn't be in this situation, right? And the government looks like they didn't act on it. That's
Corey 45:34
my great concern for them. My concern is that we created a future problem here. and
Corey 45:40
that concern is only ameliorated under one of two situations one albertans don't care but
Corey 45:45
but as i've said i think the pendulum is going to swing back the other way before
Corey 45:50
the budget fixes itself but
Corey 45:52
but i don't think we're going to find 10 billion dollars of additional revenue between now and then i'm very concerned about that there was apparently an audible gasp when
Corey 46:01
when the government said that we would not be out of deficit until 2024 amongst amongst the press corps today yeah
Corey 46:06
because the press understands that is so out of step with how albertans have traditionally seen themselves that it might be lethal it's
Carter 46:14
it's it's the third election yeah
SPEAKER_01 46:21
that's not the confines of one term no
Carter 46:22
no yeah and and i mean there's a refreshing degree of honesty uh
Carter 46:26
uh i mean clearly let's put So $1.4 billion in oil and gas royalty revenue. $1.4 billion. Okay, so that sounds like a lot of money. It's not a lot of money. To put things in perspective, we get about $1.4 billion from gaming revenue. So
Carter 46:45
So your aunt going and playing bingo is currently generating the same amount of money as the entire oil and gas. That's unbelievable, by the way. It's crazy. Not
Corey 46:52
Not the one. Not the one relative of yours. Well, she's an addict,
Corey 46:56
has a problem. She's got a big
Carter 47:01
know, and it's tiny coal fired coal plants, by the way, generating eleven million dollars in royalties this year. So these royalties are down. They are down substantially. We are not in
Carter 47:16
in any position where you can see them go up. This was the nightmare scenario when I was there. Right.
Carter 47:22
Right. We were you know, what happens if we lose oil? yeah uh and it neither oil nor gas look like they're coming back you know in the
Corey 47:30
the 80s there was this philosophy amongst republicans in the states called starve the beast right which is if you cut revenues uh spending will follow yeah
Corey 47:40
well you've starved the beast you you have no revenue spending will follow unless you solve this problem that's the problem right it won't be the new democrats who can't
Corey 47:49
it will be the next government and if we do not solve this what we're doing is we're setting up something cataclysmic down the road that I just don't want to be a part of. You know, as an Albertan, I start to get worried about my family and whatnot. And are they going to be cutting, just as my daughter is going into school,
Corey 48:04
education to the bone? Right.
Corey 48:06
Right. It's okay. My daughter will have graduated. Oh, you're okay then. She'll
SPEAKER_01 48:09
She'll have that step program. Things will have gone well.
Corey 48:11
well. This is a problem. And it's not the problem of the NDP's making. In fact, they've
Corey 48:14
they've done more to fix it than the PCs have in a long time.
Carter 48:18
Let's be clear. You're absolutely right there. This is not the NDP who've made this problem. The people on Twitter, the partisans who are going crazy saying, look what the NDP has done here. It's revisionist history that's recognized that the problem began 20-some years ago when Ralph Klein created the so-called Alberta Advantage. Almost
SPEAKER_01 48:37
Almost takes us full circle. Okay, last question before we close this out. Corey and Carter, you guys both know that this document lives beyond today. What is the sell job and the strategy in your mind going forward? um are you i
Corey 48:52
at this point it's
Corey 48:54
it's it's actually probably just to minimize the temperature and the volume just it's done it's over it was a budget that did a few things that some people will like in the micro but in the macro people will be fixated on those big deficit numbers so probably the less they talk about it going forward the
Corey 49:09
the better and on the backswing you just sort of pick up you
Corey 49:13
you let your lower income constituents know you let the people who would benefit from the the small business tax you start to target who benefits and
Corey 49:21
otherwise you stop the conversation on the global core
SPEAKER_01 49:23
core i'm going to stop you there you mentioned that small business tax let's talk about that for one second yeah
Corey 49:27
yeah well i could talk about for a lot more than a second well
SPEAKER_01 49:28
well let's let's let's give a quick highlight about it because you had a really funny tweet about it today and i think that's actually a good jumping off point to that small business tax which you said was 33 but you say that sarcastically no i
Corey 49:39
i mean it was reduced 33 it's a factually
Corey 49:42
points to two points right i mean this is uh this is crazy right look can we
Corey 49:47
we talk about small business taxes for a second sure we can't i'm sorry card we'll get we'll get people have lost the plot on small business taxes does anybody around this table know why small business taxes were traditionally smaller than large corporation taxes i think you're
Corey 50:01
gonna tell us i am gonna tell you okay larger
Carter 50:02
larger employers i'm gonna go with that no
Corey 50:04
no that's actually absolutely not why don't guess do what i i do just let him explain it to you it was done because proportionally the compliance costs of small business were higher than the compliance costs of large business so the idea is this offset that right but the problem is uh small business is kind of a politically safe zone you know all parties love small business yeah
Corey 50:27
we've let this chasm get to what i can only describe as the most an absurd difference right like it's now 12 points versus two points 12 versus two like your Your compliance costs are not that big of a difference. And federally, you have a very similar situation. It's at 18 points federally versus 11 points, depending on if you're a large or a small business. That means – oh, my God. I can't even get into it. But, like, basically combined, a corporation on their $500,000 and beyond is paying 30%. And on every dollar before that, they're paying 13%. Right? Yeah. Why
Corey 51:04
Why do we do this? uh
Carter 51:07
to remind you that you and i own small businesses true
Corey 51:09
true we do and
Carter 51:10
and at this particular moment you are preaching against our financial interest and i would like you to shut the fuck the
Corey 51:16
the shifting rationale though has gone from that compliance cost thing to this notion of it helps the little guy sure right we
Carter 51:24
we are the little guy yeah
Corey 51:25
yeah we're the little guy you and me are the little guys uh people out there we are not the little guys which is sort of my next point 60% of small business benefit, by
Corey 51:34
by a lot of estimations, goes to people making $150,000 or more.
Carter 51:39
Oh, man. Were you taking a pay cut?
Corey 51:41
Not yet. Not yet, man. Don't worry. But this is the point.
Corey 51:45
The small business tax cut, in most people's minds, is about a little upstart or the mom-and-pop store or whatnot. You want to help people who have lower income? Cut income taxes. taxes don't give this crazy perverse incentive to move everything into a small business which by the way what we should not be doing is trying to help our small businesses save money we should be trying to help our small businesses become large businesses and you do not do that by creating such a gap between large and small business tax rates drops
Corey 52:14
drops the mic there he is i
Carter 52:16
i kind of like having multiple small businesses so i don't have to go over the 500 well isn't
Corey 52:20
isn't that funny though but that's the problem that people do that there is legitimately if you were making about a million million dollars in revenue and you have a couple of things that help each other but could be distinct you break it into two small business break
SPEAKER_01 52:30
break them up sure don't
SPEAKER_01 52:33
don't talk steven carter don't talk anymore steven carter tie a bow on this for us uh next let's say two weeks going forward what do you do with this document premier's coming out tomorrow with a noon hour i'm assuming kind of sell job on this thing but what would you advise going forward uh on this document and on this
Carter 52:49
this talk about how this is good for people i mean this is good for people uh there's a group of people People are going to get checks in their mailboxes.
Carter 52:57
You tell them that they're going to get a check.
Carter 52:59
mean 60% of the population is going to get a check from you.
Carter 53:02
They're not necessarily going to equate that it might cost them money. In fact, let's be honest, it's probably going to cost them personally much less than the check that they're going to get.
Carter 53:10
So this is actually going to work out pretty well for them. Great. Let's make sure that they all know it. That's how I'd focus in on the people who are going to benefit. I'd also double down on the workers.
Carter 53:21
The people who kept their jobs, you're welcome. Brought to you by Rachel Notley. Yeah,
Corey 53:24
Yeah, and that, to me, that is the big message you're going to see going forward. In my opinion, this
Corey 53:30
this budget was probably act
Corey 53:32
act one of a new play. I think that the NDP had a bunch of things they did right off the start that fulfilled some of their commitments.
Corey 53:41
And they took some beatings from the right on how those were done. But they wanted to assert their right to govern. That was that story arc, right? Right. We're now in a new story arc, which is all
Corey 53:52
all right. OK, now we're going to take the hike to you guys a bit. And the first sign I have of that is this is called the Alberta jobs plan. And so I cannot wait for the wild rose and the PCs to vote against the Alberta jobs plan and have the NDP every moment be able to say they
Corey 54:08
they voted against jobs. They voted against your jobs, public service. These people do not like your jobs. I mean, it's great. I mean, they're starting to do things with language that show that they're a government that's going to be not just a government, but a political party ready to kick a lot of ass. Here
SPEAKER_01 54:23
Here we are, last segment, our over-under, our lightning round. Stephen Carter, scale of 1 to 10, your overall rating on everything, including the policy, the politics, and the communications of the budget today.
SPEAKER_01 54:34
6. Give it a 6. Corey Hogan?
Corey 54:37
Yeah, I mean, I'd give them all very different scores, to be honest.
SPEAKER_01 54:41
honest. Okay, do you want to break that up? I'd be interested to hear, actually. I'd be interested to hear, actually. I think it's fascinating to me. First on the policy. The
Corey 54:48
policy, I give it a six. You know, I just, I can't with the revenue. I think that you're creating a huge problem for the province, not even
Carter 54:55
for your province. Yeah, the policy is actually about a four.
Corey 54:57
Yeah. Okay. Politics? The only thing that keeps that, the environment stuff, the carbon stuff is the only thing that keeps it a six for me. For
SPEAKER_01 55:04
For you, yeah. The
Corey 55:05
The politics of it, I give it an eight, seven maybe, seven and a half. Because, unfortunately, I think you've still got the policy problem. Yeah. And I'm
Corey 55:13
I'm worried about that.
Carter 55:14
Politics is about a three because Corey's forgetting that he has to look three years forward.
SPEAKER_01 55:19
And finally, the communications or the mileage going forward. Communications was
Corey 55:22
that. We're talking about the things they want us to be talking about right now. We in the collective sense. Maybe not we, me, and Steven around this table. But generally speaking.
Carter 55:30
We got our talking points from the minister. The
Corey 55:33
focus is on what they want it to be. Carter,
SPEAKER_01 55:35
Carter, did you also want to break that last one up? Communications, you want to give it a score?
Carter 55:38
score? You know what? This government has done a hell of a job on communications. Really hard for me to pick it apart.
SPEAKER_01 55:44
we talked about the minister, Finance Minister Joe Sisi's performance today. You actually used the word fresh breath of honesty. Over, under on six, what would you give his performance today, including all the media junkets and more specifically announcing and controlling the narrative of this thing?
Carter 56:00
Over. I think he's done a good job. I mean, even the photo op yesterday of giving a pair of boots to an apprentice. Correct. That was
Corey 56:09
They always try to
SPEAKER_01 56:09
to make a twist on the new shoes.
Corey 56:11
shoes. I don't know the last time a finance minister actually bought a nice new pair of shoes. It seems like it's been a while.
Corey 56:17
Yeah, because now it's always like these are scuffed up and I've just fixed them. Yeah, there's
Carter 56:21
there's all the Joe Flaherty
Corey 56:23
all that crap. But look. Jim
Carter 56:25
Jim Flaherty. Joe Flaherty. I'm making a whole. Glenn Clark. Glenn Clark. Glenn Clark mistake. Yeah.
Corey 56:30
Yeah. So earlier today I called Greg Clark Glenn Clark because that's how much mind space the Alberta Party has for me. All
Carter 56:36
All right, Corey. Look. Look, Joe
Corey 56:39
Cici, I saw all of one interview with him today. His stuff in the lead-up was hit and miss. The shoes thing was great. Some of his coy comments prior in the weeks prior, not so great.
Carter 56:52
Oh, the whole – I
Corey 56:53
I don't know how much. Yeah, the number,
Corey 56:55
The interview today I saw was Rob Brown raking him over the coals a bit, which seemed only okay. But for the most part, and I recommend this to a lot of people, don't make
Corey 57:05
make your first introduction to the budget the minister's speech. because that's what they want you to do. If you really want to know what the budget is, pick up the actual formal budget document and walk through it. So I give them a six, but with an asterisk that I didn't really follow it.
SPEAKER_01 57:18
Stephen Carter, the biggest winner, person, party, institution today as part of this budget. Who do you think it is or was?
Carter 57:25
It's every individual who's sitting and who has a job that comes from the Alberta government.
SPEAKER_01 57:31
McCoy, biggest winner, person, party, institution. Who was it today? Ah,
Corey 57:35
Ah, well, I think that it probably is what Stephen said. It's anybody who did not lose their job and can, you know, they probably weren't holding their breath that much to begin with because of the signs by the government, but now they know they're safe.
SPEAKER_01 57:46
I'll go back to you, Corey. Conversely, the biggest loser on this budget today, who do you think it was?
Corey 57:54
there wasn't there weren't a lot of losers in this budget i think i
Corey 58:00
think it will be very tough for the liberals to find a critique but you know frankly for if
Corey 58:06
we're adding liberals to the biggest loser list that's going to be my answer for almost everything carter
SPEAKER_01 58:09
carter do you have
Carter 58:11
have got something yeah
Carter 58:12
yeah cory's daughter he's
Carter 58:13
he's gonna she's gonna be playing paying for that
Carter 58:16
that uh deficit for quite some time You have daughters, too, you know. Yeah, but my daughters are going to get the step grants. All
SPEAKER_01 58:22
All right, final question. Corey, one year from today, when we look back on this budget, one word to describe it that will kind of entrench itself within the zeitgeist. What is that word for you?
SPEAKER_01 58:32
Missed opportunity. Missed opportunity. Stephen Carter, one year from today, we look at this budget. What's the word that kind of crystallizes it for you?
SPEAKER_01 58:40
One word, one sentence, one statement, whatever
Carter 58:42
whatever it is. I'm just going to say poor election planning.
SPEAKER_01 58:45
Interesting. We'll leave it there. There, episode 571 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velji. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, and we'll see you next time.