Alberta
Premier Smith urges Canadians to contact their MP’s to demand reliable & affordable power
“What would happen if your power went out and it’s minus 30 outside”? This question is posed to Albertans and all Canadians by Premier Danielle Smith. Premier Smith has been chastised by the opposition NDP and supporters of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s plan to make Canada’s electricity grid completely carbon neutral by 2035.
Smith says Trudeau’s net zero strategy is a terrible mistake that will lead to brutal power outages while potentially quadrupling the cost of energy. Further, since wind and solar generation depends on sunlight and a good breeze, renewable energy can’t always be relied on. To make that clear Smith pointed to eight different occasions in the past year when Alberta’s electricity system nearly collapsed.
While repeating her pledge to make Alberta’s power grid carbon neutral by 2050, Smith is urging Canadians to join her in support of a more reasonable plan for energy transition.
No one in Canada should be without access to electricity, but if the feds don’t smarten up they will put all of us at risk.
Take 30 seconds and send a message to our Liberal-NDP government in Ottawa 👉https://t.co/GmBSkeaXs6 pic.twitter.com/ZwDpQ2o2nQ
— Danielle Smith (@ABDanielleSmith) October 16, 2023
From TellTheFeds.ca
No one wants blackouts.
What Canadians want is reliable & affordable power.
Ottawa’s proposed electricity regulations will make electricity unreliable & unaffordable.
THE THINGS CANADIANS COUNT ON WON’T WORK WHEN NEEDED.
Affordable electricity matters.
In addition to blackouts, current electricity rates will be double, triple or even quadruple depending on the province. And drastic changes could dismantle thriving industries that are vital parts of our provincial economies, resulting in a power grid that depends on unreliable energy.
Canada can’t afford a hasty transition.
Reliable electricity matters.
With cited cost estimates as high as $1.7 trillion*, the cost of achieving a net zero grid by 2035 will leave our power grid dependent on intermittent and unreliable sources like solar and wind.
Imagine no heat at -30°, and no power for the Internet or to charge your phone.
The federal government wants electricity demand to at least double by 2050. Tell the Feds reliable and affordable electricity matters. And ask them why they are rushing to do something by 2035 when the experts agree that it can’t feasibly be done.
* Source: Public Policy Forum, Project of the Century, July 2023
Tell the Feds what you want.
Contact your MP.
There is a better path forward. Alberta is leading the way. Together, let’s make a better plan.
Not a mandate.
Ottawa’s carbon-neutral goals can be achieved by 2050 with a lower tax and utility burden on Canadians. Changing over our electricity system in 27 years is much more practical and affordable than rushing to do it in just 12 years. Rather than being told to dismantle industries critical to Canada’s economy, Tell the Feds to work with the provinces on a plan that benefits all Canadians.
Alberta
Alberta government should eliminate corporate welfare to generate benefits for Albertans
From the Fraser Institute
By Spencer Gudewill and Tegan Hill
Last November, Premier Danielle Smith announced that her government will give up to $1.8 billion in subsidies to Dow Chemicals, which plans to expand a petrochemical project northeast of Edmonton. In other words, $1.8 billion in corporate welfare.
And this is just one example of corporate welfare paid for by Albertans.
According to a recent study published by the Fraser Institute, from 2007 to 2021, the latest year of available data, the Alberta government spent $31.0 billion (inflation-adjusted) on subsidies (a.k.a. corporate welfare) to select firms and businesses, purportedly to help Albertans. And this number excludes other forms of government handouts such as loan guarantees, direct investment and regulatory or tax privileges for particular firms and industries. So the total cost of corporate welfare in Alberta is likely much higher.
Why should Albertans care?
First off, there’s little evidence that corporate welfare generates widespread economic growth or jobs. In fact, evidence suggests the contrary—that subsidies result in a net loss to the economy by shifting resources to less productive sectors or locations (what economists call the “substitution effect”) and/or by keeping businesses alive that are otherwise economically unviable (i.e. “zombie companies”). This misallocation of resources leads to a less efficient, less productive and less prosperous Alberta.
And there are other costs to corporate welfare.
For example, between 2007 and 2019 (the latest year of pre-COVID data), every year on average the Alberta government spent 35 cents (out of every dollar of business income tax revenue it collected) on corporate welfare. Given that workers bear the burden of more than half of any business income tax indirectly through lower wages, if the government reduced business income taxes rather than spend money on corporate welfare, workers could benefit.
Moreover, Premier Smith failed in last month’s provincial budget to provide promised personal income tax relief and create a lower tax bracket for incomes below $60,000 to provide $760 in annual savings for Albertans (on average). But in 2019, after adjusting for inflation, the Alberta government spent $2.4 billion on corporate welfare—equivalent to $1,034 per tax filer. Clearly, instead of subsidizing select businesses, the Smith government could have kept its promise to lower personal income taxes.
Finally, there’s the Heritage Fund, which the Alberta government created almost 50 years ago to save a share of the province’s resource wealth for the future.
In her 2024 budget, Premier Smith earmarked $2.0 billion for the Heritage Fund this fiscal year—almost the exact amount spent on corporate welfare each year (on average) between 2007 and 2019. Put another way, the Alberta government could save twice as much in the Heritage Fund in 2024/25 if it ended corporate welfare, which would help Premier Smith keep her promise to build up the Heritage Fund to between $250 billion and $400 billion by 2050.
By eliminating corporate welfare, the Smith government can create fiscal room to reduce personal and business income taxes, or save more in the Heritage Fund. Any of these options will benefit Albertans far more than wasteful billion-dollar subsidies to favoured firms.
Authors:
Alberta
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