Alberta Green Party - Costing of Policies or Program Ideas

Alberta Green Party – Costing of Policies or Program Ideas

One thing that concerns me when a government or opposition party attempts to cost out a plan is that they use nefarious mathematics to do so.

One group will use math to prove the immediate benefits, while only including the immediate and upfront costs to a program or policy idea.

As the Alberta Green Party we have pledged to uses the Triple Bottom Line in our governing. This also must include a long range plan that looks 10 years into the future and provides that as background information to all plans, ideas, programs, or policies.

Just as in the environment, sometimes the expenditure or support of an idea through the tax system by a government has an affect that is more like dominoes, with affects felt far down the line.

An example of this might be the royalty holiday the Alberta Government gives the energy companies involved in the Oil Sands development. There is also a very good tax treatment by the federal government on the investments that the oil companies are making, and there will be money from both the Federal and Provincial governments awarded to the companies involved in the building of the MacKenzie Pipeline project.

If we take a look at the lowly pipefitter, we can see what I am talking about. A ticketed and experienced pipefitter here in Calgary can garner about $25.00 - $40.00 hour with benefits with an employer. A pipefitter works on both commercial and residential construction putting the pipes in that carry the hot water heat, natural gas, and water in and around a building. This includes homes, apartment building, commercial buildings, hospitals and schools.

Right now a pipefitter is in huge demand in the oil sands and can earn up to $80.00 per hour plus benefits over and above than what they can earn here in Calgary or Edmonton.

That means the contractor here in Calgary or Edmonton must increase their bids to the local authorities and general contractors building our homes, apartment building, commercial buildings, hospitals and schools. This increases the costs in Calgary, Edmonton, or Lethbridge not only to the private sector but to government services as well.

This means that not only do the tax payer give up revenue to the oil and gas companies involved in the oil sands development, we face increased costs on the building our infrastructure as well.

That is why we need to include what I call, ‘the domino costs,’ of public policies.

We also need to as a party establish a realistic, modern, well funded, and futuristic employment planning and development ministry that will take a world-wide view of what a policy, program, or plan that a government in Alberta might want to implement will have.

Currently we are facing an employment shortage in many of the trades, and will continue too, when the oil and gas industry comes to maturation on the east coast of Canada, and the various huge pipeline projects take shape in Northern Canada, Asia, and Russia.

Are we investing the money we need in our various post-secondary institutions to meet this demand, and are we as a province attracting the kind of immigrants we need to help fill these positions, and become real, contributing members of Alberta society, and not just visiting workers?

As a Party we need to be willing to cost a project, plan or policy both as something the private sector could provide or do, or something the public sector should do.

We need to look at what exactly are the recoverable costs of an industry being attracted or, lured to Alberta to set up.

In the incident of the Alberta Pacific (AlPac) pulp and paper mill in Athabasca, the question as to whether the company is paying the true costs of what it consumes in its taxes, and to whom they pay that.

In AlPac’s case they pay their property taxes to the province through the county. The town of Athabasca is shouldered with the costs of increasing and improving its infrastructure to accommodate the influx of people to staff the mill. Without the access to the steady income stream of the property tax of the mill. They must go cap in hand to the province for a grant. The town also has the major highway running right through it that the logging trucks take to the mill, and many trucks on their way to Fort MacMurray take.

The town of Athabasca gets little or no benefit of the gas or tire tax, or the road taxes commercial trucks pay to the provincial government. They must go to the province for an annual grant for the highway upkeep that runs with in their town borders. This includes fire and rescue, wear and tear on the local business district the trucks impose as they drive through, as well as town owned pools, libraries, and leisure centres.

It again is a domino cost imposed on the town, caused by a tax holiday and incentive package offered to the owners of the mill by the provincial government.

When the two pipeline projects that are on the horizons for Alberta and northern Canada are started, what will that do to the already hype-hot steel market in Canada and North America. The current rising costs in steel are currently contributing to the increases in the cost of public infrastructure building costs now.

Norm