Thread by @BarbLarochelle

Toews is touting the success of fighting the virus in the province that has the highest per capita rate of covid-19 #ableg

Toews is talking about how slow the economy will be to recover. There are negative effects on consumer spending.
#ableg

He’s thanking the public service. Why does that sound ominous? #ableg

They usually say something like that just before dealing a blow of some kind... #ableg

Now Toews is talking about the blue ribbon panel and the spending problem. Buckle up, public sector. #ableg

The prudent budgeting they planned could have delivered a surplus in the Heritage Savings Account, Toews says. Forgetting about all that AIMCo screw up, I guess. #ableg

Yup. “Difficult to find a legitimate reason why the public sector should cost more in Alberta than in any other province.” #ableg

Blame NDP. Check. #ableg

Apparently NDP was picking economic winners and losers, but UCP has a principled approach. $1B to the pipeline was what, now? #ableg

‘A sound economy cannot be built by increasing the number of jobs that are paid for by taxpayers.’
The pandemic, apparently, made all the problems created by NDP (only NDP) worse. The months between April 2019 and March 2020 just never happened, I guess. #ableg

Comparing our spending to other provinces again. We spend more. Except when we don’t, I guess. Like for a safe return to school. #ableg

‘Appropriate path to establish a sustainable fiscal recovery’...sounds a lot like public sector pay cuts. Blaming Trudeau’s dad, the Great Depression and the two world wars now. #ableg

Shannon Philips is now fact checking the claims about the economy prior to the pandemic. #ableg

She’s pointing out the corporate tax cuts and the 50,000 jobs that were lost instead of created, the economy that shrunk, lay offs, cancelling of diversification, increased fees, income and property taxes, cuts to education and healthcare. $12 B deficit. All pre-pandemic. #ableg

Rather than taking this crisis as an opportunity for course correction, to try something different than what was obviously not working, Philips says, they are instead clinging to all the ideas that were failing before the pandemic. #ableg

Most of what was done to help Albertans during the pandemic was provided by Ottawa, not this government’s spending. #ableg

Not a new dime for the new children entering school next week, let alone money to help with the safety of going back to school. There will be a ‘fiscal reckoning’, but for whom? #ableg

UCP still views child care as some sort of favour that is done for young women. Affordable childcare is necessary for an economic recovery. #ableg

There is a $24 B deficit, and money is being spent, no question. But who is the money being spent on? Philips asks. It’s not being spent on Albertans. #ableg

Philips is asking Toews why personal income taxes are going up (indexing), but corporate taxes are being cut? Toews says they are not raising the ‘rates’ and then compares us to other provinces (UCP standby response, except for when they don’t want to go there). #ableg

He is still claiming the corporate tax cut will create jobs. The first two months of 2020 did show promising signs, he says. (Did it? Were there actual jobs? Philips says -50,000 is a funny way to characterize a recovery). #ableg

He calls the pandemic, the oil prices, etc. a ‘triple black swan event’. I suspect we’ll hear this again. Sounds like some of Kenney’s purple prose. #ableg

Toews ‘rejects the assertion’ that they have cut funding for education. Back to the lie about ‘maintaining’ funding. And how ‘every school board received an increase’. #ableg

Philips asks what is going to be cut for this ‘fiscal reckoning’? Will it be families, chasing doctors out of Alberta? Where is the reckoning? What will be cut? Toews says he struggles to find a tangible question there to answer. And when did UCP transfer $ to the wealthy? #ableg

Comparison again to other provinces (except for when they don’t want to). It has to include looking at renumeration, Toews says. Pay cuts. #ableg

Philips points out that ‘maintaining’ funding is a cut with inflation and population growth. She wants Toews to prove he ‘understands the time value of money’ (that the same amount of $ does not buy the same amount in future years as prices go up)
#ableg

Toews goes back to the lie about $120 million more being available to school boards this year. (That would be $120 million more after the $128 million cut. So $8 million less). Also throws in the new $263 million from federal government as part of education spending. #ableg

Bilous asking about the fairytale promises tied to the corporate tax cuts, and why they doubled down on something that already lost 55,000 jobs. How many jobs can be tied directly to the corporate tax cuts? Kenney said it was supposed to happen immediately. #ableg

Toews “Hard-working Albertans deserve to hang on to as much of their income as possible.” The tax cut is not a give away. We are taking less. The most respected economists in the province have validated the strategy. The 55,000 jobs was their projection. #ableg

Did it create any jobs, though? Bilous did not hear a number. How many jobs? A number?
Kenney said his phone was ringing off the hook with corporate CEOs so excited about the tax cut. They would be irresponsible not to move to Alberta #ableg

Where are they? Why didn’t they come? When do we expect the first announcement of any major bank or insurance company relocating here? #ableg

Toews replies that Albertans who are already here have benefitted from the tax cut and that NDP wants to punish them. They will hire more staff because they will have more money in their pocket. (Is that why companies hire? Because they have extra money in their pocket?) #ableg

Bilous:Alberta led the country in growth in 2018. He doesn’t disagree that companies are benefiting from the tax cut. It hasn’t created any jobs here, though. #ableg

How many jobs have been created? A number? Not what else the companies did or how they benefitted. What the premier and finance minister promised was that the tax cut would create jobs. It was brought in a year ago. It was doubled down and accelerated. How many jobs? #ableg

Toews says the fact of the matter is that it will result in economic growth and that will result in job creation. (Although, apparently not yet, since he can’t answer the question about how many). The tax cut positioned energy companies to ‘manage the downturn’ #ableg

They promised jobs, not ‘strengthening balance sheets’ and they failed at that Bilous says. However, many companies are pulling out of Alberta due to this government’s environmental policies. #ableg