Thread by @Mitchell_AB

Kenney at AUMA defending the decision to reduce Alberta's world class services rather than fund them this morning. #ableg
facebook.com/watch/live/?re…

RMA - whoops - Rural Municipalities of Alberta.

I wouldn't make y'all watch that :)
He thanked everyone for being in touch with their communities every single day - and he would know what it's like not to be, for sure.

"Our economy is not what it was like five to six years ago," Kenney says. "And of course, the last 20 months took that to a new level. We no only were faced with the biggest public health crisis since 1918, but the biggest collapse in the world economy since the 30's, AND..."

"We had a double recession in Alberta because we had the biggest collapse of energy prices ever, and of course that hits rural Alberta especially hard."

It would have hit rural less hard if Kenney hadn't given property tax holidays to local oil and gas, but that's RMA's problem.

"There's no point sugar-coating, this has been a real time of real adversity," Kenney laments. "And you know that - you know the human impact of that - we've seen it in the opioid crisis... rural crime... we've seen it in family breakup..."
Probably not referring to his policies.

"You've seen it - in your bottom line, with the decline in your revenues and the municipalities just as we have," Kenney says.

I'm reasonably certain he's still not referring to his government's policy decisions but I honestly can't say for sure.

"Alberta used to bring in $10 billion dollars a year, on average, before 2015, in oil and gas revenues (except when it didn't) - last year we were projecting $200 million," Kenney says with all the self pity he can muster while wishing and hoping for a return to yester-year.

"A revenue source down 98%, at least for a spell," he says with what I'm sure is close to actual feeling.
"That is for real," he adds helpfully," that is adversity through which our constituents have all gone."

Darned global commodity prices - who could have foreseen it again?

"But the positive message I want to convey to you today is that Alberta is back, it really is, and this province really is on a roll," Kenney says.

Apparently Kenney says "Alberta" when he means "oil and gas revenue".

"We've got a lot of big challenges we need to work together on, for sure," he says.
"To repair the damage of the past 20 months, and the last few years, but that is happening in exciting ways across the province and really the most important message is one of collaboration."

"As you know, Minister Nate Horner started out as Minister for Rural Economic Development, and has now added Agriculture and Forestry to his responsibility," Kenney says. "Nate has begun rural engagement sessions.. as have other ministers..."

Oh, right - cheers.

"it's been sometimes hard in Covid to get out and meet face-to-face, but I believe we can do more of that in the months to come," Kenney says without any indication that he's been paying attention to global Covid news.
He adds attendees (RMA) should reach out to any ministers.

"Now, I want to talk about rural healthcare - perennial issue - and it's an issue right across Canada," Kenney adds, as if provincial failures in Alberta are not as bad if everyone's doing it.

"The recruitment and retention of physicians, nurses, medical professionals in rural has been a perennial challenge for decades, we know that," Kenney says with a wink wink nudge nudge, it wasn't me guys, we're cool, guys, right guys?

"Which is why Alberta's government put an additional $80 million into rural physician recruitment and retention - and that's for about 750 rural physicians," he says.
I'm old enough to remember when docs were willing to negotiate for WAY less than that. calgary.ctvnews.ca/province-imple…

"We actually do have more physicians working across the province today than at any point in our history; we are spending more on healthcare than at any point in our history," Kenney says.
"I know you read headlines about healthcare cuts but in fact the healthcare budget has..."

"Gone from $19 to $21 billion -we provided $3 billion to cope with surge funding for Covid. We added nearly a billion to reduce surgical wait times last year and our Minister of Health and Finance are working together on retention of nurses also, and I know there's EMS issues,"

"Response times, when people get really sick, they need that ambulance to be there for them, and that's always going to be a greater challenge in remote areas," Kenney says.
Like Strathmore. We have ambulances, they just have to respond out of town, too.

"It's been a particular challenge this year - I'm told that EMS calls are up 30% - that started this summer. Which seems hard to understand, but I'm told one of the factors was, obviously, the fourth wave," Kenney says.
cbc.ca/news/canada/ca…

"But also the big spike in opioid overdoses that we have been experiencing and just society returning to more normal levels of activity," he says.

And, you know, choices.
edmontonjournal.com/news/local-new…

"Now, we seem to see, in October, those numbers start to come down a bit, but , and we have added additional resources, $8.1 million added to EMS back in August, we now have 2900 EMS staff compared to 2600 back in 2019," he says.
Huh. What else changed?
calgaryherald.com/news/local-new…

"Staff is up by 9% and in the past year they've hired hundreds of new staff, keeping the vacancies at the same level," Kenney says.
"But more needs to be done, clearly, because service times are not acceptable in many rural communities."
Huh?

"I know many of you are concerned about the issue of provincial policing, the concept of a provincial police service, so, you know, this is a concept that's been in discussion for many years in our province, and uh, Alberta used to have its own PPS, before the depression..."

OMG, that killed me.
"I know of at least a couple other provinces that are giving it a serious look," he says. "Major municipalities like Surrey just went to their own municipal police service. Why? Because more and more I there's a recognition of the value of..."

"...community policing. We value, honour and respect the professionalism of the RCMP and the way they've served our communities for the better part of a century and we don't want to undo what's good about policing in Alberta," he says
Or change what's bad globalnews.ca/news/8393531/l…

"But at the same time, we've got to realize the RCMP has multiple complex mandates across the country and a workforce that comes from across the country," Kenney says.
"Which leads to a constant rotation of staff in and out of our communities."
Good for oil, bad for policing

"I believe that we should at least look at the possible benefits of rural Alberta experiencing the same kind of local community policing that Edmonton and Calgary and uh, other, uh, and some of the midsize cities have in Alberta," Kenney stumbles on another word for "Lethbridge".

This wasn't popular with municipalities before (they've already had their share of policing costs increase for RCMP and without federal funding, they'll be on the hook for squeezing more out of municipal budgets, but hey, maybe these guys don't know). edmonton.ctvnews.ca/they-re-not-li…

Kenney brings in a hypothetical about how great it would be for kids growing up in rural to go to the police academy and come back and serve for the rest of their lives
"A community where they know people - where they know, maybe who some of the bad guys are."

"Where they know the geography, they know some of the local customs, they know how best to serve their community. That's why we have community policing and it works, rather than a constant rotation of staff from across the country," he says.

Local customs.

"I know the union that is increasing policing costs significantly in Alberta is out there spending millions of dollars in an interest campaign, and that's their right, but I encourage you not to just look at what the union has to say but to actually read the report..."

"...developed by the department of Justice and Solicitor General, which paints a very interesting picture of a community policing model in Alberta with governance from Albertans, with a police commission that would include for the first time, permanent representation of..."

"...Indigenous people in police governance, which would help us to address some of the difficult issues around, let's face it, racism, and the imperative of reconciliation," Kenney says.

Yes, local governance for the win. cbc.ca/news/canada/ed…

"It would also integrate, and this is something I would encourage my friends from right across the political spectrum to look at, integrate wrap-around social services - accessing psychologists, and social workers and child welfare workers in to the policing system," he says.

"To provide services where appropriate, including for example, through the alternative drug sentencing courts that we set up," Kenney says as if he doesn't realize this could be done in tandem with the RCMP now, because it's going to be paid out of AB's pockets.

"But I want you to know this, we won't make any changes without consultation with municipalities because it affects you so much," Kenney says.

But Jason Kenney says a lot of things.

https://twitter.com/RealTalkRJ/status/1456704566100037640?s=20

"And if we adopt any model, any incremental cost would be adopted exclusively by the province," Kenney says.
Oof- I think we have a provincial police force coming! Special shout out to all the urban centres who will be picking up the tab for Kenney's pet project.

"That is my commitment to you," he says. Above still applies.
Oh, and I hear some applause for the first time, because this is the RURAL MUNICIPALITIES of Alberta group, not the whole of the ALBERTA Municipalities.

"Let's switch to the great news that is happening in Alberta right now, which is our economic recovery," he says, and I'm happy because, yeesh.
"Alberta is now leading Canada in economic growth. We are expected to see an expansion of our economy of 6.5-7% this year."

"We are projected by almost all the economists to be leading in economic growth next year. We are second only to BC in job growth (BUT TAXES!); we've seen net 90k jobs created in Alberta this year, 65k in the past three months alone; 1/2% decline in unemployment last month."

"And that's impressive and exciting news but underneath is a real inflection point in Alberta's history and some would say it's because commodity prices are back, and it sure does help; by the way, to all those who have spent their time lobbying to shut down the oil and gas..."

"...industry, to landlock Alberta energy, against pipelines, to the David Suzukis of the world who seem to be rationalizing eco-terrorism and violence, to all of those voices, what we see now in the global economy is a scarcity of the kind of energy we produce here in Alberta."

"As prices go up, that's why prices are increasing, endurably so, we have billions of people living in the developing world living in energy poverty, and increasingly, hundreds of millions of people in places like Europe who may be challenged by energy poverty as well," he says.

"And more and more, those who have been campaigning the kind of energy we responsibly develop, understand that they actually need it, amongst them President Biden who cancelled the KXL pipeline but is now begging the OPEC dictatorships to produce and ship more energy..."

"... you can hardly make this up," Kenney says.
"KXL would have shipped 800k barrels/day of Alberta heavy to US refineries, and they shut it down and that shut down a lot of jobs in rural Alberta," he says.

As of 2020 61% of product from Canada: eia.gov/energyexplaine…

"And now the US is importing exactly that amount of oil, 850k barrels a day from Vladimir Putin's Russia," he says, which apparently comes from a debunked Facebook post, which shocks me not at all.
politifact.com/factchecks/202…

"And a lot of that money is used to spread conflict and violence around the world, it doesn't make any sense," he says. But if that last link was TL;DR, they need 800k bbd today, and couldn't wait a couple of years for a pipeline to be built to deliver it.

"But this recovery in prices, I think it reaffirms what Albertans have always known - that the world does need our energy and we must, of course, rise to the environmental challenge as we are doing," Kenney says.

"BUT, the growth that we are experiencing is not primarily because of that price recovery - it has not yet turned into significant capital investment or employment, every time I talk to the O&G CEOs, I remind them that we expect to see this cash flow," he says.

"First of all, turned into fairly compensating their employees and contractors, many of whom in your areas have taken huge hair cuts in the past five years, but secondly we want to see it turned into capital investment and new jobs," he says.

"And they assure me that will be happening in a big way in 2022," he says.
"But we are also experiencing one of the most exciting periods of diversification in Alberta's economy that we've ever seen, right across the board," and apparently we have to guess at what's on the board

"Agriculture had a tough year, this year, with some bad weather in many areas so yields are down and there were scary moments for livestock producers, I know a lot of the herd had to get sold off, we were there to support our livestock producers, and crop insurance for farmers."

"But we are seeing some incredibly exciting things happening with new investments in food processing, in agritech, right across the economy, there have been major announcements already, but another billion in investment likely in the sector..."

"...to help us add value to the food that our farmers and ranchers produce. And huge new incoming investments in agritech that I think will make Alberta a world leader. One area in which we are putting the pedal to the metal, is in irrigation," Kenney says.

"Having assembled a $930 million package for the first major renewal of Alberta's irrigation infrastructure in six decades," he says.
"$800 million announced a year ago, added $130 million in our ambition recently, this is going to help us increase arable land by 230k acres..."

"... this is a changemaker that will sustain farms across rural Alberta," he says.
"We see an explosion in Alberta high tech and digital innovation economy, this is the best year, last year was the best on record by far for venture capital..."

"... which is the jet fuel for those tech and innovation start up companies, and this year we've doubled that number again, and a critical part of that, you've seen major announcements made," he says.
We've even seen some twice.

https://twitter.com/MBellefontaine/status/1463579499803643904?s=20

"We need to ensure that reaches every corner of the province. We know that high speed internet holds the promise to connect rural communities, to high quality services be it education or healthcare, but also digital jobs," he says.
Speaking of repeat...
edmontonjournal.com/news/local-new…

But also a repeat of a repeat: edmontonjournal.com/news/politics/…
And his own repeat: cbc.ca/news/canada/ed…
"One thing that's coming out of Covid is a decentralization of where and how people work. I know some of your communities like Nanton are benefitting as people relocate," he says.

"And this is just the beginning, to prime the pump, to maximize what we can get out of the feds - when I say 'get out of the feds', to maximize the amount of our tax dollars we get back from Ottawa," he says with gusto that doesn't result in a standing ovation.

"And get back as much investment as we can from the private telecos. And I know the leader of the opposition was here yesterday talking about a bright shiny commitment in this respect; they had four years to invest in rural internet," he says, about times when spending mattered.

"We are committed, not only to putting Alberta tax dollars into this," (you can say that when you're conservative), "that the companies that actually provide the service have some skin in the game," he says.
They are literally just going to suck profit, but sure, "skin".

Then comes the oh-uh.
"It won't be a one-size fits all - in some cases it'll be 5G, others hard broadband infrastructure, there are many different solutions for different communities, but it's on my radar screen and we're committed to getting your communities..."

"... the highest possible speed of access," he promises. Some claps.
"We're talking about diversification, we see it in new industries, but one that benefits rural is film and television, and we're having the best year ever with the introduction of the film tax credit."

Remember the film tax credit?
edmonton.ctvnews.ca/film-industry-…

It was a whole thing. cbc.ca/news/canada/ed…

Two years of whole things. cbc.ca/news/canada/ca…

Moving on.
"We're getting the economic fundamentals right, cutting red tape... but in addition, we realize we have to invest in new industries like petrochemicals."
At least they didn't screw that up for two years first. globalnews.ca/news/6073617/a…

This is probably an intro to the mid-year fiscal update. And campaigning for 2023, of course.
"It is great and enduring news, it links oil and gas with diversification with environmental performance, it's win-win-win," Kenney says.

He adds that forestry is up in Alberta but down in BC - why? They "keep layering more and more red tape," he says. "This province is open for business."
(86% of softwood lumber sales go to the U.S.)
globalnews.ca/news/8400874/s…

"As a government we continue to advocate with Ottawa to have smart travel policies so we can get back to safe, an increase in tourism for this ski season," he says.
"We want to partner with you and Indigenous communities on tourism, and you know another key part..."

"... of economic recovery is investments, huge capital investments. Last year was $12 billion in funding, and $21 billion over the next two years. I know there was a reduction in Municipal Sustainability Initiative grants (provincial equalization), but folks..."

"...you have to understand that when we came in, we inherited a $9 billion deficit and that just wasn't sustainable. And we all know that we live through the revenue roller coaster, we have to get our costs (to roll too?) to be somewhere close to the national average..."

(without paying for it).
"What we've been through in the past five years, we could no longer afford the most expensive services in every area across the country," he says, while cashing the largest cheques for MLA pay and benefits and political staffers.

"That's what the McKinnon panel told us, and one area they identified (that they were willing to consider) was municipal infrastructure grants," he says. "So, the bottom line is that this province really is back. The biggest challenge will be (time travel... wait for it)..."

"... getting back to where we were, in the 2010's."
Thanks so much for coming to my balanced and totes unfair reduction of today's political spin. I welcome coffee.
ko-fi.com/deirdremitchel…