The March 2014 Alberta Throne Speech

Mr. Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to speak. Let me start by saying this was a misdirected, misleading, and underachieving throne speech.

Starting with the title of the speech itself, “Building Alberta Together”, the entire document was a misfire. With hope, I look forward to the day when Albertans can listen to a speech from the throne that doesn’t trumpet the government’s work in building a province. It is Albertans who built Alberta, who build Alberta now, and who will continue to build Alberta in the future. The government simply needs to step out of the way to make that happen, and the jargon of this throne speech does nothing for real progress.

The throne speech continued to be misdirected because it aimed directly at the Wildrose, while failing to recognize this current government’s continued assault on property rights, individual rights, and front line workers. It made no mention of the Premier’s habit of unfocused globe-trotting and foreign office expenses. It did not focus on the “bread and butter” work here in Alberta.

The PCs continue to obsess about Wildrose, but they get their facts wrong every time. They call our common sense, debt-free capital plan, and balanced budget proposals a “Build Nothing” plan. Let’s get the facts straight: the Wildrose would actually invest $48 billion over the next 10 years in health facilities, schools, roads, and other necessary government facilities. Our commitment to public prioritized infrastructure, more competitive bidding, and design-bid-build contracts would ensure more effective and efficient infrastructure spending for all Albertans.

In contrast, the PCs announce infrastructure projects like schools without plans, budgets, and timelines, leaving Albertans to wonder if they’ll ever get done. It will be impossible to complete them by 2016 as promised, and not break another Redford election promise. Worse though, is that this way of building by political announcement and doing it on the backs of future generations through debt will lead to huge inefficiencies, cost-overruns, misallocated assets, and reduced value for all of us.

The Throne Speech made no mention of the Redford PCs continuing to increase the size and mandate of the provincial government. This out-of-control bureaucracy has been making many nervous as the South Saskatchewan Regional Plan chugs along with huge concern about economic and lifestyle consequences. The government fails to take responsibility for a huge bottleneck in Environment and Sustainable Resource Development that has been incapable of formulating plans and policy, and not recognizing the good stewardship of ranch and farming families or the many environmentally-sound policies of our oil and gas companies. This is of huge importance now as the Sage Grouse Protection Order is in effect in 42 townships in Cypress-Medicine Hat.

The Throne Speech ended with a section entitled, “The Next Phase: Opening New Markets.” Amazingly, the PC government has made it their priority to focus unrelentingly on selling Alberta to the world and advocating for a Canada free trade zone. In the 22 months since the last election, we have seen the Premier’s Canadian Energy Strategy achieve not a kilometer of pipeline, not a meter a right-of-way, nor move a litre of diesel fuel.

Instead, what we have seen is a $1.3 billion potential subsidy to for-profit industry, countless trade offices and missions, and a bundle of money spent on government jets. We measure the success of our elected officials in results, and Redford’s luxurious travels to the four corners of the earth have produced none. We have a premier not even willing to wait 10 hours to fly with the Prime Minister of Canada to discuss the very things she claims she wants to accomplish. Perhaps she could have considered that this is the man she should talk to in order to actually achieve some of those things—interprovincial pipelines, trade agreements, or whatever.

A year ago, in an effort to hide the $17 billion deficit looming by 2016, the PC government broke our financial reporting into four budgets, and added billions in P3 spending that will indebt us and our children for years to come. The Throne Speech says the government will live “within its means and balance the budget.” This is not true. A consolidated, Ralph-Klein-style budget would once again show the reality: a province billions in debt and nearly reaching the financial lows that Don Getty caused decades back.

Of course, transparency might be the most over-used/under-utilized word offered by this government. A roundtable on the improvement of Alberta’s child intervention system failed to invite all MLAs and many of the necessary stakeholders to truly explore the problems and the solutions. This government has also talked about meaningful consultation with Albertans, involving the opposition more in a constructive improvement to the legislative process. Tightly managed, orchestrated, low-turnout meetings in Cypress-Medicine Hat—and a failure to engage in discussion around numerous opposition amendments to legislation—proves this government has no desire or ability to be more transparent.

And last, I especially believe this throne speech was underachieving. It failed to take into consideration the real challenges Albertans have. The list is endless: wait times for elective surgery are measured in years and cancelled appointments; municipalities are bogged down in provincial paperwork and uncertain funding levels; our education system is falling behind competitively in a fast-paced and changing world; rural Alberta is faced with economic uncertainties and government service decay; and our transportation and infrastructure spending is enormous with unacceptable results.

With those things in mind, let’s take one last look at the title of the throne speech: “Building Alberta Together”. If this government truly meant their plan was to be done “together”, the speech would have been completely different, and the government’s 2014 priorities would have actually reflected the 2014 priorities of Alberta’s public. So, instead of things like decentralization, innovative ideas, or intentions of meaningful consultation with Albertans, we heard misdirected, misleading, and underachieving talking points.