UCP Warns of Bad-News Budget, but Denies Responsibility

The poor little rich kid of Confederation is pleading poverty again. But take note, it’s not Alberta’s fault! (It’s never Alberta’s fault.)

In an announcement this week that the next Alberta budget will drop on Feb. 26, Finance Minister Nate Horner trotted out several traditional Alberta excuses about why we’re going to have to make some tough choices, tighten our belts, maybe even take a haircut, seeing as we’re completely incapable of managing the revenue side of a modern government.

“Albertans know these times aren’t easy and the path ahead will require tough choices, but Alberta’s government has a clear path forward,” Horner said, at best trying for a little expectation management, at worst admitting to the United Conservative Party government’s remarkable level of fiscal incompetence.

“We are making responsible decisions now, to protect the province’s financial future, stay focused on what matters, and ensure Alberta remains strong for our children and grandchildren,” he claimed.

The latter statement, straight from Horner’s news release, is obviously preposterous.

If Premier Danielle Smith’s government were making responsible decisions, it certainly wouldn’t be driving us toward a referendum on separation from Canada that has the potential to hobble the economy and bitterly divide Albertans for years, possibly for decades.

Likewise, if the government were making responsible decisions, it would not be needlessly reorganizing Alberta’s health-care system for purely ideological reasons to the tune of at least a billion dollars and implementing a two-tier medical system that will cost taxpayers more, bankrupt many citizens needing essential medical treatment and, quite possibly, end public health care throughout Canada.

And if the UCP were making responsible decisions, surely it would not have caused investment in renewable energy to crater, apparently because U.S. President Donald Trump hates windmills, and then done nothing about it when the results of their mismanagement came in.

Usually when an Alberta Conservative government warns that its budget “will focus on careful, disciplined decision-making to manage pressures, protect essential services, and keep Alberta’s finances stable during challenging times,” it means it’s looking for excuses for more privatization and fewer public services. There’s no reason to believe Horner’s message Tuesday means anything different.

When the UCP government cites “lower-than-anticipated oil prices,” that suggests they still haven’t figured out that commodity prices are cyclical — and, in the case of fossil fuels, bound to trend downward as the rest of the world electrifies. At this point in the history of Alberta, that is nothing but evidence of inexcusable fiscal malpractice.

But don’t worry, as long as Liberals remain in power in Ottawa, Alberta governments will always have a ready excuse for chronic economic mismanagement, and a significant portion of the population ready to believe it.

In fairness, it’s unlikely any Alberta government will ever have the courage to implement sane taxation measures that will end the fossil fuel roller-coaster Alberta perpetually rides. Pity.

Smith demands more pliable judges

Also Tuesday, Smith issued a statement whinging about a claimed “need for meaningful reform to the federal judicial appointment process for vacancies on the Alberta Court of King’s Bench, the Alberta Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Canada.”

She wants, of course, far-right judges who will do her bidding for the same reason her hero, Trump, has appointed toadying judges who do whatever he demands or, when legal circumstances prevent that, just stall and stall and stall to allow his illegal acts to continue.

“We are simply asking for a formal and meaningful role in the judicial appointment process that would boost public confidence in the administration of justice, support national unity within Alberta, and ensure judicial decision-making reflects the values and expectations of Albertans,” Smith said tendentiously in her statement.

In her attached letter to the prime minister, Smith demanded “meaningful collaboration” with her government on finding replacements for three vacancies on the Alberta Court of King’s Bench, which, if the jurisdictional shoe were on the other foot, her government would certainly describe as overreach.

Then she threatened that “Alberta’s government will not agree to provide the necessary funding to support any new judicial positions in the province until such engagement and collaboration are provided.”

As for her demand for allowing unilingual judges on the Supreme Court of Canada, the better to get ideologically acceptable judges from Alberta on that august bench, that dog, obviously, won’t hunt!

The truth is that Smith wants to control the process of selecting judges so she can interfere in the administration of justice to advance her ideological agenda, up to and including separation from Canada.

It is profoundly to be hoped that Prime Minister Mark Carney, the target of this appeal for a more easily controlled judiciary, respects the principles of democratic rule and ignores Smith’s pressure campaign.

The UCP’s desire to meddle in the judicial branch of government is why the chief judges of all three levels of the Alberta courts issued their remarkable Jan. 27 statement reminding Albertans that “a properly functioning democracy requires three separate branches of government that exercise their power and authority independently according to the Constitution.”

“The independence of each branch ensures there are checks and balances across the system,” said the statement signed by Dawn Pentelechuk, acting chief justice of the Court of Appeal of Alberta; Kent H. Davidson, chief justice of the Court of King’s Bench; and James A. Hunter of the Alberta Court of Justice, as the provincial court is now known.

They continued: “It is the foundation of a healthy democracy. Public trust and confidence in our institutions — and all three branches of government — depend on it. It is equally important that each branch respect and support the independence of the others.”

A jurisdiction that has a government with a healthy respect for democratic norms would not require this kind of high-profile civics lesson from its judiciary. The fact the judges felt it necessary strongly suggests they see grave dangers ahead from the government’s obvious desire to interfere in the independence of the courts.