Pierre Polievre’s Common-Sense Conservatives have promised to fix the budget. After all, conservatives are naturally much better at managing money and keeping the government small – right?
To see if that supposition is true, let’s examine Alberta today under Premier Danielle Smith and the United Conservative Party.
The UCP’s platform promises tax cuts for all Albertans and comes with a warning from the Premier:
“It’s a choice between moving Alberta forward and building a brighter future or returning to the NDP’s costly and failed policies. We can’t afford to go back,” she says on the party’s website.
Walk the Talk?
In the 1990s, when Smith was an intern at the Fraser Institute and later a newspaper columnist, she praised the virtues of small government. During her 2012 Wild Rose Party campaign, she called herself a “small government conservative.”
But… it turns out Smith prefers big government. Her cabinets are larger than those held by her predecessors, Jason Kenney and Rachel Notley.
Smith also has no problems with secrecy and suppressing information deemed damaging to the party agenda.
Case in point: The government recently passed a bill changing freedom of information rules to allow for more exemptions. They did this despite warnings from Alberta’s Information and Privacy Commissioner Diane McLeod that the changes would “downgrade transparency.”
That change feels like the overbearing actions of Big Brother rather than the light touch of a small government.
Smith is also a big spender. Last May’s budget of $71.2 billion is 20 percent higher than the one Kenney announced before exiting the Premier’s office in 2022. $12 billion is nothing to sneeze at.
Under Smith, spending grew more in two years than it did under Notley’s four-year “tax and spend” NDP government.
The current budget surplus has nothing to do with wise fiscal management and everything to do with surging resource revenues driven by high oil prices—any government, whether UCP or NDP, would ride that wave and shamelessly claim the credit.
Of course, it won’t last. JP Morgan recently predicted that oil prices will drop over the next two years. Alberta’s surplus will likely disappear alongside this drop, and the usual blame game will ensue.
A Dangerous Trend
To be fair, governments of all stripes—progressive, conservative, far left, and far right—make promises about the public purse they can’t or choose not to keep. Danielle Smith manufactured a brand around small government and smart spending, but so far in power, she has done the exact opposite. This undermines everything she says and does.
What’s worse is when a government couples this phooey with efforts to undermine freedom of information laws meant to hold them accountable. It’s not only dangerous, it’s undemocratic.
No wonder Albertans have lost trust in government: a continued lack of transparency and promises made but not kept.
We should demand better from our politicians.
