TRANSPARENCY

National Political Party's plans for Massive Wealth Shift To Central Canada!

by Senator Tommy Banks 
Senator for Alberta

Edmonton, 6 October 2008

There has been much fear spread in our Province about a major Canadian political party's plan to massively shift wealth from Alberta to Ontario, Quebec, and other parts of Canada. Sadly, the rumours have turned out to be true.

Unfortunately though, that isn't something that might happen; it is already happening under Mr. Harper's government.

Between June 2 and September 6, 2008. the Conservatives' per-capita pre-election funding announcements* amounted to $951 for every man, woman and child in Quebec, $647 in Ontario, $493 in the Maritimes, $91 in British Columbia, and $15 in Alberta.

It is probably a mere coincidence that hotly-contested electoral ridings, necessary to the formation of a majority government, are situated in those provinces which received the highest levels of announced pre-election spending. The Conservative government collects tax revenues on equal bases in every part of Canada, but it seems to have difficulty in thinking that this should have any bearing on where the money is spent.

For those who like I are arithmetically challenged, this means that Alberta's share of the announced Conservative spending program, expressed as a percentage of Quebec's share, is 01.57%. That is not a typographical error. The Conservatives' per capita announced spending in Quebec is sixty-three times as great as in Alberta. Ontario's is forty-three times greater. Forty-three times! Even in British Columbia (where there are hotly-contested federal seats) each person is worth, in the Conservative view, about six times the cost of keeping an Albertan happy. Or at least quiet.

And Mr. Harper says we should worry about Liberals transferring wealth from Alberta!

The Conservative view seems to be "When an election comes, we're going to win all those Alberta seats anyway. We win them as a matter of course; so why should we spend any federal money there?".

So the wealth shift is already happening.

Wealth IS being transferred out of Alberta to central Canada and other parts of the country. It's just not being done by the party you thought. It turns out that, as Danny Williams said, it's not the Green Shift that you have to worry about; it's the Blue Shaft.

*Canadian Taxpayers' Federation

Wait, there’s more …

Lawrence Martin, Globe and Mail, October 6, 2008:

"Some hallmarks of their first term should not be forgotten: the mudslinging, the secrecy, the bullying and intimidation, the massive centralization of power. The Tories took attack ads to a record frequency, running them year round. While promising an era of cleanliness, they were accused of surreptitiously engaging in money transfers - the 'in-and-out' affair - that led to an RCMP raid on their headquarters. They produced a secret 200-page manual on how to disrupt the parliamentary process, then went about doing so, shutting down committees or blocking potentially damaging witnesses.

"They mocked their own accountability legislation by turning access-to-information regulations on the Afghan detainees file and many others into barricades-to-information. Information Commissioner Robert Marleau reported that Mr. Harper's own Privy Council Office was a leader in access-denial. He graded it an 'F.' This government's uniqueness, rather, is in the breadth and degree to which it has ethically debased the system in such a short time."

                 Authorized by the Federal Liberal Agency, registered agent for
                                         the Liberal Party of Canada