Do you know who isn’t complaining about the province’s recently announced budget cuts? The people it doesn’t affect … but wait. Who isn’t affected by cuts to economic development or post secondary education, municipal infrastructure, tourism, education or women’s issues?
Some big-business executives are probably pretty happy that their taxes haven’t been adversely altered by the industry-friendly UCP government. But workers a little further downstream from the corporate head office aren’t quite in the same boat — workers — let’s say, in the Lac La Biche, Cold Lake, Fort McMurray and Bonnyville areas, for example. If the Oil and Gas industry has been the described as the motor driving the province’s economy, the northeastern part of the province was the needed fuel injectors of that motor. Workers, resources, spin-off industries, infrastructure — it all went to running that motor. But not anymore. Despite the best efforts of the government to push favour to the industry, there are still tens of thousands of oil and gas workers out of a job, and thousands who have taken on new jobs or started new careers. And that's just in the direct spinoff to the industry. What about the restaurants, food stores, clothing stores, electronics, sporting goods, and furniture stores who have had to deal with reduced income from not only the departure of the oil and gas, but the easy lure of the internet for online purchasing and delivery? Then there's the real estate markets and tourism based ventures, schools and colleges that are affected by reduced populations and reduced spending. And yet the government continues to try to wake the sleeping giant by propping up its resting head with tax incentives, loopholes and doting attention that many are saying could probably be spent on more emergent needs.
If the oil giant wakes up, great. But that's not happening right now. Right now there are thousands who can't sleep because they are living a nightmare.
At the same time the government is trying to rouse its oily giant, they are failing Albertans trying to move on from the distant boom of the oil industry. Re-training, downsizing, diversifying … all methods preached by economists to help Albertans rebound from the economic slump that is largely due to the toppling of the oil and gas empire. And yet the provincial government chooses to cut funding to potential lifelines? To take away a community's chance to right itself, or at least maintain what it has? Is the draw of the once-powerful oil and gas dollar so alluring that we’ll sacrifice so much to try to get it back?
Let it go. Waking up that giant would be wonderful — but life has moved on for many Albertans. It had to. And those people are the ones who now need the support of their elected representatives.
For those still enjoying life in the sagging industry, and still enjoying the bouquets offered by the government, the outside world that is being tackled by those less fortunate seems to be something of a mystical place. They’ve been shielded by the good times, the salaries and the government’s undying love. And let’s hope they keep their jobs and continue to steer what’s left of the industry towards better times.
Because if they don't, complaining may not help.
In Premier Kenney’s speech the night before releasing the budget, he said the cuts would be difficult and challenging, and no matter how many protests or demonstrations, the cuts would go ahead. We’re guessing that would even include the protests that not so long ago, he and his government were endorsing— the convoys, rallies and protests for increased oil and gas attention.
So when students, parents teachers and municipally-elected leaders protest, he won’t flinch? How about if they are wearing shirts that proudly display: I "Heart” Alberta Education or I “Heart” Alberta’s need for water and sewer infrastructure that is not carried by cast iron pipes from the 1960s or I “Heart” college education that gives Albertans a chance to re-train from their lost jobs in the I “Heart” Alberta Oil and Gas sector.
So what’s the answer? The deficit has to be addressed. Spending has to be addressed. But cutting ‘opportunity’ out of a budget doesn’t seem like the answer. For thousands of Albertans, the hope of finding another job relies heavily on their education and further job training. For the government to target those two specific areas is jeopardizing the hopes of Albertans who were once responsible for helping to drive the revenue-generating motor, and are now left standing at the side of the road — a road that will probably have a lot of potholes, cracked curbs and water main leaks due to cuts to infrastructure funding.
