CALGARY — Premier Alison Redford was ready to declare the inaugural Alberta economic summit a success Saturday even without a consensus from the prominent Albertans who spent the day hashing out the province’s spending and revenue issues.
But the call of many participants to introduce a provincial sales tax left lingering questions from the opposition parties about the Tory government’s intentions around a consumption tax.
The focus of the summit — called by Redford because the province is dealing with a major revenue shortfall due to lower-than-expected energy prices and a deep discount for Alberta bitumen — was the long-term future of the province’s economy, not the March 7 budget.
Speaking to reporters following the seven-hour conference at Mount Royal University, Redford said she was intrigued by suggestions around increased delivery of services by the non-profit sector and greater use of public-private partnerships (P3s), as well as the emphasis on gaining new market access for Alberta energy.
She said the repeated emphasis on a sales tax by many panellists did not necessarily point the direction the province will ultimately take.
“I also heard a lot today about spending cuts, I heard about reducing provincial income tax or eliminating provincial income tax, reducing corporate tax,” said Redford.
“Do we need to have a conversation about revenue? I don’t know the answer to that yet. But I think there’s a lot of smart people engaged in that room who want to keep having that conversation. We’re going to keep talking to Albertans.”
The summit saw over 350 Albertans from academia, the business community and the non-profit sector — as well as MLAs from all parties in the legislature — in attendance. The event was also streamed online and Redford touted the social media success of the summit, noting in her closing address that 72,000 individual Twitter accounts used the hashtag #absummit.
The event saw four five-person panels discussing the state of the provincial economy, the public’s expectation of services, Alberta’s revenue mix and the government’s spending habits.
Many of the panellists argued for a consumption tax even if they differed over whether the province’s $40-billion budget is out of line.
George Gosbee, president and CEO of AltaCorp Capital, said the province could no longer rely on natural resource revenues to pay for programs and government should introduce a five per cent sales tax, as well as consider bringing back the health-care premiums scrapped by former premier Ed Stelmach.
“We had a free ride and we had a great ride. Now’s the time to get off of it,” Gosbee said.
Other panellists who advocated a consumption tax included the former dean of the University of Alberta business school Mike Percy, interim dean Joseph Doucet and AIMCo CEO Leo de Bever.
Jack Mintz, director of the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy, said Alberta has a spending problem but does need a fundamental reform of the tax system.
He said a sales tax harmonized with the federal GST would be more efficient and should be introduced with the aim of gradually eliminating the provincial income tax entirely.
But Derek Fildebrandt of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation doubted the possibility of a revenue-neutral sales tax being implemented in the province and suggested the Tory government would face an electoral revolt if it introduced a PST.
“The government has no mandate to bring in a sales tax,” he said.
“The premier, I imagine, likes her job in government.”
Redford has said the government faces a $6-billion shortfall in revenue in 2013-14 because a glut of oil in the United States has depressed the benchmark West Texas Intermediate price of oil and widened the differential in price between WTI and Western Canadian Select, which includes Alberta bitumen.
The government has made gaining access to new markets, particularly in Asia, its priority. That means the provincial go-ahead for pipeline proposals such as the Keystone XL line to the U.S. Gulf Coast, Northern Gateway and an expanded Trans-Mountain pipeline in British Columbia, and a reversed line to Eastern Canada.
However, all those projects face fierce opposition because of the environmental impact of the oilsands.
Jim Prentice, a former federal Conservative cabinet minister who is a close ally of Redford, said in his keynote address that “energy leadership and environmental leadership are now two sides of the same coin.”
“We will either be an environmental leader or we will have other jurisdictions dictate our environmental policies, dictate our energy policies and dictate the markets we are able to access,” he said.
The tone of the debate was always civil but the most striking differences were seen on the last panel of the day, which dealt with government spending.
Tom Flanagan, the University of Calgary political scientist who managed the Wildrose campaign in the spring election, said the solution to the government’s financial woes could be found 20 years ago.
The cross-the-board cuts of Premier Ralph Klein and Finance Minister Jim Dinning in the early ’90s balanced the province’s books and set the stage for the province’s economic boom, he said.
But Gil McGowan, president of the Alberta Federation of Labour, said the Klein-era cuts devastated the province’s infrastructure and services.
“Albertans are willing to make tough sacrifices when necessary. We’re prepared to take it on the chin when we’ve been convinced it’s the right thing to do, he said.
“But allowing yourself to get punched in the face when it’s not necessary is not brave and it’s not noble. It’s stupid.”
Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith said she was pleased overall with the summit and noted that most Albertans would have found at least one or two panellists they agreed with.
“I was disappointed to see how often the conversation turned to this being a revenue problem and the solution being either taking out debt or raising taxes,” she said.
“I don’t support a sales tax because it is regressive. It actually does hit the lowest income people the hardest.”
NDP Leader Brian Mason was more blunt, suggesting the summit had been “stacked” to deliver a message favouring a sales tax and pipelines.
“But we didn’t learn what it was that created the dependence on royalty revenue in the first place, which was of course cuts to income tax for the wealthy and for corporations. That didn’t even come up,” said Mason, who noted there was also little discussion about increasing refining in the province to deal with the differential issue.
“My sense is that they’re trying to set the stage for a sales tax, which is not something we support.”
The Calgary Herald, Monday, Feb. 11, 2013
Byline: James Wood