UCP leadership candidate Danielle Smith speaks to central Albertans at the Sylvan Lake Golf & Country Club on Tuesday. (rdnewsNOW/ Alessia Proietti)

By Alessia Proietti

Stop In Sylvan Lake

UCP leadership candidate Danielle Smith says Alberta should assert its autonomy like Quebec

Jun 7, 2022 | 5:03 PM

Danielle Smith, candidate for the UCP nomination in Livingstone-McLeod, and leadership candidate for the United Conservative Party, says the province must become more independent from the federal government, similar to that of Quebec.

“We can’t continue to operate like we’re a junior partner in confederation,” said Smith, at the Sylvan Lake Golf and Country Club on Tuesday.

“Doing all of the things that Quebec has done to assert its autonomy, collecting its own income tax, asserting its sovereignty to make decisions over its own area of jurisdiction, talking to Albertans about a provincial pension plan, collecting our own employment insurance, having our own provincial police; these are all things that we need to be having a conversation about.”

Smith was the first guest in the Sylvan Lake Golf and Country Club’s newest “Sylvan Lake Speaker Series”, discussing various political topics with locals.

Pointing towards an Alberta Sovereignty Act, Smith also encouraged Alberta’s own policing services, stating the province could have more flexibility in training officers, deal with mental health calls more effectively, being properly deployed to rural areas, and more.

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She echoed that statement towards her vision of a more independent healthcare system. Smith says less power must be given to Alberta Health Services (AHS) by splitting the roles relating to contracting, funding, and evaluation.

She furthers the idea of decentralization with the returning of individual hospital boards with managers in each hospital responding to regional and then provincial teams.

It’s impossible to centrally plan from a desk in Edmonton for what people in Red Deer and other cities across the province require, suggests Smith.

While Quebec’s assertiveness in its distinct society should be replicated, says Smith, other planning and organizational methods such as those in Europe have been more successful and should be modeled after.

“We certainly don’t follow the Quebec plan on anything. Quebec has this model of top down decision making, centralized control, and I believe in free enterprise, choice, individual responsibility, and making sure that people have the means to be able to take care of their own preventative health measures. We have a proposal that will address all those issues.”

Regarding taxes, Alberta’s personal income tax rates range from 10 to 15 per cent and when combined with federal tax rates, can reach between 25 to 48 per cent of income. Smith thinks more of the federal income tax percentage should be given back to Albertans, and doing so would be possible under an independent system resembling that of Quebec’s.

According to the Government of Canada, provinces receive federal transfers, the four main ones being the Canada Health Transfer (CHT), the Canada Social Transfer (CST), Equalization and Territorial Formula Financing (TFF) to ensure roughly equal public services in all provinces. Distribution is based off of various factors such as population size, average income, and more.

According to recent reports, until pandemic factors affected budgets in 2020, Alberta had always been contributing more finances to Canada than receiving in return through transfer payments. Albertans also contributed $15 billion, the highest in Canada, out of the $20.6 billion in 2020 to equalization payments while not receiving any in return.

Alberta also received $6.6 billion in major federal transfers in 2020, out of the $81 billion distributed nationally.

The Quebec taxation model requires citizens to file two separate income taxes, one federal and one provincial, rather than one tax filing that incorporates the two. The Quebec provincial tax is then regulated by a separate agency known as Revenu Quebec.

Smith claims that soon, Alberta’s population, alongside its economy, will surpass that of Quebec in the next 20 years, impacting its contribution to the nation and requiring action to ensure Albertans receive a fair return.

Smith was previously the leader of the Wildrose Party before its merger with the Progressive Conservatives to become the current UCP in 2017. She has worked in media as a radio host with Corus Entertainment, an editorial writer for the Calgary Herald and a host of Global Sunday.