Alberta NDP Leader Rachel Notley stops in Red Deer to share how UCP budget broke promises

Notley first pointed to Smith’s election campaign promise to cut personal income taxes for all Albertans resulting in a $1,500 savings per family.

Smith has since said the move would be delayed and Notley claims officials have confirmed that the tax cut is not factored into future budgets.

Notley says municipalities were also shortchanged by hundreds of millions of dollars from what they requested.

While Alberta Municipalities acknowledged an increase in funding for local governments, they said work needs to be done for the lack of infrastructure funding.

READ: Mayor Johnston and Alberta Municipalities give budget reaction

“This UCP budget means our communities will be stretched thin and will fall behind in funding services like sewer, water and road infrastructure,” Notley said.

“Red Deer and other communities are already facing property tax increases of six per cent. The UCP budget’s lack of municipal infrastructure funding will leave cities like Red Deer so strained that they will have no choice but to increase property taxes even further. This will worsen an already debilitating affordability crisis.”

READ: ‘Challenging budget’: Red Deer property tax rate increases amended to 6.15 per cent

She states the UCP have wasted nearly a quarter of a billion dollars in political decisions regarding the healthcare industry over the years, including $90 million in a failed lab privatization plan, $80 million towards imported child fever medicine deemed unsafe by reports, $85 million on a future reorganization of Alberta Health Services, and $69 million for the South Edmonton Hospital project that was now paused.

“All of this ideologically induced waste within our healthcare system came at a time when the system is operating over capacity and held together literally by duct tape,” she said.

Notley added that while investments seem positive for the Red Deer Regional Hospital expansion, she questioned if the UCP would do the same to the project as in Edmonton and if they will respond to stakeholder requests for a proper transitional investment to maintain services while the project is underway.

Opposition calls for Alberta to dump imported fever medicine amid health concerns

She claimed the UCP has not planned for sufficient growth in healthcare, budgeting to hire only one third of the staff needed to meet the demand of the province’s growing population over the next three years.

Notley says the UCP has done this for the education system as well, with the province having the lowest per-student funding in the country. She claims the UCP has only planned for new education infrastructure to meet the demand of one third of the increase in student population and that the government disproportionately funds the private school system.

“The UCP, quite frankly, doesn’t respect the value of a public education system and its role in ensuring equity and equality for all students no matter where they come from and what circumstances their family are in. Public education is so important for building that equal opportunity but that’s not something that is fundamental to UCP values,” she said.

She says the budget increases a number of taxes and fees at a time when inflation and low wage growth are making it harder to keep up with rising costs of living. She believes the UCP’s claim of fiscal responsibility in the budget is a facade, given that the 2024 budget does not set aside any further cash for the Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund even though Smith announced a reinvigoration of the fund earlier this month.

Notley says the province will see debt in their infrastructure.

“After breaking her affordability promises and driving up property taxes in municipalities, and with health and education funding far below the rate of population and inflation, this budget fails to position Alberta for sustainable growth,” she said.

Notley said her election campaign proposal to increase corporate taxes from eight to 11 per cent would have increased fiscal capacity and remained the lowest taxes for businesses in the country.

Savannah Johannsen, Press Secretary and spokesperson for the provincial government’s Treasury Board and Finance department, said in a statement,

“Budget 2024 is a responsible plan that puts Albertans and Alberta families first by investing in their health, education, safety, and economic growth and success.

This includes $200 million over two years to improve access to family physicians with another $10 million for primary health care initiatives in Indigenous communities, $681 million in new funding for 43 priority projects that will create 35,000 new or modernized student spaces, $151 million operating expense over the next three years for enhancements to the Wildfire Management Program and $1.3 billion in capital funding over the next three years for water management and drought preparedness.

Our government will reduce taxpayer-supported debt by a forecast $3.2 billion in the 2023-24 fiscal year and retain more than $1 billion in investment earnings from 2023-24 in the Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund. We will also deposit another $2 billion from the Alberta Fund, increasing the value of the Heritage Savings Trust Fund to a forecast $25 billion.

And today, the governments of Alberta and Canada announced an investment of more than $112 million to connect more than 22,500 homes across the province to broadband internet.”

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by Alessia Proietti

Alberta NDP Leader Rachel Notley stops in Red Deer to share how UCP budget broke promises

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