I have several concerns about Premier Kenney’s actions that have transpired under his administration.
I will begin with the mail-in ballots pertaining to the leadership of Mr. Kenney. Besides my concerns for UCP’s accounting firm, I’ve heard that several individuals have allegedly received unwanted ballots, and several thousand memberships have been allegedly secretly paid for (using several credit cards) by the UCP.
Consequently, I sent a letter to Elections Alberta to investigate this whole affair on April 14, 2022. Elections Alberta sent me two replies (April 17, 2022 and April 26, 2022). Both letters basically said that Elections Alberta was unable to investigate the actions of the UCP. However, since then, I’ve heard that Elections Alberta is investigating the UCP over allegations of misconduct with the whole process concerning the leadership of the UCP.
On May 2, 2022, I received an email from Mr. Kenney bragging about the wonderful job that he has been doing for Alberta.
In policy number 1, Mr. Kenney has restrained spending and balanced the budget. Yes, he has underfunded public education while spending more for private and charters schools. He has underfunded our public health-care system while pushing for more private health facilities.
We need more doctors, more nurses, more operating facilities to reduce wait times, but Mr. Kenney doesn’t seem to care because, in my opinion, he wants to bring in private health care. Why? Just look at America’s private health-care system. Bottom line: it’s all about money for private health-care professionals and more costs to the consumers/patients.
As well, he continues to spend money on pushing for a provincial police force despite the opposition from most Albertans and from most municipal governments.
He created the “war room” (a.k.a. Canadian Energy Centre) despite the fact that we already have ministries dealing with the energy sector and with the environment thus duplicating services and costing more money. Plus, the new agency/department isn’t subject to the provincial freedom of information. So, we have a new bureaucracy that is beholden to the energy sector but not to the citizens of this province.
Does this situation remind you of Kenney’s secret negotiations with the mining companies? With the sale of crown lands to private developers?
On the policy concerning red tape, he states that his government has been cutting “red tape." True. But whenever you hear a politician discussing cutting “red tape," what he/she really means is that companies will be allowed to make more money at the expense of the consumer or at the expense of the consumer’s protection.
Yes, we have all kinds of environmental laws and regulations, but they don’t amount to very much if they are not being enforced. That’s probably why Mr. Kenney is fighting so much against the federal government on this issue because he doesn’t want to let “the cat out of the bag."
In the policy about reducing taxes for businesses, he is correct. Yes, we just love to see the large corporations and the richest people in Alberta get tax cuts and generous tax loopholes.
Remember that whenever rich folks get tax cuts, less money will be available for public services, and when the public complains about less services, like wait times for surgeries, he will say that we need to fund private services.
By the way, did you see the huge profits the energy companies posted this week? Kenney is now saying they should invest those huge profits back into the economy. Hmm?
Maybe he should be investing the huge windfall in revenues from the sale of oil and gas into the public services instead of spending it on private businesses or into “buying votes."
The last policy that I am attacking is Kenney’s expansion of parental choice in education. Did we have a referendum on this matter? Bottom line: if a parent wants to send his/her child to a private or charter schools, then he/she should pay for it. The public should not pay for someone’s religious instruction or political ideology. There should be a separation of church and state.
If Albertans pride themselves as being “rugged individuals," why do we keep handing out public money to companies in the energy sector, to private businesses and to private schools?
George Thatcher,
Trochu
