Alberta: Punching Down
The wealthiest 20 percent of households controlled more than two-thirds - nearly 68 percent – of the total net worth in Canada in the first quarter of 2023, while the least wealthy 40 percent accounts for 2.7 percent, the federal agency reported on Tuesday.
- Gap between Canada’s rich and poor increasing at record speed, new StatCan data shows. – Toronto Star
By Gregg Wall (2-17-2024)
In Alberta one can escape to the mountains, enjoy sunlit snowcapped Rockies, pristine lakes of jaw dropping beauty, some of the finest nature in the world… but sooner or later one must come down from the mountains, catch up on current events, and have one’s zen entirely crushed by the United Conservative Party or UCP.
This ‘libertarian’ party is absolutely breathtaking in its gross mismanagement of the Alberta economy and provincial government. Its rank hypocrisy, duplicity, and essentially de facto, or overriding, ethos can best be described as The Policy of Punching Down. For this is a government by and for Big Oil & Gas - and the wealthy - and if the public gets runover and backed over repeatedly so be it.
Presently Alberta is faced with a large number of crises, far too many to go into here today. But a small sampling would include: out-of-control rent explosion, among the highest in Canada; a healthcare crisis, where doctors are fleeing the province and rural doctors are closing up shop (Part of Premier Smith’ privatization scheme? Run the docs out of Alberta and then let the corporations take over?); soaring utilities, food costs, and auto insurance premiums.
Notice a pattern? The UCP/libertarian government means that the government will not intervene, the government will remain small, and the government will not interfere in predatory monopolies' and utilities' ability to rip-off Alberta consumers (no matter how high poverty and food bank usage soars). Powerful, wealthy corporate interests operate freely, unhindered to score record profits, thanks to the provincial government. There’s just one problem. Many of these powerful interests have no market… in industries such as electric utilities, Big Oil & Gas and fossil fuels are the market. To emphasize, there is no market, there is no price discovery, there are no competitors, and where some competition remains, there is often collusion and price fixing. Nothing but hegemonic control over government, prices, wages, and services & products offered.
And who gets punished and taken advantage of (?)... Alberta families, children, consumers, and labour. It’s disgusting.
There’s that policy of punching down.
To combat and thwart any allegations of favoring the rich and pander to UCP’ elderly, far-right, and rural base of support, Premier Smith loves to attack Ottawa, especially on half-hearted & often pathetic attempts to regulate fossil fuels. The irony is that the Trudeau government and Liberal Party is in the pocket of fossil fuels. The Trudeau government delivers all manner of support for the Oil & Gas industry… from hundreds of millions to clean up orphan wells to buying a pipeline. It all adds up to a massive transfer of wealth from the Canadian taxpayer, by the Trudeau government, to Big Oil & Gas. So, while UCP and the Libs in Ottawa engage in theatrical debates & political food fights…giving journalists and talking heads something to write about & discuss… the Canadian oil & gas industry enjoys all manner of taxpayer funded subsidies and scores record profits.
Meanwhile, Canada burns.
Premier Smith has also turned the libertarian principles of small, limited government, and market preeminence on its head, when she attacked the renewable energy industry and placed the industry on six-month hiatus. It turns out that small, limited government only applies to Big Oil & Gas, powerful monopolies, and utilities. Small, limited government does not apply to the renewables industry that is a direct affront to Big Oil & Gas’ monopolistic profit taking. After all, competition from renewable energy could drag down utility rates, prices at the pump, and raise the standard of living for Alberta’s families, and we certainly can’t have that.
There’s that policy of punching down again.
But wait, it gets better. Not content to allow Big Biz to rip off Alberta consumers and families, Premier Smith – consistent with the rabid right-wing in the United States, whom the Premier adores – has decided that ‘libertarian freedom and limited government’ doesn’t apply to gay and transitioning children. That’s right, family autonomy, freedom, and parental decision making are under attack in Alberta, because Premier Smith’s base of support gets off on theocracy and attacking trans youth. As if these children's lives weren’t complicated enough.
What does all this chaos add up to… and as I wrote earlier in the piece, I’ve just scratched the surface… it adds up to a failed government, a failed economy that does not serve the citizens of Alberta but does serve a privileged few.
Premier Smith’s special brand of chaos… and her preeminent, de facto policy of punching down… often serves as smokescreen from discussion on real reforms, necessary reforms that Canada and Alberta desperately need: first and foremost on failed neoliberalism & crony government; the transfer of Canadian taxpayer wealth to the privileged & powerful, that least need it; structural defects in a monopoly economy; and structural defects in federal and provincial governments that serve exclusively, the monopoly economy.
All this, while Canadians' standards of living drop and wealth inequality soars. How’s that libertarian government… a government by and for the rich… working out, Alberta? How’s that neoliberal government in Ottawa… a government by and for the rich… working out, Canada?
Can you see the difference? On the economy and letting powerful corporate interests take advantage of hardworking Canadians, there’s zero difference between Alberta’s libertarian government and Ottawa’s neoliberal government.
None.
Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2024
