A Tale of Two Governments

Both the Canadian Federal Government and the Alberta Provincial government made major announcements yesterday and the results could not have been more different from two Conservative governments.

First, provincial Premier Ed Stelmach announced his inaugural budget which contains $33B in spending. This is perhaps one of the largest public expenditures in Alberta for quite some time and sounds good to a public waiting to hear that the Tories are going to reinvest the provincial surplusses back into the social infrastructure. Granted, a significant amount of the money is simply a restatement of already declared projects, or cost-overrun allocations (themselves problematic and a seperate issue for the government to deal with). But in light of recent movesw to back away from such options as rent controls, releasing nearly half a billion dollars to deal with the housing crunch sounds like the governemnt is interested in solving the problem. What Albertans are looking for is evidence of a vision for the province that is going to reward the sacrifices of the 1990s. Stelmach's budget, while admittedly not containing a lot that is new, nevertheless represents significant spending and an indication that the governemnt is taking a small step in the right direction.

The Federal Government meanwhile, announced it's vision for the environment, or rather failed to do so, instead appeared content to offer a nightmarish interpretation of someone else's. Environment Minister Baird's comment's that Kyoto was a "risky" and "reckless" proposition that threatened 275,000 jobs jeapordizing the Canadian economy with recession. Several critics have pointed out some flaws with the underlying assumptions of the government's report, but at The Daily Wenzel we also noticed the difference between this report and the one the UK releases at the end of summer that attempted to calculate the relative costs of not doing anything regarding climate change. Admittedly this is a much harder task, but even conservative economic estimates would mitigate some of the costs projected by the government. For example, should provincial governments go through with tentative proposals to ban incadescent light bulbs, then certain jobs and revenues would be lost to the economy, however the increase in sales and demand for compact flourescent bulbs would lessen, if not surpass those numbers - certainly this is a very simplistic example, but recognizing the potential economic spin-offs of pro-Kyoto technologies and developments ought to have been incorporated, a feature not reported so far. Also, any projected costs associated with meeting or not meeting Kyoto measures woudl have to include estimations of the economic impact that changing conditions would have on crops and livestock patterns, it could very well be, as the UK report suggested, that the costs of not meeting Kyoto targets or some other significant cliamte change attempt, well outweigh the costs of doing nothing, or very little.

Waiting somewhere in limbo is the government's own Clean Air Bill, which is supposedly in the process of beign revised based on the earlier criticisms. Many Canadians support moves to deal with climate change effectively, and it is widely thought to be one of the leadding, if not the leading issue for the next election. Quebec, as a province, is pro-Kyoto, and yesterday's announcement is unlikely to earn the Conservatives more support in a provine that they need to either expand or maintain support in. Similarly, the disaffected Liberals who voted for the Conservatives in the last election are unlikely to be comforted either, this move simply yet another reminder of the ideological differences between the two parties.