When Premier Daniel Smith announced his ambition to build a multi-city passenger train network connecting Banff, Calgary, Edmonton and many other points, questions immediately arose. “To the taxpayers of Alberta, Billion Dollar Boondoggle Or two?
Her answer was not typical of a conservative politician, much less a conservative politician. libertarian symbol tattoo on her arm. Mr. Smith responded with a strong defense of government intervention.
“This is why people elect government, to do things that the private sector can't do, including connecting cities and building massive new infrastructure that requires these kinds of large-scale investments,” Smith told reporters. It also includes construction.”
Never mind that Canada's founding passenger rail service was privately owned, or that the construction consortium that planned the Edmonton-Calgary high-speed rail line said it would do it as a private rail company. private investment.
Mr Smith has a vision of masterplanning all future intercity routes, and this week he pondered the idea of using regional versions to manage regional rail networks. Metrolinxa provincial government agency established in 2006 by the Liberal government of Ontario to operate transit systems in the Toronto area.
Of course, it will sit on top of the Crown corporation that Smith set up this spring. Studying recovery from drug addictionor when Smith proposed. Natural gas plant potentially operated by the Crown As a “generator of last resort”.
Add in her ambitions to potentially wrest more provincial control of pensions and police from Ottawa, and plans for tighter control over municipal and higher education affairs, and Danielle Smith, who has long believed in shrinking the boroughs, You may be wondering what happened. size of government.
when she was younger
We have come a long way from Smith's days as an intern at the free-market think tank Fraser Institute in the 1990s and his days as a newspaper columnist in the 2000s, when he praised “small government” as “a central tenet of conservatism.” far away.Or her 2012 Wild Rose Her Party Her campaign when she branded herself “Small government conservatives.”
Now she takes over that power as a member of the government. She not only wields the power of the agency, but often shows sufficient interest in expanding or maximizing that power.
she, big cabinet over his predecessors Jason Kenney and Rachel Notley.
The Prime Minister's spending also significantly exceeded that amount.
west of center888:36:40I'm from Ottawa, I'm here to help
This year's budget, the second under the Smith administration, features $71.2 billion in spending, a 20% increase over the $59.4 billion budget submitted before Kenney leaves in 2022. Over two years, Smith raised state spending by a much greater margin than the Notley government. within 4 yearsbetween her final budget of $56.2 billion in 2018 and the last budget by PC.
But UCP and Smith tend to get more credit for spending within their means. oil revenue The means of the state have become very large.
This, Smith said, would provide direct “affordable” payments, maintain spending on health care and education as the population grows, build infrastructure around the upcoming Calgary Flames Arena, and provide grants. was able to increase the amount. alberta arts foundation We have reached the highest level ever.
In fact, neither of Smith's UCP budgets made any significant funding cuts to public services, and the subsidy reduction plans were short-lived. Transportation pass for low income people It's getting more and more impressive.
Her apparent tendency to create new Crown corporations is actually a continuation of the UCP trend. Her recovery research institute is the third new Crown to be created by this government, along with the Alberta Indigenous Opportunity Corporation and Invest Alberta under former Premier Jason Kenney. (Plus, there's the Canadian Energy Center's “war room.” State-controlled companies. )
On the other hand, history will record that the NDP's only Crown policy was to merge four independent research/technical institutions into a single Alberta Innovates. Reduction in personnel and budget.
Mr. Smith is doing the opposite by splitting Alberta Health Services into four independent agencies, overseen by the Minister of Health.
In addition to this, Smith also new police agency The move was taken to accommodate the ever-increasing number of sheriffs in Alberta who carry out a wide variety of duties, and instead of addressing the RCMP's replacement head-on.
As for the other big “Les Ottawa” plan, Smith continues to explore ideas for Alberta's own pension system. the analyst told her It costs up to $2.2 billion to set up and even more to operate. This could create between 1,500 and 2,000 new jobs in the public sector, said Jim Dinning, leader of the Pensions Engagement Committee. Revitalize the state's financial services sector.
After all, if the premier wants Alberta to be more like Quebec, he has to pay for pensions, police, tax collection and monitor the whole thing Federal Agreement of Groups — which means the state government may end up doing more.According to the state, there is one public servant for every 8.4 residents. Statistics Canada data. This equates to 1 in 10.3 people in Alberta.
The gap would narrow further if local agencies operated railways and power systems. That would give the prime minister and his cabinet more influence over how these services are run than if private companies were in charge.
head wearing a crown
Part of the broader vision Smith developed for the provincial government stemmed from a desire to remove Ottawa from Alberta's constitutional jurisdiction. But she has recently extended that constitutionalist mindset to her desire to get a closer look at what's happening in higher education institutions and city halls, and her latest bill would include: Thorough review of local government governance and to have her government Scrutinize all federal agreements with local governments.
She suggested the state government should cooperate more. University research projects and equity policiesand explains local ordinances and how election votes are counted.
Mr Smith could be said to be leading former Prime Minister Peter Lougheed in his tendency to expand the reach of government with new institutions, given the number of government departments and agencies he has established. Acquisition of a regional airline. But she also embraces Ralph Klein, who dismantled many interventionist programs.
She adheres to a form of minimizing the role of government, which is what led her to fame in the UCP leadership. The idea was to oppose state interference in what businesses and residents can do during the coronavirus public health emergency.
But while critics will wonder why that laissez-faire ethos doesn't apply to 2SLGBTQ+ policies, the UCP has vowed to push Alberta's sports agencies to crack down. trans women participating In the women's league.
The NDP opposition calls her latest power-concentration bill an attempt at “control.” Everything, Anywhere, All at Once. ”
At the ideological opposite end is the disappointment of three-term Wildrose MLA Drew Burns, who the UCP says is “throwing money and favors everywhere”.
Burns was first elected with Smith in 2012, when she proposed a more fiscally hawkish and limited government.
But once she was in the caucus, she was often seen more intent on attacking the ruling Conservative Party on ethical issues than specifically criticizing government policy.
“She always came up with the idea of more government, not less government,” Burns said in an interview with CBC News this week.
“A lot of her ideas were, 'I can do this smarter than anyone else.'”
Perhaps the belief that she is smarter than everyone else is what drives her to do so much during her time as prime minister.
But it also prepares the government for a lot of things to do on a permanent basis.
