Where has all our Conseratives gone.

[Horse]

Are they all living the good life in Florida,arizona,mexico. All the ex cabinet ministers have been missing since they lost the last election (as they should be ,leaving the mess they did )the only one to surface has been Thomas Lakusac, I guess the rest took their bag of cash and melted into the sunset.
To steal a line from sask3 all we have now is the NUTT case Kenney, oh well we survived the last 45 yrs so I guess we will survive whatever comes our way this time also.

[furrowtickler]

Are they all living the good life in Florida,arizona,mexico. All the ex cabinet ministers have been missing since they lost the last election (as they should be ,leaving the mess they did )the only one to surface has been Thomas Lakusac, I guess the rest took their bag of cash and melted into the sunset.
To steal a line from sask3 all we have now is the NUTT case Kenney, oh well we survived the last 45 yrs so I guess we will survive whatever comes our way this time also.

Maybe a combo , left a mess and got out before this Liberal disaster takes hold ?

[seldomseen]

I am not sure what you are talking about Horse?

Wasn't Alberta leading the country economically for the last 45 years and helped the rest of the country with huge transfer payments?

[Horse]

Seldomseen that's what I was getting at 40 yrs con rule with the best economic times we have ever seen, and the piggy bank is bare. And no you can't blame that on Rachel as the cons were forecasting a huge deficit before the last election.
I sure haven't seen or heard of any ex cabinet ministers declaring bankruptcy or falling on hard times.

[seldomseen]

I guess I don’t follow Alberta politics very closely from here but what I understand Ralph ran a good show and then came Steady Eddy and then Red Allison. Is that where things went wrong?

[seldomseen]

And I also wonder what the deal is when the piggy bank is empty since before Notley and they are still sending huge piles of money across the country ?

[blackjack]

Alberta has sent over 200 billion in equalization payments to Ottawa over the last two decades.

[perfecho]

Seldom....Ralph stated out pretty decent. I certainly was a supporter..IMO...but then got full of himself. Although he got rid of the debt, when we had to catch up to infrastructure and hire back people, it came at a much higher cost. He certainly gave tax breaks to buddies in the oilfield even when prices were relatively high.(Peter Elzinga went to Suncor after being part of Ralph'sw team) . The royalties that were collected are not enough to clean up the wells that were abandoned..no bonds or guarantees were set up to cover this. The vision was not there. Produce, but few plans for transportation or refining...some, but not close to enough as we see today. Had the $400 "Ralph bucks" gone into refining, we wouldn't be here today.
The Alberta Treasury Bank was run by the gov way back then...stories of cronies getting loans without even filling out loan applications...and then when their company goes bankrupt, loans sold personally for 10 cents on the dollar....Ghermezian family, Pocklington....
So he did some stuff right...but really, part of the reason we are here today...but...most blame in on the current government, even though the world has an over supply of oil and the previous gov already had a deficit coming.

[blackjack]

Notley came to office the Alberta debt was at 11.9 billion. Since then her government has racked up the debt to 45 billion and is forecast to be 71 billion by 2019-2020.

[mustardman]

Alberta’s Downfall and who created the mess was Ralph

Peter Lougheed charged higher royalties, got Refining going for the oil sands. He insisted that development should be SLOW so NOT to overproduce . Built the Heritage Fund up

Then comes Ralph and Alberta has the lowest Royalties in the World, spends all the heritage fund sells off crowns to get rid of debt
No Royalties collected on oilsands projects Till the projects are finished- which creates add ones ,so royalties Don’t Start
Ralph was the Best Premier,oil money could buy

Alberta’s Problem is Caused by Government Policy than lack of pipelines . There NEVER should have been this much oil development in th3 oil sands Without refining capacity as Peter Lougheed imagined

[seldomseen]

Alberta’s Downfall and who created the mess was Ralph

Peter Lougheed charged higher royalties, got Refining going for the oil sands. He insisted that development should be SLOW so NOT to overproduce . Built the Heritage Fund up

Then comes Ralph and Alberta has the lowest Royalties in the World, spends all the heritage fund sells off crowns to get rid of debt
No Royalties collected on oilsands projects Till the projects are finished- which creates add ones ,so royalties Don’t Start
Ralph was the Best Premier,oil money could buy

Alberta’s Problem is Caused by Government Policy than lack of pipelines . There NEVER should have been this much oil development in th3 oil sands Without refining capacity as Peter Lougheed imagined

I guess this makes sense wasn't Ralph a card carrying Liberal before he became Premier ?

[GDR]

Alberta’s Downfall and who created the mess was Ralph

Peter Lougheed charged higher royalties, got Refining going for the oil sands. He insisted that development should be SLOW so NOT to overproduce . Built the Heritage Fund up

Then comes Ralph and Alberta has the lowest Royalties in the World, spends all the heritage fund sells off crowns to get rid of debt
No Royalties collected on oilsands projects Till the projects are finished- which creates add ones ,so royalties Don’t Start
Ralph was the Best Premier,oil money could buy

Alberta’s Problem is Caused by Government Policy than lack of pipelines . There NEVER should have been this much oil development in th3 oil sands Without refining capacity as Peter Lougheed imagined

Ralph did not blow the heritage fund, still 17.5billion in there now.

What lots seem to forget is Ralph listened to the public (not saying public makes good decisions) At the time Albertans were given options and where able to vote on how to proceed on debt/heritage trust fund/ health care etc. Not too often Joe Blow ever gets any input into how tax dollars are spent.

Ralph helped oil and industry expand no question. Is that a bad thing to create high paying jobs and opportunity for working class people? Even yesterday on our local radio station Suncor is advertising for heavy equip operators for its Ft McMurray mine, and that is during an oil downturn. Jobs & industry are required to have a tax base to support the province. The economy in Alberta and Canada would be quite a bit different without the oilsands development over the last 20 yrs that is undeniable.

[GDR]

And yes Horse is right. We have no good alternatives in the provincial or federal conservatives. Very disappointing. Locally have good MLA and MP but that doesn't matter when they are not allowed to think for themselves in our political system.

[mustardman]

Ralph biggest downfall was he Let Oil Companies Write the rules

Lots of Activity but the Only revenue that ended up in govt coffers was from income tax, LOWEST royalties in the world ,
Look at Norway’s revenue on a MuCh smaller amount of oil resources

When Little Brad was elected here, Calgary who had A lot of Leverage with Sask Party,convinced him to do the same.

[GDR]

Ralph biggest downfall was he Let Oil Companies Write the rules

Lots of Activity but the Only revenue that ended up in govt coffers was from income tax, LOWEST royalties in the world ,
Look at Norway’s revenue on a MuCh smaller amount of oil resources

When Little Brad was elected here, Calgary who had A lot of Leverage with Sask Party,convinced him to do the same.

Thats the same BS that the NDP was spewing at election time about royalties and such and how they were gonna do it different and be so great for Albertans. Guess what, they did a review of the system at huge cost to taxpayers and they come up with the conclusion that the royalty system was fair and did no changes.