Unpublished Op-Ed submitted to the Toronto Star

The one-sided whining by Jason Kenney about his province’s unfair treatment and their “alienation” under the equalization framework is post-election delusional anxiety. Like most extreme-right neoconservatives he has a huge blind spot when it comes to the profits of the oil patch and how they are shared with society. He believes that the private sector should pay for nothing and the citizens of Canada should pay for everything. It has become our two economic solitudes. It is an adversarial mentality that has created gross wealth and abject poverty around the world and its getting worse not better. The miniscule oil taxes that Alberta sends to the rest of Canada are a fraction of their profits that belong to Canadians.

Alberta’s oil profits are Canada’s just as B.C.s timber, Ontario’s manufactured goods, and Quebec’s natural resources are all Canada’s. Jason Kenney’s tunnel-vision has conveniently forgotten that this great country is made up of the sum of its parts, not warring separate interests that coalesce as long as there’s a self-centered reason to. Regionalism and populism are popular today. They benefit no one except a miniscule fraction of the rich and the powerful who have convinced society that there are two parallel societies in Canada – the private sector and the public. The vast majority who are powerless like most Albertans are simply corporate cannon fodder. Our entire political spectrum has shifted to the extreme right so that extremism has become normalized. We are stronger together. The rich provinces subsidize the poorer ones which should be no surprise to Premier Kenney who will now benefit from this arrangement. He will find being a conservative premier during a downturn is diametrically opposed to being a premier in an upturn.

What has happened in Alberta and all over Canada and around the world under globalization is that private sector corporations that are larger than any one province or one country have conspired to control the world economically and in doing so have become the government. They have sacrificed the people of Canada to the god of greed. The collapse in Alberta is due to the collapse in oil prices in a single-resource province which the private sector should have seen coming a mile away. The boom and bust mentality means saving nothing during the boom times and getting out when the downturn hits. Worker’s don’t have that option. If Conservative governments in Alberta had taxed oil profits effectively and put money aside for the inevitable negative down-cycle like Norway did this situation would not have happened. Instead of sending hundreds of billions to wealthy corporations and faceless shareholders the oil industry should have been forced through taxation to be much more prudent and responsible with their profits. The province should have saved for a rainy day just as their employees should have. The miniscule equalization payments they sent to the federal government were mere bagatelle compared to the hundreds of billions the private sector were raking in. Alberta’s premiers turned a blind eye and gave the private sector free reign. Alberta’s oil should have brought in huge amounts of renue to the Alberta treasury and the federal government. This is why profits should be transparent so that Canadians can see how much is being made and how much tax is being paid.

Jason Kenney and his ilk should be whining to the oil industry and asking them to explain where all the money went – rather than the federal government.  He should be asking them why Alberta crude is being sold at fire-sale prices versus the world oil price. He should be diversifying Alberta’s economy rather than depending on oil and cattle for Alberta’s future – two climate killers. He should build a refinery and sell the finished fuel to all takers. This is not about equalization it’s about greed. Pensions, healthcare, full-time work are all a thing of the past under our contracted-out globalized world. The question is how long will governments fall for this lower corporate taxes to succeed nonsense. The opposite is true.

So there are a lot of reasons to whine but virtually none of them are government related. Like a true neoconservative Jason Kenney’s response is doubling down on corporate tax cuts and austerity. Corporate tax cuts have proven to be completely ineffective in creating jobs. Austerity is a well-worn strategy that involves cutting government services. You can’t cut your way to success. We have been living in perpetual austerity for thirty years since Ronald Regan due to the fact that the private sector pays no or very little taxes every year while making stratospheric profits and promising jobs that never materialize. Meanwhile personal taxes have gone through the roof to pay for the corporate tx cuts. Individual Canadians pay more – much more and get less – much less.

Turn your guns on the private sector Premier Kenney and leave us alone.