Alberta Pension Plan- conversation with retired professors at UofA

<br/>Nov. 6, 2023, Bob Ascah, AB POL ECON

I was excited to present to retired professors from the University of Alberta last Thursday my views on the marketing campaign by the Alberta government to “engage” the public on the supposed benefits of an Alberta pension plan.

My focus was on the political messaging.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmZOzoGao1E

The political messaging created by the Government of Alberta is an expensive communications effort (close to $10-million of Albertans’ tax dollars). The friendly website “Alberta Pension Plan” begins with “What’s in it for you.” The web page design is classically an appeal to Albertans’ sense of place and community with pictures of the Rockies and foothills and wistful pictures of a handsome seniors’ couple.

The pitch focuses mainly on the benefits that would be supposedly available to Albertans of all ages. The communications program is based on the unrealistic prospects of Alberta claiming 53 per cent of the Canada Pension Plan’s assets. This yields a fictional annual savings of $5-billion a year. This $5-billion a year of “benefits” gives the government the capacity to act beneficently towards seniors, workers and employers. This bait and switch strategy includes “bonus’ payments to seniors and up to $1425 per year per worker and employers in reduced premiums.

Another important political message is “More Alberta, Less Ottawa”- always a good dog whistle in Alberta politics where Justin Trudeau and Trudeau Pere are popular villains.

The question-and-answer period touched on the social, economic, and other issues. One concern was the long-term future stability of the APP given the province’s economic base a volatile fossil fuel economy. |Read more https://abpolecon.ca/2023/11/06/alberta-pension-plan-conversation-with-retired-professors-at-uofa/| abpolecon.ca/2023/11/06/albert…

##abpoli #ableg #BobAscah #pensioners #UofA #APP #smith #misinformation

Take Back Alberta completes take over of UCP board

Well, it looks as if the United Conservative Party’s (UCP) extremist Take Back Alberta (TBA) faction now controls all the seats on the party’s board.

Some guy named Rob Smith who you’ve likely never heard of if you don’t happen to live in Olds or Didsbury is now the party president.

I frankly doubt there’s anyone in the UCP caucus who has the intestinal fortitude to stand up against such thuggery. So some really nightmarish policies may indeed become law, hurting many Albertans as intended, but also weakening the political strength of the UCP-TBA.

No, I mean that it’s not much of an accomplishment because the UCP is already so debased from the days of the Progressive Conservative Party in Alberta that it wasn’t a very steep hill for the conservative movement’s MAGA fringe to climb.

But face it, while it may be taking a while to sink in with rural voters, the UCP had already gone pretty well full MAGA by the time Jason Kenney was done with it.

Kenney couldn’t control the demons he let out of the bottle and they devoured him as well. (There’s plenty of historical precedent for that phenomenon, isn’t there? I give you Maximilien Robespierre! Thump.)

But by the time Parker and his big ego came along and Smith was chosen to replace Kenney, the UCP had already gone down the rabbit hole. Old style conservatives had mostly been run out of the party. The few that remained were having their doubts. |Read more https://rabble.ca/politics/canadian-politics/take-back-alberta-completes-take-over-of-ucp-board/| rabble.ca/politics/canadian-po…

#abpoli #TBA #kenney #smith #parker #MAGA #caucus #ableg

No, Justin Trudeau is not hated

There’s reason to doubt Justin Trudeau can win another election – today’s polls make a pretty strong case he would come out on the short end if he runs again. But if he did lose, it would have less to do with people disliking him and more to do with people simply growing tired of hearing from him.

In our spark*insights survey of 2,000 people across Canada in the month of October, we asked whether people have a positive or negative view of the major national party political leaders, but offered some more nuanced answer categories for people to choose from.

Across Canada 20% like Trudeau, 25% are “so-so” on him and 20% dislike him. The plurality say, “I’m tired of him”, at 36%. The combination of dislike and “tired of” amounts to 56%, compared to 41% for Pierre Poilievre and 40% for Jagmeet Singh. |Read more https://sparkadvocacy.ca/insights/2023/11/no-justin-trudeau-is-not-hated| sparkadvocacy.ca/insights/2023…

#cdnpoli #trudeau #popularity #survey

Dum dum dum.. dum…

https://libranet.de/photos/stevem/image/1480717875654865259f8eb567008106

Justin Trudeau: The Speech He Never Gave

Note from Steve:

I didn’t vote for Trudeau. He’s made some mistakes. But, he cares about people and he cares about Canada… maybe more than the other political leaders

Let’s be clear that the chief culprit behind high energy costs is record profiteering by fossil fuel companies, not carbon pricing. The independent governor of the Bank of Canada, Tiff Macklem, says carbon pricing has added just under one-sixth of 1% to the inflation rate, and that’s before factoring in the quarterly rebate. Energy prices are going through the roof because they’ve been driven up by Vladimir Putin’s brutal war in Ukraine. Oil and gas companies have been only too happy to pass those gains on to their shareholders. That largely explains the higher bills you’ve been paying for energy, and for food and other essentials whose price is influenced by energy costs.

‘Big Lie’ Propaganda

But you wouldn’t know any of that if you tuned in to the Leader of the Opposition’s “Axe the Tax” rallies—except, of course, for the ones that had to be cancelled last summer because of local wildfires. Or if you listened to the “big lie” propaganda coming from provinces like Alberta, where Premier Danielle Smith is pitching the preposterous threat that you’ll freeze in the dark if we move to decarbonize Canada’s electricity grids by 2035—a necessary, forward-looking step that we fully intend to take.

Ask yourself this: Why would any national government want any region or any household to freeze in the dark? By what logic, and to what end? If that were really our nefarious hidden agenda, why would we have set up a carbon price rebate that benefits households in Alberta and Saskatchewan more than in any other province?

And if Premier Smith were really out to protect her province and ensure its economic prosperity, why would she steadfastly dismiss solar, wind, and storage technologies that are practical, ready for prime time, and less expensive in Alberta than a new gas plant built today? In a province that was leading the country in renewable energy deployment before she introduced a seven-month project moratorium that rural mayors didn’t particularly want, imperilling business activity worth $33 billion and 24,000 jobs in communities desperate to diversify their economies?|Read more https://open.substack.com/pub/energymixweekender/p/justin-trudeau-the-speech-he-never?r=9kvzk&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web| open.substack.com/pub/energymi…

#abpoli #cdnpoli #energy #carbonTax #trudeau #poilievre #smith