It was back around midsummer when Ed Stelmach squelched all the chatter among his cabinet ministers about the possibility, if not probability of tax increases to counter the worsening Alberta deficit. Among the cabinet types who’d openly mused that raising taxes would indeed be a point of discussion, if only in a very preliminary manner, were finance minister Iris Evans and treasury board president Lloyd Snelgrove.
The premier strode into the government media room in Calgary, accompanied by his two errant ministers, and proceeded to deliver a monologue which put both of them in their place.
“There will be no new taxes, period,” quoth Stelmach, “so don’t talk about it.” The ministerial duo, one on either side of the premier, stood mute and chastened and since that day have said not a word about taxes. It was an abrupt and forceful and highly public dressing down by Stelmach, not only of Evans and Snelgrove, but anyone else in the Conservative cabinet and caucus who might dare to henceforth mutter about raising taxes.
And when fast Eddie had concluded his remarks, he walked purposefully from the room, with Evans and Snelgrove trailing along like waterbugs in his wake. One suspects they were committing to memory the mantra of George Bush # 1: “Read my lips: no new taxes.”
As it happens, George Bush #1 hastily abandoned his promise when conditions in the American economy were clearly spelled out for him, but here in Alberta Snelgrove and Evans, along with the entire Stelmach crew, have apparently absorbed the message from the boss and now spend their days devoting themselves to reduced spending.
So let us deliver credit where credit is due, even if a good many critics still contend the Stelmachians are too late to the table of restraint, and laying too little upon it. Perhaps so, but Snelgrove and Evans recently appeared once again in the Calgary media hall, Evans to present the third quarter fiscal update for the current year, and Snelgrove to offer fresh evidence the government is responding to the unremitting gloom of its numbers.
Cue the confession. “We were at the all-you-can-eat buffet for ten years,” said Snelgrove, “and Albertans were lined up with us.” In other words, the government was pigging out on spending, urged on by cities and towns large and small whose governing officials wanted in on the feast. “I don’t think,” continued Snelgrove, “the government did anything more than what Albertans were looking for. When you were out on the election campaign, no one said ‘please leave my town out for a new school or road widening, or a new hospital’”
And then Snelgrove admitted the government, confronted by those incessant demands to spend like sailors numbed by grog ”could have been a bit more prudent.” And he even agreed that Stelmach’s ministers, and before them the Ralph Klein ministers, had pretty much lost control of financial oversight to the bureaucrats.
But Snelgrove proclaimed those days are over. The Stelmachians, under orders from the Premier himself, have already pared about $430 million dollars from spending by tidying up bits and pieces of administrative overlap, and they’re promising another $2 billion dollar spending reduction in the budget for next year.
That’s a fair whack of money, except when compared with deficit projections which still exceed $4 billion. But they’re whittling and assure us they’re about to lop – which would suggest the buffet table has been pretty much cleared away and the menu is now prix fixe instead of a la carte. Snelgrove and his colleagues have audibly exhaled, and relieved themselves, it seems, of their financial indigestion.
But here’s the thing. Snelgrove insists, and there’s no reason to disbelieve him, that Ed Stelmach issued stern orders during his very first cabinet meeting, in December 2006, that his ministers were to get a grip on government finances. Above all, they were to rid Alberta of the wild fiscal pendulum which would swing on the one hand toward prodigious spending during the good times, and axe-swinging cuts during the bad.
I have several observations about all of this. To begin with, I understand the politics of government spending, especially when every municipal reeve and small town mayor in Alberta (and the big city leaders, too) demands a share of resource boom boodle. I understand too how the bureaucracy can get control of government money, especially if cabinet ministers are distracted by leadership conventions, and elections, and other such sideshows.
But I also understand that competent, assured governance (Margaret Thatcher in the early years springs to mind) demands in turn that premiers and cabinet ministers must be resolutely disciplined. They have to learn how to say “no,” to constituent pleadings for money, especially in boom or buffet times when their view of the future tends to compress to the electoral exigencies of the present. Spread the cash around, buy re-election, and forget about the bust which will assuredly come. And of course, come it has, and so we’ll now see if austerity is to be a question of government expediency dictated by the moment — or long term policy arising from hard lessons learned.
The critical chapter in the tale, however, is this: Ed Stelmach has said repeatedly he thinks his financial policies are sound, his prescription for economic restoration correct, but everything’s been fouled up because the government hasn’t been able to communicate effectively. And furthermore, accurate communication isn’t easy, no sir not easy at all, “with the type of media we have here.”
Dammit. Just when I acknowledge there’s been one step forward, it appears I’m mistaken and there are two back. It’s all our fault. The Wildrose Alliance and Danielle Smith are mere figments of media imagination: the polls are a dreadful case of manipulation by radio, TV, and newspapers: the Calgary-Glenmore byelection disaster would have actually been triumph were it not for the wretched fourth estate.
I need to be clear. The media is not without issues, it’s not pristine, and most of its population is ill-acquainted with politics and economics. But it doesn’t cook the message, and that’s something Stelmach has to figure out, while at the same time schooling himself to become far more relaxed and confident in dealing with us.
In that context, permit me to pose the following question to Mr. Stelmach. If, as your loyal and sturdy treasury board president says, you delivered instructions at your first cabinet meeting to get a handle on government finances, why has it taken almost three years for your administration let the public know about that order, in plain language?
Seems to me there’s a communications issue, all right, but I promise you it doesn’t reside with the media. On the contrary, the premier should examine his own shop, because that’’s where he’ll find the problem.