A Day in the Life 7: Alberta 2015 Budget Review
Welcome to another Day in the Life of Mr. Fireplace. I of course am the one, the only Mr. F, Head of Security, Public Relations and Other Important Stuff here at Mr. Fireplace.
I have come to the realization about something recently. No not my slow male pattern baldness as a result of years and years of wearing my hat, or even if the Flames are totally going to win the cup (cause no doubt, they TOTALLY ARE! GO FLAMES GO!). No it is that I feel as though I absolutely love to review just about anything. In fact I would probably review the pen I was using to write this post had I not done it on a computer. So in the spirit of my YouTube series “Fireplace Reviews by Mr. Fireplace” (nice plug, no seriously check it out here, subscribe, enjoy), I bring to you
Now I’m just a regular Joe Consumer like you. I go home after a long day of work to Mrs. Fireplace every night with our 2.5 children and dog and cat and random mouse that has taken up residency in my house. This is what makes me qualified to review this budget. Let us begin!
You were a spoiled rich kid and now papa is taking away your spoon
Well to start, Alberta in the past has spent about $1300 per capita more over the national average.
This year they will be reducing spending by 1.9 billion dollars. All in the while creating 1.5 Billion in new revenue. How will they do this, well join me on a magical journey as we find out.
Health Care Levy’s, Fee’s, Taxes
Pretty much anything that can directly affect you with an increase here will happen. For starters, want to live and have health care? Well that’ll cost ya! Wanna put fuel in that der fancy vehicle? That’ll cost ya! Wanna have a nice bottle of wine with your wife? That’ll cost ya!
In fact the following common day to day living things that most Albertans will have to deal with will go up with increases to fuel, alcohol, tobacco, insurance premiums & traffic tickets.
Due to the fact that these hard times are hitting so many local businesses so hard, the government has decided not to increase corporate taxes for the up coming year.
The Alberta government claim that over half of last years budget was spent on public sectors commissions including nurses, doctors and teachers. So to combat this they will be laying off 2000 people creating a savings of an estimated 200 million.
Infrastructure
As a whole they will reduce spending. The spending on hospitals and new schools will be going up in 2015.
However the last quarter of the ring road here in Calgary will not be complete for another 5 years so…
Future Saving
By 2019/20 the government hopes to reduce the portion of oil revenue contributing to the Heritage fund, etc to 50%
As a whole I’m super torn about having to give this budget a review. In my YouTube web series “Fireplace Reviews by Mr. Fireplace I have never given anything lower than 5 little Mr. F’s out of 5 (plug number two. Oh here’s the video in case you missed it earlier).
I have decided to give the 2015 Alberta Budget, an official review of
I am forced to lean that way due to the following.
- Budget and Awesome very rarely go together anyway
- You are politicians. Get used to it. No one will ever agree with what you do or say.
- I will feel the direct effect to my bottom line of paying higher gas tax and new health care premiums
- It costs me and Mrs. Fireplace more to drink a bottle of wine
- It will cost my tobacco loving evil twin Mr. Placeofire (or Mr. P as he insists to be called) more to smoke.
- For the next 5 years countless people’s lives will be lost due to them driving off the face of the earth where our ¾ ring road ends (I am assuming that is where the end of the earth is, I have never been much west of Deerfoot Tr. On Stoney Trail out of fear of the end of it).
- 2000 less jobs for Albertans.
- All this with an estimated 15 Billion deficit still.
What are you thoughts on the 2015 Alberta Budget? Would you give it an That’s Awesome, or a That’s Not Awesome? Leave it in your comments below.