Today is the two month anniversary of the first day of a UCP government. Since that day, our government has cut almost $2 billion dollars in revenue to increase our annual deficit by, (I bet you didn’t guess)… $1.5 billion dollars!

Oh, because that $2 billion in revenue actually paid down some of the deficit each year. But not anymore! Alberta is officially (sort of) carbon tax free (except big emitters) and that means… it doesn’t show up on your bill as a tax. It will find its way into admin fees or transportation fees or, you know, anywhere that you don’t have to be bothered by it, while still paying. Not quite the best, but probably among the best. 

According to the UCP, Alberta’s protections for youth have moved from “the strongest” to “among the strongest“. It would make a nice license plate or a bumper sticker; no? I’m sure when all the UCP supporters cast their ballots they were hoping for a government that could pull up the provincial bootstraps and legislate our way down to “among the strongest”.

A couple of weeks ago we were treated to the the bizarre tweet from Jason Copping, Alberta’s Labour Minister, that seemed to celebrate moving from the highest minimum wage for all to the 4th highest minimum wage for youth.

Perhaps it was a dog whistle for a few more A&Ws or a new GAP; jobs are jobs, right? Not in Alberta.

As we saw over the last five years, Albertans rally for oil. Albertans rally to support those who put their blood, sweat, and tears into a life away from home to make the good money. They also boycott businesses that support other Alberta families with frightening ease. Some jobs matter, like oilfield jobs, and some don’t; like Albertans negotiating a contract.   

However, we will rally together for any Albertan if their town floods or burns down, and so will Canada as a whole but they owe us – it’s only fair. And no, we don’t want to pay for climate change-related issues. We will face climate change with every gun in our arsenal; and twitter bots… we’ll enlist some of them, too. 

Because we’re #AlbertaStrong. 

Or #AlbertaAmongTheStrongest. It may not be quite as catchy but it’s literally the best we’ve been offered by the UCP so far. 

This post contains fact and a more-than-generous helping of snark.

Deirdre Mitchell-MacLean

contact: [email protected]

Twitter: @Mitchell_AB for all the commentary, @thisweekinAB for posts.