My Speeches

Motion 502: Reduction of Personal Income Tax

Posted on Oct 11, 2008

Aprils 28^th, 2008

The Speaker: The hon. Member for Battle River-
Wainwright.

Mr. Griffiths: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s a pleasure for me today to rise to speak to Motion 502, introduced by the hon. Member for Calgary-
Fish Creek. I would like to begin by praising the Member
for Calgary-
Fish Creek for her diligence and hard work. In the six
years that I’ve been a member of this Assembly, I must confess that I’ve always found the member to be incredibly thoughtful, very diligent, and always well researched in any proposal that she’s ever introduced. I know that the member, in every decision that I’ve ever seen her make, has always considered how it impacts families first, number one. So I really respect the member for that because I know that the intent of this motion is to consider how it will impact and benefit families first and foremost.
Now, I also find it very interesting that the first two motions that were introduced in this brand new Assembly happen to both be about taxes, income tax in particular, Mr. Speaker. I think that perhaps it’s time for a lot more discussion about taxes in this House, and this is just the beginning.
Mr. Speaker, some of the comments that were made suggested
that this is not a good idea because we have such a hot economy. “ We don’t need to stimulate the economy anymore. It doesn’t need to be goosed; it doesn’t need to be fired up. It’s already hot.” That’s not the issue, and I don’t think that’s the intent, why this needs to be done or needs to be addressed.
Quite frankly, this is an incredibly wealthy province. We all know that. Sometimes we disagree on how much we should spend: maybe we should spend more; perhaps we should spend less. This is an incredibly wealthy province, and we can set the pace for anyone else in the country by doing some pretty remarkable things. But the real question now, when we talk about how wealthy this province is, is: how much wealth is enough for the government of Alberta ? This is not about how wealthy Albertans are. This is not about how wealthy we should be. This is about how much money is enough for the government of Alberta to operate.
Now, there are three different scenarios that any government can operate under. The first, which I’m sad to say most provinces in this country and, in fact, most jurisdictions in North America operate under, is this sort of deficit finance. They don’t take in as much tax revenue as they need in order to pay for the programs they want to

provide for their citizens. So they run deficits, Mr. Speaker, which accumulate into debt. That’s, quite frankly, undertaxation, and it’s just another tax. Only it’s not a tax on the people who are working and functioning today in society; it’s a tax on the next generation because they’ll be the ones who pay for it.
7: 50
I think most members in this Assembly, regardless of what party they come from, will agree that we’re wealthy enough that we should never have to consider whether or not deficit financing and undertaxation is an option in this province, Mr. Speaker, particularly because it can be incredibly detrimental to any country, any province, any jurisdiction. I mean, that’s why Alberta has a triple- A
credit rating: we have no more debt; we don’t run deficits. They’re confident in our economy and the way we manage things. But in other jurisdictions the larger the debt, the more significant the deficit year to year, the lower their credit rating, their bond rating, is and the higher the interest they have to pay because money lenders start to lose confidence in the government’s ability to actually manage under sound fiscal policies.
Equally devastating to running deficits, Mr. Speaker, is govern-ment running significant surpluses. Now, this is very significant, and this is the reason why I think members of the Liberal Party and members of the New Democratic Party should support this motion. When the government takes in vast amounts of money, it is
overtaxation.
Our fundamental purpose, our fundamental principle is to take in enough money to pay for the programs we provide our citizens. We’re not supposed to take in less money, because we’d just tax the next generation. We’d just defer the payments. But neither should we take more money because, quite frankly, if we’re running
surpluses and we’re saving money, we’re taking money out of the pockets of citizens today that could be buying homes, that could be buying vehicles, that could be paying down debts and credit cards, that could be saving or investing. We’re pulling money right out of their pockets that they would normally spend to help stimulate the economy and do some remarkable things. We’re overtaxing the
people of Alberta .
Now, when you operate in an economy like Alberta’s, that is very cyclical, that runs like agriculture does, that runs like the oil patch does, where we’ll have large revenues over a few years and then we’ll have short revenues over a few years, we have to plan. We have to save for those times when we will experience sharp declines in our revenue forecast. But we have ample vehicles in place already for saving for those sorts of contingencies. We already have incredible amounts of wealth saved.
The next question we have to ask is not: how much more should we save? In a hot economy where people are having challenges being able to afford houses in a rising housing market, where people are having trouble just making ends meet – perhaps sometimes it’s of their own doing, but oftentimes it’s not – do we need to take more off their paycheques to subsidize our spending habits, which we already have adequate supplies to subsidize?
Mr. Speaker, it doesn’t really matter which political party you belong to in this House. It doesn’t really matter whether you think we need to save $ 5 billion or $ 50 billion or how much we should save. We’re talking about a small amount of money that will go right into the hands, into the pockets of the people in this province that need it the most to deal with and make choices on their quality of life and standard of living. They’re the ones that are best and most able to decide where that money should go.
I want to praise the member again for bringing this back. I want to remind all members that in my six years this is the very first time

Alberta Hansard April 28, 2008 278

that the first two motions have been about taxation, and I hope that we do enter a broader discussion in this House in the near future about how much we do need in taxes. I applaud the member again for doing this. I encourage every member, regardless of what party you come from, to give this some serious consideration, and instead of collecting more money to spend on the people of Alberta , give it back to them so they can make their own decisions, and support this motion.
Thank you.