How the UCP is defending its budget cuts in Alberta
Posted on 03-03-2020
In almost every interview with UCP officials in Alberta a recurring theme in the defence of any of their policies is by bringing up how much other provinces are spending on this or that. You see, they say, we need to cut spending on higher education because Alberta spends this much more on it than, say, Saskatchewan or Ontario. The same is with healthcare or any other expenditure brought up. They don’t entertain the idea that the more we Albertans are spending per capita on university education, for example, might have brought better results than in Saskatchewan or in Ontario. They don’t want to bother to measure or evaluate that. Or what we spend on health care. Maybe, just maybe, spending more results in higher quality of service. By and large, more public spending on pubic services yields better services for the public, wherever you look in the world.
By comparing yourself to your immediate neighbour and pegging your spending to their level is a weak argument. It leads to a race to the bottom phenomena. “My neighbour spends less on maintaining the driveway; therefore, I need to spend equally or less then him.” Likewise, the conservative neighbour argues the same: if Alberta spends less, we need to spend less. This drives down the level of public spending on public services.
It completely ignores that we have set standards for ourselves with our spending. It reflects who we are as a people, better than this race to the bottom game. Besides, the followers of this game are not too farsighted. UCP does not compare the level of spending, let’s say to Switzerland, or Sweden or Finland. We don’t look to learn from them. We rather learn that Saskatchewan spends less on education than we do.
I am not arguing for runaway public spending. But setting standards for ourselves and keeping or bettering them, yes.