Alberta's $35,000 brochure: politics as usual

The opposition Wildrose Party has gotten itself worked up over the government's use of $350,000 for a glossy, eight-page information brochure, decked out in Tory Party colours, to be sent out to all the province's households. Orange and blue have been the official Alberta colours since, like, forever.

The Alberta NDP and Liberal parties are likewise put out that taxpayer dollars have been used to inform Albertans of its government's accomplishments. If a government wanted to inform people — in its own words, not those of an intermediary, like a reporter or columnist — of what it's doing, where else would the funding come from?

This vast amount of spending cost each taxpayer what? About 20 cents?

Wildrose leader Danielle Smith says that amount is more than the cost of building a safe house for abused women in Calgary. Really? Remodelling an existing building to be a shelter, perhaps, but to also actually run it? I sort of doubt that.

Anyhow, women's groups should be watching for Wildrose announcements of promises of support for safe housing. Apparently, it's a whole lot cheaper than building schools.

At least NDP leader Brian Mason was able to step beyond the obvious in his critique. He suggested the mailout titled Report To Taxpayers has less to do with informing voters about government work, than informing Tory Party members that they have a leader worth supporting at the upcoming leadership review.

In either case, getting one's 20 cents' worth of coloured ink isn't going to change the world.

The government will be the government until the next election in three years. When that happens, $350,000 in partisan spending will be chump change (We just expect that the parties themselves will fundraise the amounts. No bending of the rules, now, kids.)

As for the party leadership review, only chumps would vote anything other than resounding support for leader Alison Redford at this stage of the game. Not unless they actually wanted to just hand the reins of government to Wildrose immediately and disappear forever.

Can you imagine a seasoned political group like the Alberta Tories sending a lame-duck premier into the Legislature at this point in the cycle? Ain't gonna happen, folks.

So all this brochure brouhaha is really just politics as usual. The Tories are keeping their bases covered, the opposition parties are keeping the heat on any issue that rises on a particular day — and we pay for it all.

Really, this isn't such a bad deal. When you get your brochure, take the time to read it. If you're like me (which would be a really sad reflection on life in Red Deer), you'll make notes, underline stuff, and backcheck items that interest you.

You'll try to see what's missing in the report — like how long the government expects to take repaying the cumulative debt it has incurred so far, plus the debt it expects to take on before the next election.

You'll want some assurance the infrastructure projects being built today will pay for themselves while their part of the debt is being repaid.

I'd want to see the brochure show me easy access to a web site that publishes the daily price gap for bitumen versus the West Texas price for crude. The Advocate publishes the WTI crude price every day, but I want to see the price upon which our royalties get paid.

I'll also be looking for specific numbers of dollars that will be put into the Heritage Fund today, and for years to come. Any party that cannot tell me that will never get my vote, in any election.

Advance copies of the brochure were handed out to Legislature reporters, but no mention was made on any of these issues. Just the colours and the cost.

So far, all colour and fluff. No substance. Politics as usual, and we all pay for it.

The most substantial comments I could find on this came from the Globe and Mail. They compared the brochure to a short video recently produced by the Alberta Federation of Labour. 

The video (which can be seen on Youtube) cost $50,000 in union dues to make, and another $185,000 to have it shown in movie houses, as entertainment before the main feature.

It shows a rich guy in an opulent office being served ice cream by a shapely assistant who smiles into the camera as she puts a gold bar through a shaving machine to create golden sprinkles for the rich guy's sundae.

“Thank you, Alberta, for making me sooooo wealthy” the guy says, slipping a silver spoon of ice cream into his mouth.

I wonder what the union membership thinks about their dues (submitted in part, I expect, by the government, and therefore the taxpayer) going to that little project?

Also politics as usual.