UCP supporters why you so silent?

[ExtraSlow]

Why do you hate teachers?!?!?!?!?!?!!?!

[dirtsniffer]

surpised to see the media even cover it.

[flipstah]

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Well look at that - they figured it out. All they had to do was communicate. $15M is what was needed to keep those teachers on hand, and what they needed was the minister to allow them to reallocate the funds. Amazing what happens when you look at your finances, identify opportunities, and go back to your decision maker with a plan.

https://calgaryherald.com/news/local...eacher-layoffs

[hampstor]

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Quell surprise, there were efficiencies to be found

Not sure if that's an efficiency just yet, but it reads like re-prioritization of items in the budget, and then deferring maintenance to save FTEs in the current fiscal year. They still have to see if they can actually find efficiencies otherwise the deferred maintenance is going to catch up on top of not being able to pay for those FTEs next year.

[Cagare]

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Having any one sector responsible for more than a quarter of our GDP is irresponsible. Would you allow your investment portfolio to be that focused on a single asset class or industry?

There's nothing wrong with a strong and thriving O&G sector. There is something wrong when that's our sole focus.

That's an interesting comment given that most people have more than that % of their net worth tied up in a single asset, their home (if they own it). It's actually closer to 76% tied up in real estate for all Canadians. Unless you are over 55 I wouldn't worry about having 26% of your net worth tied to a single asset in terms of risk.

Of course that's slightly different than GDP approach. Mining/quarrying/oil/gas is 3rd in the top industries in Canada for GDP at $147 Million (hilariously just ahead of health care and social assistance). Manufacturing and real estate are ahead of it. Not to say it isn't big, but certainly more balanced on the national scale (maybe less so provincially)

On a whole I am more concerned at how much real estate is making up of our GDP as a country because it is the largest at $252 Million and it isn't something you can export like natural resources or manufactured goods which could cause issues on the demand side.

[Cagare]

With regards to the Calgary Catholic Board, they anticipated these exact cuts at the beginning of the year and hired accordingly. They delayed their hiring program late last year to ensure they would only hired the teachers they required to minimize the risk of potential layoffs mid year, because they understand how disruptive it is to both the teachers and the students to make changes as such. Any changes they made they made in the first few weeks of school, which was based solely on enrollment, because sometimes kids that are supposed to show up don't and new ones show up elsewhere and don't notify the schools accordingly.

I have had family that has work for both the CBE and the Calgary Catholic. My opinion of the management at the CBE is extremely low for a number of reasons not just fiscal and the position they took is not surprising to me. The Calgary Catholic by comparison is quite well run, and really takes into consideration the impacts they have on families. I have speculated with my family that works in the board that this is due to the fact that the Catholic board funding is always at risk, at least they perceive it to be, so they try to run themselves that way and be responsible, not just financially but with decisions around how they do report cards, or run the day to day.

The notice that was shared on here actually was distributed to every parent in the board last week, and it's just preparing for eventual changes to fees, and other programs. They have stated explicitly that they are trying to ensure that the impacts on individual classrooms is small, and I believe they will be doing just that.

[Buster]

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That's an interesting comment given that most people have more than that % of their net worth tied up in a single asset, their home (if they own it). It's actually closer to 76% tied up in real estate for all Canadians. Unless you are over 55 I wouldn't worry about having 26% of your net worth tied to a single asset in terms of risk.

Of course that's slightly different than GDP approach. Mining/quarrying/oil/gas is 3rd in the top industries in Canada for GDP at $147 Million (hilariously just ahead of health care and social assistance). Manufacturing and real estate are ahead of it. Not to say it isn't big, but certainly more balanced on the national scale (maybe less so provincially)

On a whole I am more concerned at how much real estate is making up of our GDP as a country because it is the largest at $252 Million and it isn't something you can export like natural resources or manufactured goods which could cause issues on the demand side.

This is correct. People are confusing "Asset" with "cash flow".

Somewhat different concerns. But suggesting the Alberta should "diversify away from Oil and Gas" is like telling someone that has a good job to quit it and start up a bunch of lower paying jobs instead. It makes no sense.

If people want to start new businesses here, they are welcome to do so. Nobody is stopping them. But suggesting that we should limit the earning from energy as the way to "diversify" (hate that term). People are suggesting we accomplish this not by growing the small businesses into big ones, but by turning our big ones into small ones. It's just silly.

[vengie]

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This is correct. People are confusing "Asset" with "cash flow".

Somewhat different concerns. But suggesting the Alberta should "diversify away from Oil and Gas" is like telling someone that has a good job to quit it and start up a bunch of lower paying jobs instead. It makes no sense.

If people want to start new businesses here, they are welcome to do so. Nobody is stopping them. But suggesting that we should limit the earning from energy as the way to "diversify" (hate that term). People are suggesting we accomplish this not by growing the small businesses into big ones, but by turning our big ones into small ones. It's just silly.

Great analogy

"You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Buster again."

[pheoxs]

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This is correct. People are confusing "Asset" with "cash flow".

Somewhat different concerns. But suggesting the Alberta should "diversify away from Oil and Gas" is like telling someone that has a good job to quit it and start up a bunch of lower paying jobs instead. It makes no sense.

If people want to start new businesses here, they are welcome to do so. Nobody is stopping them. But suggesting that we should limit the earning from energy as the way to "diversify" (hate that term). People are suggesting we accomplish this not by growing the small businesses into big ones, but by turning our big ones into small ones. It's just silly.

"diversify" doesn't mean we have to kill the oil industry. But it does mean we have to try and focus efforts on growing other industries.

It just doesn't make sense to cut funding and tax credits that are targeted towards start ups and developing technologies while in the same stroke we are giving massive tax cuts to huge corporations. That doesn't help us in the long term, we already saw with Husky that they will just pocket hundreds of millions while still laying people off.

[A790]

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This is correct. People are confusing "Asset" with "cash flow".

Somewhat different concerns. But suggesting the Alberta should "diversify away from Oil and Gas" is like telling someone that has a good job to quit it and start up a bunch of lower paying jobs instead. It makes no sense.

If people want to start new businesses here, they are welcome to do so. Nobody is stopping them. But suggesting that we should limit the earning from energy as the way to "diversify" (hate that term). People are suggesting we accomplish this not by growing the small businesses into big ones, but by turning our big ones into small ones. It's just silly.

No sane person thinks we should kill O&G.

Lots of people think we should be doing more to make Alberta attractive to other industries. Why is this a bad thing?

[Buster]

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No sane person thinks we should kill O&G.

Lots of people think we should be doing more to make Alberta attractive to other industries. Why is this a bad thing?

It depends on what you mean by doing more.

Do you mean subsidies?

The best way to create economic growth is to have free and open regulations, taxation systems, capital markets. Then the winners will rise to the top, and the environment will reward the initial investments. This is the nature of capitalism, and the reason why it works. It doesn't require central planning (like subsidies), it just requires the ability for investment capital to thrive. I'm all for creating an environment where people want to live and invest. But it is an inefficient economic policy to try to steer that process by taking money from successful ventures (ie oil) and giving it to ones that would otherwise not thrive.

edit - Also: many, many people think we should kill oil and gas. Up to you to decide if they are sane or not.

[Cagare]

If we want to attract alternative industries you have to think what makes this market unique to others? For example the GTA has proximity to major markets, both USA and Canada, including rail, air and sea transport so they are a natural shoe in for logistics and they are growing that quite rapidly, even without subsidizing anything. Of course a logistics hub in Alberta, servicing anything other than Alberta is ludicrous.

Aside from attracting companies/entrepreneurs based on unique traits you can have a favourable tax environment, both corporately and for citizens and have places people want to live. After that it's a stable environment, people don't want big surprises to their bottom line, they want to get up and running as quickly as possible at a reasonable cost and not face future cost increases unexpectedly. Sadly, I think this is a negative situation for Calgary right now with the news around the tax regime. I think this is having far bigger of an impact than Wexit as others would have us believe.

Cash incentives from government is a way to attract people to come to a location, but it is far from the reason they will stay long term. I think subsidizing industry is a bad idea in the longer term.

The goal here should be to continue to allow the oil and gas sector to grow, but encourage other sectors to keep pace or out pace it. We shouldn't forget about agriculture and forestry as major aspects of our economy and figure out how to get them to grow as well.

[kobe tai]

I think the point here was that our government is too dependant on oil royalties/revenue to carry the budget. The previous conservative governments did a poor as fuck job of preparing the province for being less dependant on a fluctuating commodity for revenue.

[hampstor]

Or could take a close look at how to leverage the supporting industries that have a home base here to deliver services for other industries elsewhere... I mean there's billions spent on IT projects in the last few years alone. Perhaps government and industry talking about how the industry can foster and retain that expertise in Alberta... ??

Alberta isn't the next silcon valley but damn there's a lot of really talented and experienced people leaving Alberta.

[kobe tai]

Next would be to focus on educating our next generations to be future business and entrepreneurial leaders. Re-training current unemployed workers (maybe not fucking over students in student loans/tuition hikes/cutting education credits) so we can grow some more sectors outside of oil/gas or government. Problem is none of these parties care to plan anything for long term and only seem to care on their 4 year term.

[ExtraSlow]

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Problem is none of these parties care to plan anything for long term and only seem to care on their 4 year term.

True, this is a huge problem with every party, but then again, it's also a huge problem with the people who vote for every party as well. Humans are short term thinkers by and large.

[kobe tai]

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True, this is a huge problem with every party, but then again, it's also a huge problem with the people who vote for every party as well. Humans are short term thinkers by and large.

Well me managed to vote for the same party for 40 years yet they still turned out too dumb to make anything out of the gravy trains we had.

[JRSC00LUDE]

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Well me managed to vote for the same party for 40 years yet they still turned out too dumb to make anything out of the gravy trains we had.

It's difficult to argue with that hahaha

[kobe tai]

Remeber this guy lol?

[killramos]

People wanting tons of benefits right now that they can’t sustainably afford and mortgaging their future so they can have their perks today.

Doesn’t sound like a familiar ideology at all.