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A look at the NDP platform explains why. Notley’s vision is pretty standard NDP fare: lots of spending on a host of attractive social policies, paid for by higher taxes on rich people and big business. She pledges to repeal the health care levy introduced in the PC budget, and roll back the cascade of user fees it imposed. There would be lots more spending on health care, education, child care, families, “advanced education”… everything people want without having to reach deep into their own pockets to pay for it. And, according to Notley’s plan, in an NDP Alberta they wouldn’t have to. The revenue would come from increased corporate taxes and a “high income, progressive tax system, that asks the top 10% of tax filers to contribute to public services based on their ability to pay.”



See? All gain, no pain. “Under our plan, everyone else – 90% of tax filers – gets a break from the tax and fee increases Jim Prentice is proposing in his budget.” Between them, corporate and personal tax hikes would be slated to bring in almost $2 billion extra a year within five years.

It would be swell if it worked, but the big problem with the NDP’s utopian economics is that they’ve never worked anywhere else. It always turns out that someone has to pay and, time after time, corporate leaders decline to just sit still and hand over the money. They leave. They go somewhere that has lower taxes and a more accommodating attitude. Same goes with “soak the rich” schemes. Ontario’s Liberals, under pressure from the NDP, have twice hiked taxes on the top earners since 2012, yet made no discernible headway in eliminating its $10.9 billion deficit. Ontario has many more millionaires than Alberta, but it’s still too small a community to carry the load for a government determined to spend, as Notley’s would appear to be. Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne said Friday there were no tax hikes in last Thursday’s budget because Ontarians just can’t afford any more. Are Albertans that much richer and more giving than Ontarians?