Private contracts blows public money out the window

Reaction varies on budget
660News Staff Feb 24, 2011 18:56:18 PM

The budget has brought on many opinions from critics.

University of Calgary Political Scientist Doreen Barrie tells 660News the budget is okay, but it was thrown together like an after thought.

"Well they don't have to worry about the long run because Stelmach is not going to be around and neither is Snelgrove. It doesn't really matter, I mean they have to bring down the budget, but given that there's going to be a new leader and a new leader may have a different agenda, this budget is meaningless."

Liberal leader David Swann tells 660News he's disappointed the government isn't doing enough to cut expenditures from the budget and reduce the provincial deficit.

He says there are a number of ways the government could have slashed spending.

"They're very much overspending in carbon capture and storage. We would eliminate a billion dollars out of that budget, we would downsize government from 24 ministries to 17 and reduce their budgets in public relations, hospitality, bonuses."

Swann says the government has gotten away with spending cash like it was monopoly money for way too long.

The leader of the Wildrose Party says the budget tabled by the province's Tory government doesn't do enough to cut spending.

Danielle Smith says counting on the government's rainy-day fund to bail it out until higher oilsands revenues kick in leaves the province at risk for greater cuts down the road.

According to the Alberta Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, the budget is too little, too late.

Scott Henning says, the government spent too much money over the past few years and now the budget isn't strong enough to pull the province out of the 3.4 billion dollar deficit.

"We're concerned it doesn't go far enough, the sustainability grant is great, but it doesn't last that long when you're taking chunks out of it, in the 4-5 billion dollar a year mark."

He says if the government doesn't cut spending, it would be hard to get back into the black by the projected date of 2014.

Richard Truscott, with the Alberta Director for the Canadian Federation of Independent Business says the budget is lacking in certain areas.

"The budget was certainly heavy on politics but really light on policy and you know, there really wasn't a lot to support the growth and prosperity for small business. We didn't see any new initiatives on red tape, we didn't see anything in terms of a long term savings plan for the province."

He adds, on the bright side there is better control on operating expenses in this budget.

And David Eggen with Friends of Medicare tells 660News that although 15 billion dollars has been allotted to the health department, he still has concerns over the lack of long term care facilities.

"What I'm more concerned about is the insistence of this government is to continue building more seniors lodges through private contractors instead of long term care facilities like we need."

Eggen says it is valuable public money that is hard to come by and private contracting of services ends up costing more.