Alberta’s Wildrose party released its economic action plan to curb government spending, last week.
Airdrie-Chestermere MLA Rob Anderson said the No. 1 priority is to balance the budget.
“We have to limit year-over-year increases of spending to inflation plus population growth,” said Anderson.
Anderson also proposed rebuilding the province’s Heritage Fund to between $100 billion and $200 billion over the next one to two decades.
From there, the Province could decrease reliance on oil and gas revenues and eventually lower taxes to attract new residents.
“It will attract the best minds and best businesses because of the low tax environment,” said Anderson.
Other priorities include developing the tourism and forestry industries.
The Stelmach government has done a poor job of picking winners and losers when it comes to economic diversification, according to Anderson.
“(Government ventures) almost always fail when the government picks,” he said.
Last week, Premier Stelmach toyed with using taxpayer dollars to partially fund a new arena for the Edmonton Oilers. This does not sit well with Anderson.
“Flames and Oilers are important but that doesn’t mean the taxpayers should be funding them,” said Anderson.
“Our job is not to pick winners and losers.”
An arts an culture initiative will also attempt to bolster Alberta’s once booming movie industry, which has lagged in recent years, according to Anderson.
He points to a recent $55,000 grant given to fund Dirty Oil, a 71-minute anti-oilsands documentary, narrated by Canadian actress Neve Campbell.
“It’s such a brazen waste of taxpayer money,” said Anderson of dishing out grants to filmmakers.
He proposed a tax credit system for the film industry, similar to Ontario and British Columbia.
“We’re saying let’s just make it competitive across the board,” Anderson said.
