Nelson: Saying no to sales tax is Alberta's last stand

HERE, HERE I AGREE

Opinion by Chris Nelson, For The Calgary Herald • Yesterday 

Thermopylae, The Alamo, Masada, Rorke’s Drift and Saragarhi. What could those famous battles of history have in common with us peace-loving (mostly) Albertans of today?


A provincial sales tax could in theory help Alberta get off the boom and bust fiscal cycles, but it would depend on governments using the revenue effectively, rather than simply to buy votes

More than you might imagine. Those varied locations all involved desperate last stands, which is what we’re currently engaged in, fighting off the relentless rumblings from elitist, high-foreheads who think it a wonderful and worthy idea to impose a provincial sales tax upon us.

We’re an exception among the provinces; not ponying up an extra seven to 10 per cent on most purchases atop the five per cent that Ottawa rakes in courtesy of the GST.

We can’t do much about that federal sales tax — though Premier Danielle Smith might have some plot to alter that — but we sure as heck can do something to retain what remains as the final, genuine Alberta Advantage.

Let’s simply demand, from both those UCP and NDP wannabes, a pledge before each election to not impose such a levy until the sun decides to rise in the west or we vote to do so in a provincewide referendum. “Would you like to give the government more of your money?” would seem a straightforward enough question on any future ballot form, don’t you think?

We know in our bones what would happen with such a tax, despite the silly claims about it solving all our fiscal problems by smoothing out those booms and busts synonymous with Alberta.

To satisfy our suspicious nature, we need simply look to the other provinces and judge if the various sales taxes resulted in a land of ever-bountiful balanced budgets and a no-debt existence

Related video: Alberta Business Council wants next government to study provincial taxation model (Global News) Duration 4:20 View on Watch

Oops. Ontario owes about $450 billion, Quebec $220 billion and B.C. $100 billion. (The federal government is in an elite, much-more-than-a trillion-owed stratosphere, so we’ll not even bother using them as an example of sales tax economics.)

The Business Council of Alberta is the latest bunch wanting a re-evaluation of the province’s revenue model to even out the ups and downs of our resource-based economy. A provincial sales tax would be the bees-knees apparently, helping solve this endless fiscal conundrum. (Oh, and yes, let’s jack up every price by five per cent as part of the battle against inflation.)

To be fair, in the economics classroom, or the thoughtful confines of a polite debating chamber, a consumption tax is a plausible alternative to relying upon the whims of the commodity markets for steady, governmental revenue. And that’s why this nonsense gets regurgitated every few years. In theory, it makes sense.

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But we aren’t sensible creatures. We’re human beings. Theory means naught unless it’s catchable and edible. And the least sensible of all is a human being who wants to get elected. Oh, sorry, scratch that: it is a human being already elected who’d like to stay that way.

Give such people more tax revenue to spend and that’s what they’ll do. Health, education, social services and other departments will all need more money — forever and a day. Plus there’ll be handouts here, there and everywhere whenever an election rolls around. Imagining sales tax revenue would be treated any differently is akin to betting on the Flames to win the Stanley Cup. Now that’s false hope.

As for this levelling-up argument — have we forgotten the Heritage Savings and Trust Fund? Wasn’t it supposed to do exactly that? Siphon off in the good times — when energy revenues flowed — for times ahead when such largesse ran dry?

How did that work out? It’s more than 45 years since inception and the most we’ve accumulated is about $20 billion. That wouldn’t cover four months of provincial spending. Future sales tax revenue would suffer the same fate, accompanied by a giant sucking sound.

We might not die on this hill as did the brave men from those famous battles mentioned earlier, but it’s our last stand, nevertheless. No Alberta sales tax.

Chris Nelson is a regular Herald columnist.