Despite the Alberta government trying to paint a rosy picture of a recovering Alberta economy, political rhetoric falls apart pretty quickly when faced with the numbers.
Unless the NDP means unemployment is better than the once 10% it was, which is nothing to brag about, the latest Statistics Canada numbers show two straight months worth of job losses and the City of Calgary is feeling the brunt of it.
Unemployment across the province climbed to 6.8 per cent compared to the national average of 5.8 per cent. Calgary, while marginally better than December, still faces an unemployment rate of 7.3 per cent.
Even those relatively better, yet still dismal, unemployment numbers don't necessarily point to an improvement. The stats don't take into account the number of people who have flat out given up on looking for work and many of those who have found new jobs are woefully underemployed and earning less income.
Compared to January 2018, the province gained 10,700 jobs. However, 25,200 of those jobs were part-time, meaning there was a loss of 14,400 full-time positions over the past year. Only three other provinces showed unemployment rate increases – PEI, which rose to 9.9 per cent, Ontario, which rose to 5.7 per cent and B.C. which rose to 4.4 per cent. Alberta joins the maritime provinces with unemployment rates above the national average.
It's easy to blame the price of oil for our woes and, yes, oil and gas layoffs hit this province exceedingly hard, but the NDP can't ignore the effects of many of its policies that have hit businesses and average Albertans while they have been down.
Increased costs when times are tough does not trigger growth. People are paying more for everything as businesses raise prices to compensate for NDP policies such as the minimum wage and the carbon tax. While the carbon tax would have come in through the feds anyway, Alberta didn't have to bore ahead so quickly on its carbon plan. It did have the option go implementing it at the same time as the feds if it wanted a made in Alberta strategy. Or, as some suggest, fought it. Whether or not the money from the carbon tax has led to jobs and investment in the green sector seems hardly worth the trade off for the increased costs to living, which the tax is partly responsible for.
When you toss the federal governments' bungles with pipelines into the mix, it's no wonder there are so many employment issues and much of it can be attributed to bad and/or poorly- timed government policy.
Yes, the NDP inherited some problems. Yes, it came to power in one of the worst energy crashes in Alberta history Yes, there were massive infrastructure deficits. However, during its time in power its policies have only hurt Alberta workers more by compounding the problem with increased costs. While there are some benefits to keeping people working on infrastructure projects, there is no benefit to Alberta's ballooning debt which has severely damaged the province's credit rating - another example of too much too fast.
This government does believe it had a mandate for all these policies, but governance should adapt to realities. Perhaps it be a good time for the NDP to test its support by finally dropping the writ.
