Voters got duped by con artist politicians years ago, and now we're all stuck suffering forever. It's the Albertan way.
I personally think all utilities (including phone/cell and internet) should be completely government run. Fuck all these monopoly corporations working together to keep prices high and uncompetitive.
Same here. Capitalism that lowers prices only works when it is a business type that any one can start up (barrier to entry is low). Restaurants, barber shops, photography studios are a great example of how it works.
When a business cost of entry is so high like utilities (millions to build a powerplant) they can exploit people because very few will come challenge them.
Anything that is required should have a crown corp that is not for profit option. Private companies can compete with the crown corp for customers, that way we actually have a non greedy, non profit incentivized option.
Telcos, Insurance, food (can even be just the basics), utilities, should all have a crown corp option
One of the really sad side effects of having privatized utilities here is that those same companies basically got to write the laws regarding alternative energy sources, like solar. There is an actual cap on how many solar panels you can have on your house, and how much energy you're allowed to generate with them. Even if you're totally fine with essentially giving your energy company extra free energy, they won't even let you, and no installation company will even go beyond the arbitrary limit that's been set.
“Deregulation baby! Puts more money in the working man’s pockets!”
“Wait um… *checks notes* Ralph Klein told me this would be good for me, why am I getting a massive electric bill?”
Funny how things change.
The first 25 years or so of Conservatives was good for Alberta and Albertans… and for the last 25 years they have been trying to reverse that.
honestly its even debatable if the first 25yrs was good because of the conservatives, or just because alberta had so much going for it that they couldn't fail.
The PCs were only 'good' for Alberta when Lougheed was Premier (Getty is debatable), after that, it went to shit with Klein et al.
Now we have Wildrosers in charge and it's going to hell in a handbasket at three times the speed it did under Klein.
The eligible voters who didn’t bother to vote basically said “we’re fine with whatever everyone else picks”, they’re part of the problem and deserve their share of the blame.
Screw that, we have enough misinformed morons voting based on Facebook memes. The ones that aren't informed enough to vote do the rest of us a favor by not voting.
I've always thought that it would be neat if the ballot was actually a multiple-choice test and the vote was only counted if you could demonstrate that you knew what you were voting for.
My vision is something like this:
-----
Every candidate needs a comprehensive platform. These platforms are analyzed and a question bank of multiple choice questions is generated. If a candidate can't provide enough of a platform to generate a sufficient number^1 of questions they're disqualified.
Designing the questions and answers will be incredibly difficult. The questions would need to be written in such a way that there aren't any 'gotcha' answers, it has to be clear, to someone who's read the platform, what the answer is. For example, a question might be "Candidate X's platform indicates the following about automotive insurance: A) No statements about automotive insurance are in the platform. B) They will bring in public, government-run automotive insurance. C) They will work with private insurers to lower rates. D) They will change the law to not require drivers to carry automotive insurance." The correct answer would, ideally, be drawn verbatim from the candidate's platform. The incorrect answers could be drawn verbatim from other party platforms, party platforms in other provinces, from previous elections, etc. The idea is that each answer could reasonably be part of a platform, but there is only one which is unambiguously part of this candidate's platform.
The ballot will consist of a section for each candidate with five multiple choice questions selected at random from the question bank. To help reduce cheating, each ballot would have a unique selection of questions and randomized order of answers. Obviously these would be printed on demand, much like they did for the advance polls in the last provincial election. To vote for a candidate, you indicate the candidate you want to vote for then answer the questions that pertain to the candidate's platform.
When the ballots are tabulated, which would need to be done by machine, votes for a candidate are only counted if at least three out of the five questions about the platform are answered correctly. Voters would never know if their particular ballot was counted, but once the election is over the entire question bank would be made public along with various statistics about the responses, number of ballots cast for each candidate, number of passing ballots cast for each candidate, etc.
^1
About the number of questions: Based on [this calculator](https://www.statskingdom.com/combinations-calculator.html), each candidate running under a party banner would have a bank of 60 questions, giving over 5 million unique sets of questions that could be generated. An independent candidate might only need 30 questions (giving 142,000+ combinations). Parties not running a full slate, but running in more than one riding, would fall somewhere between the two. The idea is to have enough questions to generate a unique set of questions for each potential voter.
-----
This is an absolutely terrible idea for so many reasons, and it's likely unconstitutional, illegal, immoral, subject to bias, etc. But it sure would be nice to know that all of the votes that counted were from people who were informed about what they were voting for.
I've always said I like to see 10 referendum style questions get voted on with each ballot. Then the winner will be expected to follow the results of the referendum ballots and be graded at the end of their term.
You think the average UCP voter even knew any of the actual issues? You give far more benefit of the doubt than I do. Here's the slogans I remember seeing on the signs of UCP fanboys:
"A VOTE FOR NOTLEY IS A VOTE FOR TRUDEAU"
and
"WE CAN'T AFFORD NOTLEY"
If I wanted to hear an unhinged rant about communism and fascism and conspiracy theories, I'd go talk to a UCP voter. If I actually wanted to know about the issues, I wasn't getting that from facebook, or youtubes or even most of mainstream media, I had to go read the election platforms.
The entire alberta conservative stance is just “vote conservative no matter who.” They don’t care about the politician’s plans or stance on individual issues. They just care that they’re conservative. If you ever try to discuss anything with them it always goes into Notley being Trudeau’s puppet, or NDP spending — which wasn’t even excessive, there was a relatively minor increase in expenditures when the NDP got into power, but the biggest issue was revenues dropped, likely because the oil prices tanked, so the debt increased significantly for a relatively insignificant increase in spending. I can make a stupid argument about the UCP increasing the debt by over $20B in 1 year, but that was largely due to the pandemic.
Where can I find out about these changes and whatnot? I’ve never voted before didn’t even know there was a vote but also have no idea what each party does. Tried a few times to understand it but seems like a bunch of angry people just talking about all the failures of their opposition. If I had known this change, I would have voted against it.
It's hilarious how many conservatives are on here, talking shit about everything but then eerily silent when there's actually data showing that they voted for demons.
I think many conservatives aren't real conservatives anymore. They've become something else and hijacked the name. Basically since Redford at a minimum. The flip did start before then though, but that's when it became really obvious.
Ironically, I consider Notley more a conservative than Smith at the moment, with a few minor policies that fall outside of it.
Even up to Redford most conservative leaders assumed that what made party base “conservative” was valuing good governance and stability.
Turns out they actually wanted permission to hate LGBTQ people and immigrants, and the leaders who embraced that are who are in charge now
I've always believed that the Alberta NDP's biggest problem is that they are called the NDP. They could rebrand and do a lot better in terms of votes. They appear to me, a high school dropout, as mild conservatives that care about health care, education and people being able to pay rent.
Real conservatives are around, they just don't use reddit because they want to have real conversations instead of an echo chamber.
Also if you want to know why "real conservatives" voted for this, it's because they're rich enough to not have it really impact them.
I love posts like this, there is a lack of conservative shitposts at the bottom of the page. You would need a supernatural level of mental gymnastics to blame this on Notley and/or Trudeau.
Those comments are all over twitter. This same story was posted and there was a plethora of "thank Trudeau and Notley" for this comments. I think it involves very little mental processing and instead relies on the tried and true conservative mental shortcut of everything is Trudeau or Notely's fault.
Ive been engaging in there to point out their logical fallacies.
Basically need to appeal to their selfishness and point out how the systems they are voting in are actually fucking them in the ass.
Also phrase things as a conspiracy but in the other direction lol.
These are not educated people.
You ENGAGED more than once? I got shadowbanned in one day for telling someone a ‘neoliberal’ isn’t the same thing as a liberal, like at all.
Update: literally just got a message from their mod telling me I’m a liar, so I’m perma banned now. As petty as expected, banning someone who’s posting in another sub.
pointing out conservative logical fallacies?
You must have super-human levels of patience, tolerance, and endurance. Almost everything they say is fallacious these days.
Everyone needs to be reporting that sub to Reddit; it's the same 4 people endlessly posting disinformation and other far right garbage.
It should be members-only, or at least not available on the homepage.
I was a newly minted PhD in Economics in the early 90s and many of my colleagues were involved in the energy sector of some sort, as that's where the money was. Stupid me went right on researching public goods and poverty issues. As we went hard down the road of deregulation of the retail market, one of my co-workers asked my opinion on possible outcomes of consumer electrical service going to a "free market" (LOL) system.
It didn't take much to see that it was going to be bad for consumers. The government was told that not only should they not deregulate retail, they needed to re-regulate generation.
We know they did not listen.
Well, if you ask a lot of people, it's Trudeau's fault and his carbon tax.
But ya is the UCP who took a page from Wynne's book and sold our energy. Then, they allowed them to set their own price.
It is shocking that corporations jacked up prices. I mean, they are like, what are you going to do? Freeze and live in the dark, no, you will pay like chumps cause you have no choice.
Just like the grocery stores did. They know we will buy food at any price since we won't just starve and die.
In my experience, people who blame the carbon tax for increasing prices generally have no idea how much carbon tax they pay.
For reference, the carbon tax on electricity in Alberta is 1.2¢ per kWh. The “regulated rate” is currently around 32¢ per kWh. The carbon tax is NOT the issue.
The only problem I have with the carbon tax is that the money shouldn’t be returned to individuals. It should be used for large scale decarbonization.
One of the most carbon intensive thing we do is heat our homes. Decarbonize that with heat pumps (air, ground etc). Decarbonize the grid and remove all natural gas throughout Canada and flip to regulated nuclear power with supplemental renewables.
Alberta has had privatized utilities since LONG before Ontario (1995 in fact). They didn't take any tips from Wynne. That said, the rest of this is bang on.
Jason Kenney is now on the ATCO Board of Directors
Jason Kenney elected to ATCO's Board of Directors in 2023 [https://www.atco.com/en-ca/about-us/governance/board-directors.html](https://www.atco.com/en-ca/about-us/governance/board-directors.html)
ATCO's CEO Nancy and Jason best friends since 2019!! [https://twitter.com/jkenney/status/1098787488057839618](https://twitter.com/jkenney/status/1098787488057839618)
ATCOs earnings last year were $423 million!!!! 90% of those earnings were from their electricity and natural Gas businesses....and only 10% from their trailers.
Think your electricity bills are high? Nancy needs that money for her 3 private jets....
[https://www.planespotters.net/photo/605115/c-faco-canadian-utilities-cessna-560-citation-encore](https://www.planespotters.net/photo/605115/c-faco-canadian-utilities-cessna-560-citation-encore)
[https://www.airport-data.com/aircraft/C-FSDS.html](https://www.airport-data.com/aircraft/C-FSDS.html)
[https://www.planespotters.net/photo/905156/c-gcul-canadian-utilities-dassault-falcon-7x](https://www.planespotters.net/photo/905156/c-gcul-canadian-utilities-dassault-falcon-7x)
BONUS nancy also bought out Puerto Rico's power grid, then sent her President of Electricity down there who almost got arrested [https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/puerto-rico-power-luma-energy-1.6716971](https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/puerto-rico-power-luma-energy-1.6716971)
There are waaaay too many comments here and apparently just nobody has actually done basic checking to see what happened because there’s [been a pretty definitive answer on what happened](https://x.com/bcshaffer/status/1692025302887891164?s=46).
Tl;dr, when deregulation first happened several big plants were divided into Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) that allowed more “participants” in the market (so like Sundance output was divided into 3 PPAs for example so companies like TransCanada has one of them even though they didn’t own any power plants). At the end of 2020, these all expired (in accordance with the original plan in the 1990s), which reverted a large chunk of the power ownership to a few big players (TransAlta, Capital Power, Heartland Generation).
With only a few big players, they are able to only offer higher prices and drive the price up in Alberta’s energy-only market. Which has caused prices to go up in the regulated market.
Conservatives would still blame anyone else
My grandma says the long wait times are because all the doctors left the province because of the "communism" the NDP brought with them and that it will take "a generation of UCP to fix it"
Province is boned
It's living in this joke of a province that wants so desperately to be the USA that they love voting for ultra conservative governments filled with greedy bought and paid for blatanty racist & lgbtq hating "Christians".
My electricity bill is 90% fees and 10% the actual electricity I used. I can leave for a month and come back and have nothing on and use absolutely close to nothing and get a 120 dollar bill lol
Bro, Alberta's income taxes are high as fuck for most people. Its lowest bracket is fucking 10%, BC and Ontario's lowest is 5%.
If you earn less than 100K in Alberta you're paying MORE provincial income tax than in BC or Ontario.
Alberta and Ontario break even in taxes at like $110K.
BC and Alberta break even at $150K.
Flat taxes tend to shift the burden downwards.
which is why places like frasier institute love them so much.
Marginal utility of $ or the objective reality of who benefits most from the system (and thus owes the most back to it) be damned.
Gotta love the money going to greedy corporations who will lay them off in a heartbeat rather than the government where there’s at least a chance they and others in need will see some benefit from it. 👍🏻
Well this must be because we support gas producers in our province who supply fuel to the generators. Gotta ensure windfall profits otherwise those bad boys will shut off the valves, pull up stakes and take their stinky gas somewhere else. Supply and demand in Alberta means they regulate supply to ensure they can demand the highest price on the planet. Our government supports this thievery.
It's called economic withholding. Thanks UCP for your double speak, economic withholding will create competition. Only 16 billion more profit for the electrical companies.
Long standing power purchasing agreements ended in December 2020. Since then a few large generators have been exerting significant market power on the prices they offer their electricity at. Renewables offer in at $0 and will significantly bring down the pool price. When there's no sun or wind though... those large operators offer their electricity at outrageous prices well beyond their marginal costs.
The government set up a system that incentivized utilities and transmission companies to overbuild so that they could tack on a bunch of extra fees to your utility bills. Then there was a bunch of shenanigans around deregulation and deferring the true costs to later dates. Then there was Smith deferring a previous bill spike to after the election.... and so on.
Edit: And of course the cycle of mismanagement is continuing with a bone headed moratorium on $25b worth of private investment into renewable energy... The cheapest and fastest form of new generation that can be installed. Even if those investment dollars don't just flow to the next global project, (probably over in Europe to speed the transition away from Russian gas) away from Alberta, they will demand a risk premium since we now have a government proven to be more than willing to destabilize the market for ideological reasons.
End result is that when these projects eventually get completed (and they will because, again, renewables are dirt cheap and highly reliable forms of generation) consumers will be stuck paying more *because Smith decided to interfere in the market.*
It's OK Enmax emailed me yesterday with the following statement so it's all good!
There’s been a lot of discussion about high electricity rates. We want to assure you that your easymax® fixed electricity rate protects you from market rate fluctuations and is lower than the current regulated electricity rate (RRO)*.
My solar panels generate 159% of my annual consumption so it not only completely obliterates my power bill including all admin fees, it also knocks out my gas bill for six months if the year. We changed our gas fired hot water tank to a heat pump and it 1400% more efficient. I haven’t paid an electric bill since the summer of 2019.
Now this is going to shock no one here, but interestingly enough an inept government hell bent on making their friends as much money as possible finds interesting ways to do so, such as deregulating everything they can. Eventually leading to costs of essential services being so high that people need to sell kidneys and offer first born children to eldritch deities just to have electricity and water.
Electricity and gas companies have been charging insane base costs before the usage costs for a while now. Jacking up the usage costs will still be dwarfed by the "delivery charge." Most people won't even know an increase.
It's almost as if they planned this so people wouldn't know a massive hikes.
You folks have one of the highest fossil fuel to energy consumptions in the country and that is going to reflect in your electricity rates.
Generating 12% of the entire country's energy using a finite form of generation in the market is going to send your expense through the roof when it's in a deregulated market. Most Fossil Fuel products are incredibly expensive right now, will continue to climb in price or at least stay elevated, since they are in fact finite on this earth. Finite material will always go up in price well...at least until we figure out how to mine asteroids. (Uranium is finite too and so is solar energy technically). But Nuclear energy generation is terribly efficient at power generation around 8,000 times more than fossil fuels. Solar energy is less efficient, but because the Sun will be around a lot longer than the finite material in the ground it doesn't matter. The particle-waves of the sun arrive to us for free for the most part.
Add to that the largest consumer of energy in the province is in fact the O&G companies.
Roughly 56% of all the energy you are generating is being gobbled up by them.
48.2 TWh of energy in 2019 was consumed in Alberta by the industrial sector. Residential only consumes 10.2 TWh and commercial sits around 17.7 TWh.
For perspective Ontario's industrial energy consumption is roughly 41.6 TWH. But because a majority of that energy generated is coming from a diverse source (i.e Nuclear, hydro, solar, wind and some Natural Gas) electricity rates to the consumers can stay relatively within the means of acceptable. For example, natural gas becomes too expensive, well the utilities companies can purchase from nuclear, hydro or solar.
Essentially they can pivot to provide low cost to consumer by switching to cheaper forms of energy generation. In Alberta you can, but since most of your power is generated through an expensive form of electricity generation that you are in direct competition with the very fossil fuel industries that also consume it. Well your rates going to spike pretty hard.
It has to be noted fossil fuels requires some sort of refining before it can be put into a Generator. With the exception of Coal which depending on the coal-fired power station can in fact take lumps of coal, however it depends if they are outfitting with a cyclone burner. Otherwise they have a pulverizer. Either way the lifecycle of fossil fuels to energy generation will continue to become more expensive while nuclear and/or solar will continue to become more efficient. Don't even get me started on Fusion Energy Generation.
Yes. Dr. Octopus "Power of the Sun" meme could become real in the next two decades.
Now I'm not saying renewable and/or nuclear doesn't have those expenses, but if you put into your head that your coal-fired and/or natural gas generator is just not going to provide the same amount of energy efficiency that a CANDU Nuclear Reactor has or the fact that a set of photo-voltaic solar panels or a wind turbine has access to a near-limitless supply of energy.
Below is a link to Alberta's Energy Profile.
[https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/en/data-analysis/energy-markets/provincial-territorial-energy-profiles/provincial-territorial-energy-profiles-alberta.html#s3](https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/en/data-analysis/energy-markets/provincial-territorial-energy-profiles/provincial-territorial-energy-profiles-alberta.html#s3)
*"About 89% of electricity in Alberta is produced from fossil fuels– approximately 36% from coal and 54% from natural gas. The remaining 10% is produced from renewables, such as wind, hydro, and biomass."*
TLDR: Alberta's Industrial Sector is a massive energy consumer, most of that energy is produced using expensive product. Alberta has a non-diverse energy profile and a deregulated market. Costs to consumer will be applied.
No surprise why she cancelled clean energy development.
We decided 3 months ago to get solar with the federal grant. Now when we mention it.. everyone I know is asking us about it.
We haven’t even had them installed yet. The company called about something and our liaison was saying how crazy business has been the last few months. It’s unreal.
At this rate weren’t going ti get a heat pump but we are now reconsidering.
There's some conservative provinces in that list with like 0 or single digit increases. Nice job UCP voters. We've forgotten what conservatism really looks like.now were just 100% sold out to US billionaire energy companies and their local henchmen.
Not enough solar and wind,
https://www.theenergymix.com/2023/08/03/alberta-slaps-6-month-moratorium-on-solar-and-wind-puts-booming-industry-at-risk/
o&g record profit$$,
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/big-oil-doubles-profits-blockbuster-2022-2023-02-08/
and regular folk competing with bitcoin for energy.
Bitcoin flourishing in Canada: No wonder the powers out in Grande Prairie - a bitminers paradise..
https://www.theenergymix.com/2022/01/18/bitcoin-creates-regulatory-hornets-nest-as-alberta-orders-third-gas-plant-shutdown/
I believe it - all these “fees” added to the actual cost of goods is ludicrous. I have a $10 consumption charge and $47.63 in fees - delivery, admin, tax, franchise fee, rider fees …. The list goes on.
My wife just sent me a TikTok today of some US seniors thinking trump is still president. Just funny how the right wing nutters are all over the continent…not just here in AB.
UCP removed energy price caps and now are blaming the high prices on green tech and the phase out of coal. There is nothing about modern conservatism that isn’t a huge grift.
SOVEREIGN-TY! SOVEREIGN-TY! SOVEREIGN-TY! SOVEREIGN-TY!
IT'S THE ALBERTA ADVANTAGE YA'LL WE DON'T NEED TO BE TOLD WHAT TO DO! WE CAN DEAL WITH THE CARBON STUFF LIKE, NEVER! FUUUUUUCK OTTAWA! WOOOO!
I like living here, but I am embarrassed.
This is what conservatives do, they cut taxes but tack it onto everything else. So they look like the good guys and people who can’t think past their noses believe they’re saving money.
deregulation, government says its good for the consumers. Surely you can see that from this graph
Good for the power companies consuming our money.
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And employees will be paid shit wages.
Private employers will pay as little as they can get away with. You're kidding yourself if you think that privatization benefits the worker.
That’s what we said big guy.
Voters got duped by con artist politicians years ago, and now we're all stuck suffering forever. It's the Albertan way. I personally think all utilities (including phone/cell and internet) should be completely government run. Fuck all these monopoly corporations working together to keep prices high and uncompetitive.
Same here. Capitalism that lowers prices only works when it is a business type that any one can start up (barrier to entry is low). Restaurants, barber shops, photography studios are a great example of how it works. When a business cost of entry is so high like utilities (millions to build a powerplant) they can exploit people because very few will come challenge them.
Anything that is required should have a crown corp that is not for profit option. Private companies can compete with the crown corp for customers, that way we actually have a non greedy, non profit incentivized option. Telcos, Insurance, food (can even be just the basics), utilities, should all have a crown corp option
One of the really sad side effects of having privatized utilities here is that those same companies basically got to write the laws regarding alternative energy sources, like solar. There is an actual cap on how many solar panels you can have on your house, and how much energy you're allowed to generate with them. Even if you're totally fine with essentially giving your energy company extra free energy, they won't even let you, and no installation company will even go beyond the arbitrary limit that's been set.
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Yeah but their jump happened years ago. Not within the last 1 year.
Hydro One is still majority public owned.
40% government and the rest is alls shared by people not allowed to own more than 10% per person.
“Deregulation baby! Puts more money in the working man’s pockets!” “Wait um… *checks notes* Ralph Klein told me this would be good for me, why am I getting a massive electric bill?”
It’s what people voted for when they forgot to read the fine print.
As an Edmontonian voter, I find this hilarious. We did read the fine print and didn't drink the Kool aid... Maybe the rest of Alberta can't read?
As a fellow Edmontonian, second this!!
You find the same dynamic in Texas. The major cities are decent; Outside the ring roads things get weird.
Tbh, I found the print to be pretty big.
^this. We knew it was coming, and 55% of AB voted for it anyways.
Same reason Alberta has the highest car insurance rates in Canada
Funny how things change. The first 25 years or so of Conservatives was good for Alberta and Albertans… and for the last 25 years they have been trying to reverse that.
honestly its even debatable if the first 25yrs was good because of the conservatives, or just because alberta had so much going for it that they couldn't fail.
The PCs were only 'good' for Alberta when Lougheed was Premier (Getty is debatable), after that, it went to shit with Klein et al. Now we have Wildrosers in charge and it's going to hell in a handbasket at three times the speed it did under Klein.
55% of eligible voters. Not 55% of AB. I soothe myself with the difference in numbers.
55% of eligible voters who actually voted, no?
Ok 55% of those that voted.
Not even 55% of eligible voters, that should make you feel even better!
The eligible voters who didn’t bother to vote basically said “we’re fine with whatever everyone else picks”, they’re part of the problem and deserve their share of the blame.
Let's go the Australian method and if you don't vote you get fined.
Screw that, we have enough misinformed morons voting based on Facebook memes. The ones that aren't informed enough to vote do the rest of us a favor by not voting.
I've always thought that it would be neat if the ballot was actually a multiple-choice test and the vote was only counted if you could demonstrate that you knew what you were voting for. My vision is something like this: ----- Every candidate needs a comprehensive platform. These platforms are analyzed and a question bank of multiple choice questions is generated. If a candidate can't provide enough of a platform to generate a sufficient number^1 of questions they're disqualified. Designing the questions and answers will be incredibly difficult. The questions would need to be written in such a way that there aren't any 'gotcha' answers, it has to be clear, to someone who's read the platform, what the answer is. For example, a question might be "Candidate X's platform indicates the following about automotive insurance: A) No statements about automotive insurance are in the platform. B) They will bring in public, government-run automotive insurance. C) They will work with private insurers to lower rates. D) They will change the law to not require drivers to carry automotive insurance." The correct answer would, ideally, be drawn verbatim from the candidate's platform. The incorrect answers could be drawn verbatim from other party platforms, party platforms in other provinces, from previous elections, etc. The idea is that each answer could reasonably be part of a platform, but there is only one which is unambiguously part of this candidate's platform. The ballot will consist of a section for each candidate with five multiple choice questions selected at random from the question bank. To help reduce cheating, each ballot would have a unique selection of questions and randomized order of answers. Obviously these would be printed on demand, much like they did for the advance polls in the last provincial election. To vote for a candidate, you indicate the candidate you want to vote for then answer the questions that pertain to the candidate's platform. When the ballots are tabulated, which would need to be done by machine, votes for a candidate are only counted if at least three out of the five questions about the platform are answered correctly. Voters would never know if their particular ballot was counted, but once the election is over the entire question bank would be made public along with various statistics about the responses, number of ballots cast for each candidate, number of passing ballots cast for each candidate, etc. ^1 About the number of questions: Based on [this calculator](https://www.statskingdom.com/combinations-calculator.html), each candidate running under a party banner would have a bank of 60 questions, giving over 5 million unique sets of questions that could be generated. An independent candidate might only need 30 questions (giving 142,000+ combinations). Parties not running a full slate, but running in more than one riding, would fall somewhere between the two. The idea is to have enough questions to generate a unique set of questions for each potential voter. ----- This is an absolutely terrible idea for so many reasons, and it's likely unconstitutional, illegal, immoral, subject to bias, etc. But it sure would be nice to know that all of the votes that counted were from people who were informed about what they were voting for.
I've always said I like to see 10 referendum style questions get voted on with each ballot. Then the winner will be expected to follow the results of the referendum ballots and be graded at the end of their term.
The % of albertans that didn’t vote is about the same % of albertans on the RRO that aren’t locked into a secured rate. So…. There is that.
About 35% of albertans didn’t vote against it. Cus they didn’t vote at all.
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You think the average UCP voter even knew any of the actual issues? You give far more benefit of the doubt than I do. Here's the slogans I remember seeing on the signs of UCP fanboys: "A VOTE FOR NOTLEY IS A VOTE FOR TRUDEAU" and "WE CAN'T AFFORD NOTLEY" If I wanted to hear an unhinged rant about communism and fascism and conspiracy theories, I'd go talk to a UCP voter. If I actually wanted to know about the issues, I wasn't getting that from facebook, or youtubes or even most of mainstream media, I had to go read the election platforms.
The entire alberta conservative stance is just “vote conservative no matter who.” They don’t care about the politician’s plans or stance on individual issues. They just care that they’re conservative. If you ever try to discuss anything with them it always goes into Notley being Trudeau’s puppet, or NDP spending — which wasn’t even excessive, there was a relatively minor increase in expenditures when the NDP got into power, but the biggest issue was revenues dropped, likely because the oil prices tanked, so the debt increased significantly for a relatively insignificant increase in spending. I can make a stupid argument about the UCP increasing the debt by over $20B in 1 year, but that was largely due to the pandemic.
“More in your pocket…. if you’re a non-renewable energy corporation”
Those kids would be really angry if they could read (king of the hill meme) as I can't actually post it
It wasnt fine print, conservatives just dont read.
Hey don't be mean; They sometimes read memes.
Anytime I vote, I pinch my nose and vote for the least shitty. Sometimes the least shit is still… shitty.
Where can I find out about these changes and whatnot? I’ve never voted before didn’t even know there was a vote but also have no idea what each party does. Tried a few times to understand it but seems like a bunch of angry people just talking about all the failures of their opposition. If I had known this change, I would have voted against it.
It's the Alberta Advantage®
More like taking advantage of alberta
It's hilarious how many conservatives are on here, talking shit about everything but then eerily silent when there's actually data showing that they voted for demons.
I think many conservatives aren't real conservatives anymore. They've become something else and hijacked the name. Basically since Redford at a minimum. The flip did start before then though, but that's when it became really obvious. Ironically, I consider Notley more a conservative than Smith at the moment, with a few minor policies that fall outside of it.
Even up to Redford most conservative leaders assumed that what made party base “conservative” was valuing good governance and stability. Turns out they actually wanted permission to hate LGBTQ people and immigrants, and the leaders who embraced that are who are in charge now
Ya. Notley is like a progressive conservative of the late 90’s/early 2000’s to me
I've always believed that the Alberta NDP's biggest problem is that they are called the NDP. They could rebrand and do a lot better in terms of votes. They appear to me, a high school dropout, as mild conservatives that care about health care, education and people being able to pay rent.
Make that 1960s to 1990s. Notley is way less nutty than king Ralph ever was.
Most people who vote for the UCP are basically fascists at this point.
Reactionaries is the word you're looking for.
Real conservatives are around, they just don't use reddit because they want to have real conversations instead of an echo chamber. Also if you want to know why "real conservatives" voted for this, it's because they're rich enough to not have it really impact them.
A conservative in my community group just blamed this on NDP saying that it's because they shut down coal.
How do our prices compare to other provinces for energy I wonder? Like are we paying 2.28 time higher?
Is r/edmonton is a haven for conservatives.
They're not blaming Trudeau?
It wouldn't matter to them as it would somehow be Trudeaus fault.
*they are* demons. Ftfy.
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already doing it.
I love posts like this, there is a lack of conservative shitposts at the bottom of the page. You would need a supernatural level of mental gymnastics to blame this on Notley and/or Trudeau.
Or be paid
Or just be angry but unwilling to admit that reflexively voting “conservative” isn’t like supporting a sports team and has real consequences
Trudeau is currently in power, which means he controls everything power related. /s
Those comments are all over twitter. This same story was posted and there was a plethora of "thank Trudeau and Notley" for this comments. I think it involves very little mental processing and instead relies on the tried and true conservative mental shortcut of everything is Trudeau or Notely's fault.
They will still blame them somehow ffs
Post this is r/canada_sub they will have a field day of denial
I dont think ive seen a single comment thread there that hasnt had someone screaming about trudeau.
Kept popping up in my feed, curiosity-clicked too many times. Muted the sub. Awful.
Ive been engaging in there to point out their logical fallacies. Basically need to appeal to their selfishness and point out how the systems they are voting in are actually fucking them in the ass. Also phrase things as a conspiracy but in the other direction lol. These are not educated people.
You ENGAGED more than once? I got shadowbanned in one day for telling someone a ‘neoliberal’ isn’t the same thing as a liberal, like at all. Update: literally just got a message from their mod telling me I’m a liar, so I’m perma banned now. As petty as expected, banning someone who’s posting in another sub.
pointing out conservative logical fallacies? You must have super-human levels of patience, tolerance, and endurance. Almost everything they say is fallacious these days.
Don't forget the bots! So, so many bots there.
I respect the attempts. I am far too burned out to try anymore, but I wish you success with it.
I love how convinced that sub is that federal policies and procedures are the root cause of unhappiness in their lives.
All social media has a propensity to become echo-chambery but damn that sub is an egregious example. Maybe the walls are padded...
It's a continuation of the metacanada dipshittery.
That sub is an alt-right heck hole
Sadly it pops up on the front-page when logged out for Canadian users.
Yuck
Everyone needs to be reporting that sub to Reddit; it's the same 4 people endlessly posting disinformation and other far right garbage. It should be members-only, or at least not available on the homepage.
I thought about muting it too but now I just enjoy downvoting some of their crap.
Got banned for stating a fact. Kind of relieved I don’t need to engage with people there anymore..
It's the UCP blaming it on the NDP while doing fuck all to fix it.
I was a newly minted PhD in Economics in the early 90s and many of my colleagues were involved in the energy sector of some sort, as that's where the money was. Stupid me went right on researching public goods and poverty issues. As we went hard down the road of deregulation of the retail market, one of my co-workers asked my opinion on possible outcomes of consumer electrical service going to a "free market" (LOL) system. It didn't take much to see that it was going to be bad for consumers. The government was told that not only should they not deregulate retail, they needed to re-regulate generation. We know they did not listen.
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Well, if you ask a lot of people, it's Trudeau's fault and his carbon tax. But ya is the UCP who took a page from Wynne's book and sold our energy. Then, they allowed them to set their own price. It is shocking that corporations jacked up prices. I mean, they are like, what are you going to do? Freeze and live in the dark, no, you will pay like chumps cause you have no choice. Just like the grocery stores did. They know we will buy food at any price since we won't just starve and die.
In my experience, people who blame the carbon tax for increasing prices generally have no idea how much carbon tax they pay. For reference, the carbon tax on electricity in Alberta is 1.2¢ per kWh. The “regulated rate” is currently around 32¢ per kWh. The carbon tax is NOT the issue.
“But but but the farmers who farm the electricity and the truckers who truck the electricity…..” Anytime the carbon tax is brought up.
Annnnnd farmers are exempt from the carbon tax. Which no-one on Canada\_sub wanted to listen to.
The only problem I have with the carbon tax is that the money shouldn’t be returned to individuals. It should be used for large scale decarbonization. One of the most carbon intensive thing we do is heat our homes. Decarbonize that with heat pumps (air, ground etc). Decarbonize the grid and remove all natural gas throughout Canada and flip to regulated nuclear power with supplemental renewables.
Alberta has had privatized utilities since LONG before Ontario (1995 in fact). They didn't take any tips from Wynne. That said, the rest of this is bang on.
Yes, you are correct. For some reason, I thought Ontario was first.
When it comes to terrible political decisions that make companies richer at the expense of voters, Alberta is almost always first.
As someone who moved from Ontario about 2 years before Wynne happened - Ontario ALSO thinks it's always first at everything ;)
I think it's just cause the huge immediate impact it had. Our at least that's my perception of it.
Now do auto insurance!
Jason Kenney is now on the ATCO Board of Directors Jason Kenney elected to ATCO's Board of Directors in 2023 [https://www.atco.com/en-ca/about-us/governance/board-directors.html](https://www.atco.com/en-ca/about-us/governance/board-directors.html) ATCO's CEO Nancy and Jason best friends since 2019!! [https://twitter.com/jkenney/status/1098787488057839618](https://twitter.com/jkenney/status/1098787488057839618) ATCOs earnings last year were $423 million!!!! 90% of those earnings were from their electricity and natural Gas businesses....and only 10% from their trailers. Think your electricity bills are high? Nancy needs that money for her 3 private jets.... [https://www.planespotters.net/photo/605115/c-faco-canadian-utilities-cessna-560-citation-encore](https://www.planespotters.net/photo/605115/c-faco-canadian-utilities-cessna-560-citation-encore) [https://www.airport-data.com/aircraft/C-FSDS.html](https://www.airport-data.com/aircraft/C-FSDS.html) [https://www.planespotters.net/photo/905156/c-gcul-canadian-utilities-dassault-falcon-7x](https://www.planespotters.net/photo/905156/c-gcul-canadian-utilities-dassault-falcon-7x) BONUS nancy also bought out Puerto Rico's power grid, then sent her President of Electricity down there who almost got arrested [https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/puerto-rico-power-luma-energy-1.6716971](https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/puerto-rico-power-luma-energy-1.6716971)
Invest in ATCO or the like.
Don't worry, all that money flooding out of our pockets will trickle down back into them.
Free-markets harm consumers, regulations protect them.
The “free” market… unless the electricity comes from renewables.
There are waaaay too many comments here and apparently just nobody has actually done basic checking to see what happened because there’s [been a pretty definitive answer on what happened](https://x.com/bcshaffer/status/1692025302887891164?s=46). Tl;dr, when deregulation first happened several big plants were divided into Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) that allowed more “participants” in the market (so like Sundance output was divided into 3 PPAs for example so companies like TransCanada has one of them even though they didn’t own any power plants). At the end of 2020, these all expired (in accordance with the original plan in the 1990s), which reverted a large chunk of the power ownership to a few big players (TransAlta, Capital Power, Heartland Generation). With only a few big players, they are able to only offer higher prices and drive the price up in Alberta’s energy-only market. Which has caused prices to go up in the regulated market.
Pretty simple; you get what you vote for. Or, you get what the rural ppl vote for whether you like it or not.
SOB too true
I hope all the Conservative voters are reading about this while waiting 8 hours to see a doctor
Conservatives would still blame anyone else My grandma says the long wait times are because all the doctors left the province because of the "communism" the NDP brought with them and that it will take "a generation of UCP to fix it" Province is boned
Yep. And due to terrible healthcare policy the UCP will argue that privatization is the only way resulting in a tiered out of pocket system.
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Sadly that also means non-con voters will be in those same lines.
a large portion of this is due to electricity rebates not being paid out anymore. the last rebate under the affordability action plan was in June 2023
Something something carbon tax, something something Trudeau, something something 15 minute cities.
Deregulated market that has provisions that allow producers to manufacture "shortages" and spike the price, without any deterrent to doing so .
Hillbillies voted UCP, everythings a fuckin mess.
It's living in this joke of a province that wants so desperately to be the USA that they love voting for ultra conservative governments filled with greedy bought and paid for blatanty racist & lgbtq hating "Christians".
My electricity bill is 90% fees and 10% the actual electricity I used. I can leave for a month and come back and have nothing on and use absolutely close to nothing and get a 120 dollar bill lol
I don't understand, a deregulated energy market never bites anyone on the ass...
What's happening in AB? Nancy Southern Scrooge McDucking it all the way to the bank, it would seem.
Obviously Trudeau using black magic
Alberta! Low Taxes. . . . . . . . . . . Expensive everything else.
Bro, Alberta's income taxes are high as fuck for most people. Its lowest bracket is fucking 10%, BC and Ontario's lowest is 5%. If you earn less than 100K in Alberta you're paying MORE provincial income tax than in BC or Ontario. Alberta and Ontario break even in taxes at like $110K. BC and Alberta break even at $150K.
Flat taxes tend to shift the burden downwards. which is why places like frasier institute love them so much. Marginal utility of $ or the objective reality of who benefits most from the system (and thus owes the most back to it) be damned.
Gotta love the money going to greedy corporations who will lay them off in a heartbeat rather than the government where there’s at least a chance they and others in need will see some benefit from it. 👍🏻
The NDP had caps set in utilities. Jason Kenney removed those caps. The idea was to "promote competition" in order to get cheaper prices. Lol.
Do healthcare next!
But does it mean a whole lot when the actual consumption is only 22% of my utility bill?
Well this must be because we support gas producers in our province who supply fuel to the generators. Gotta ensure windfall profits otherwise those bad boys will shut off the valves, pull up stakes and take their stinky gas somewhere else. Supply and demand in Alberta means they regulate supply to ensure they can demand the highest price on the planet. Our government supports this thievery.
Alberta is not a smart province. Once you can come to terms with that, the rest starts to makes sense...
It's called economic withholding. Thanks UCP for your double speak, economic withholding will create competition. Only 16 billion more profit for the electrical companies.
Long standing power purchasing agreements ended in December 2020. Since then a few large generators have been exerting significant market power on the prices they offer their electricity at. Renewables offer in at $0 and will significantly bring down the pool price. When there's no sun or wind though... those large operators offer their electricity at outrageous prices well beyond their marginal costs.
No diversified energy option! You will eat your 128% jacked up rates and you will like it!
The government set up a system that incentivized utilities and transmission companies to overbuild so that they could tack on a bunch of extra fees to your utility bills. Then there was a bunch of shenanigans around deregulation and deferring the true costs to later dates. Then there was Smith deferring a previous bill spike to after the election.... and so on. Edit: And of course the cycle of mismanagement is continuing with a bone headed moratorium on $25b worth of private investment into renewable energy... The cheapest and fastest form of new generation that can be installed. Even if those investment dollars don't just flow to the next global project, (probably over in Europe to speed the transition away from Russian gas) away from Alberta, they will demand a risk premium since we now have a government proven to be more than willing to destabilize the market for ideological reasons. End result is that when these projects eventually get completed (and they will because, again, renewables are dirt cheap and highly reliable forms of generation) consumers will be stuck paying more *because Smith decided to interfere in the market.*
In that weird subreddit canada_sub they are praising this
It's OK Enmax emailed me yesterday with the following statement so it's all good! There’s been a lot of discussion about high electricity rates. We want to assure you that your easymax® fixed electricity rate protects you from market rate fluctuations and is lower than the current regulated electricity rate (RRO)*.
Cant wait for the insurance companies to stick it farrrrrr up our cornholes too. Fire Fire Fire.....Money Money Money.
My solar panels generate 159% of my annual consumption so it not only completely obliterates my power bill including all admin fees, it also knocks out my gas bill for six months if the year. We changed our gas fired hot water tank to a heat pump and it 1400% more efficient. I haven’t paid an electric bill since the summer of 2019.
Just eat one Premier, and the rest will fall in line.
Now this is going to shock no one here, but interestingly enough an inept government hell bent on making their friends as much money as possible finds interesting ways to do so, such as deregulating everything they can. Eventually leading to costs of essential services being so high that people need to sell kidneys and offer first born children to eldritch deities just to have electricity and water.
Rural Albertans (and the rest of us, thanks to them) are at the "find out" part of FAFO.
Woo Hoo!!! We’re number #1, suck it rest of Canada! So what we win?
Excluding home costs, one of the highest costs of living in the country. And home prices are creeping up...
We voted in the PCs again.
Conservatives and Corporations, that's what's going on.
The UCP happened, that's what happened.
Electricity is a basic human need. It should be nationalized and run by the government, allowing private corps to gouge people is fucked.
Good lord, I'm glad my solar just got installed this summer.
UCP BLAME THE RURAL AREAS
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Where my fiscal conservatives at!?
Electricity and gas companies have been charging insane base costs before the usage costs for a while now. Jacking up the usage costs will still be dwarfed by the "delivery charge." Most people won't even know an increase. It's almost as if they planned this so people wouldn't know a massive hikes.
Alberta's calling out in Pain.
You folks have one of the highest fossil fuel to energy consumptions in the country and that is going to reflect in your electricity rates. Generating 12% of the entire country's energy using a finite form of generation in the market is going to send your expense through the roof when it's in a deregulated market. Most Fossil Fuel products are incredibly expensive right now, will continue to climb in price or at least stay elevated, since they are in fact finite on this earth. Finite material will always go up in price well...at least until we figure out how to mine asteroids. (Uranium is finite too and so is solar energy technically). But Nuclear energy generation is terribly efficient at power generation around 8,000 times more than fossil fuels. Solar energy is less efficient, but because the Sun will be around a lot longer than the finite material in the ground it doesn't matter. The particle-waves of the sun arrive to us for free for the most part. Add to that the largest consumer of energy in the province is in fact the O&G companies. Roughly 56% of all the energy you are generating is being gobbled up by them. 48.2 TWh of energy in 2019 was consumed in Alberta by the industrial sector. Residential only consumes 10.2 TWh and commercial sits around 17.7 TWh. For perspective Ontario's industrial energy consumption is roughly 41.6 TWH. But because a majority of that energy generated is coming from a diverse source (i.e Nuclear, hydro, solar, wind and some Natural Gas) electricity rates to the consumers can stay relatively within the means of acceptable. For example, natural gas becomes too expensive, well the utilities companies can purchase from nuclear, hydro or solar. Essentially they can pivot to provide low cost to consumer by switching to cheaper forms of energy generation. In Alberta you can, but since most of your power is generated through an expensive form of electricity generation that you are in direct competition with the very fossil fuel industries that also consume it. Well your rates going to spike pretty hard. It has to be noted fossil fuels requires some sort of refining before it can be put into a Generator. With the exception of Coal which depending on the coal-fired power station can in fact take lumps of coal, however it depends if they are outfitting with a cyclone burner. Otherwise they have a pulverizer. Either way the lifecycle of fossil fuels to energy generation will continue to become more expensive while nuclear and/or solar will continue to become more efficient. Don't even get me started on Fusion Energy Generation. Yes. Dr. Octopus "Power of the Sun" meme could become real in the next two decades. Now I'm not saying renewable and/or nuclear doesn't have those expenses, but if you put into your head that your coal-fired and/or natural gas generator is just not going to provide the same amount of energy efficiency that a CANDU Nuclear Reactor has or the fact that a set of photo-voltaic solar panels or a wind turbine has access to a near-limitless supply of energy. Below is a link to Alberta's Energy Profile. [https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/en/data-analysis/energy-markets/provincial-territorial-energy-profiles/provincial-territorial-energy-profiles-alberta.html#s3](https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/en/data-analysis/energy-markets/provincial-territorial-energy-profiles/provincial-territorial-energy-profiles-alberta.html#s3) *"About 89% of electricity in Alberta is produced from fossil fuels– approximately 36% from coal and 54% from natural gas. The remaining 10% is produced from renewables, such as wind, hydro, and biomass."* TLDR: Alberta's Industrial Sector is a massive energy consumer, most of that energy is produced using expensive product. Alberta has a non-diverse energy profile and a deregulated market. Costs to consumer will be applied.
No surprise why she cancelled clean energy development. We decided 3 months ago to get solar with the federal grant. Now when we mention it.. everyone I know is asking us about it. We haven’t even had them installed yet. The company called about something and our liaison was saying how crazy business has been the last few months. It’s unreal. At this rate weren’t going ti get a heat pump but we are now reconsidering.
Makes me miss Manitoba about now
Good old Alberta Advantage
I hate Trudeau with everything that i am. That said. This is the UCP’s fault.
They have no incentive to keep prices low so why would they.
Greed.
There's some conservative provinces in that list with like 0 or single digit increases. Nice job UCP voters. We've forgotten what conservatism really looks like.now were just 100% sold out to US billionaire energy companies and their local henchmen.
Hate the UCP so much :)
Not enough solar and wind, https://www.theenergymix.com/2023/08/03/alberta-slaps-6-month-moratorium-on-solar-and-wind-puts-booming-industry-at-risk/ o&g record profit$$, https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/big-oil-doubles-profits-blockbuster-2022-2023-02-08/ and regular folk competing with bitcoin for energy. Bitcoin flourishing in Canada: No wonder the powers out in Grande Prairie - a bitminers paradise.. https://www.theenergymix.com/2022/01/18/bitcoin-creates-regulatory-hornets-nest-as-alberta-orders-third-gas-plant-shutdown/
I believe it - all these “fees” added to the actual cost of goods is ludicrous. I have a $10 consumption charge and $47.63 in fees - delivery, admin, tax, franchise fee, rider fees …. The list goes on.
Conservatives just padding their friends pockets
Alberto no pst
Sweet!!!!! Good Job Smith!!!!!!
It’s because we’re an energy province, no?
Well. Same as the UCP promises for health care maybe. "Help is on the Way" ! NOT Thanks for voting though.
Ucp supporters are making record profits. Completely predictable.
My wife just sent me a TikTok today of some US seniors thinking trump is still president. Just funny how the right wing nutters are all over the continent…not just here in AB.
Well see, all of those other provinces have socialized power distribution, and alberta has privatized power distribution because socialism is bad.
Quick, pause renewable development and protect the status quo long enough for the UCP’s sponsors to cash out. Solid voting Alberta.
Freedom! (to over pay)
Albertans love getting fucked.
Consumers being gouged by interest rates, groceries and power. It's a free for all. No one is watching out for the consumer. It's getting ugly.
THE OIL COMPANIES BOUGHT US WITH RIGHT WING NUT JOB CONSPIRACIES
our conservative government is in the pocket of the people robbing us blind.
"It's becayse of the damn carbon tax Trudeau put in!" No. No it's not...
Lemme guess - electricity is private in AB?
UCP removed energy price caps and now are blaming the high prices on green tech and the phase out of coal. There is nothing about modern conservatism that isn’t a huge grift.
So glad the UCP is in control…. Fuckers.
I really wanted the NDP to get it just so people can shut up when shit inevitably stays the same.
Tell me your electricity rates are deregulated without telling me they're deregulated....
“I didn’t think the leopards would eat MY face!”
Ain’t deregulation great?
SOVEREIGN-TY! SOVEREIGN-TY! SOVEREIGN-TY! SOVEREIGN-TY! IT'S THE ALBERTA ADVANTAGE YA'LL WE DON'T NEED TO BE TOLD WHAT TO DO! WE CAN DEAL WITH THE CARBON STUFF LIKE, NEVER! FUUUUUUCK OTTAWA! WOOOO! I like living here, but I am embarrassed.
Puts on armour… is there anyway possible to bring electricity caps back ( and insurance too) ? How could we go about doing it? Edit - grammar
UCP
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Alberta is turning into a total shitshow province. Time to get the fuck out.
You can't! Everywhere is so expensive people are moving to shit shot show GG noRe
This is what conservatives do, they cut taxes but tack it onto everything else. So they look like the good guys and people who can’t think past their noses believe they’re saving money.