On October 24th, our Government presented budget 2019/2020 which details our fiscal plan for Alberta and how we intend to balance the budget. This budgeting process was not easy. As Minister of Infrastructure, I travelled across the province to consult Albertans and obtain their input for the budget. I am proud of the work my colleagues and I have accomplished to put this plan together.
Over the next few months, we will continue to update Albertans about our fiscal plan, and I encourage all of my constituents to visit the Government of Alberta website to read the budget details.
While balancing the budget has been a focal point for our Government, we are committed to reignite the economy and sending a message to investors that Alberta is once again open for business.
Currently, internal barriers within Canada cost the Canadian economy between $50 billion and $130 billion every year. Just take a few seconds to think about that …within our own country, we do not even have free trade. It makes no sense that the 27 member states of the European Union enjoy more open trade than our 10 provinces do within Canada.
As part of our Government’s job-creation strategy, we took the bold step to drop all provincial exceptions to the 2017 Canada Free Trade Agreement related to procurement. This leaves Alberta with the lowest number of trade exemptions among the provinces.
As a proud Canadian, I personally challenge other provincial leaders to drop barriers to trade and open up our federation to make it the true economic union that it was intended to be.
In September, I held a very well attended Town Hall meeting in the riding. Thank you to everyone who participated. We had some good discussions about improving our economy and improving government services to make life better for our constituents.
We also talked about our Government’s Red Tape Reduction initiative. Please take a moment to visit www.alberta.ca/cut-red-tape.aspx. As the website notes, “If you’ve come across a government process that’s too complex, takes too long, serves no purpose, or is duplicative or wasteful we want to know about it.”
On November 9th, dozens of volunteers and I will be visiting homes in the riding asking for donations of non-perishable food items for a local veterans’ food bank. This will be our 6th annual veterans’ food drive and we appreciate your support for this worthy cause.
