In his recent op-ed, UCP Finance Minister Travis Toews explained how his party is incapable of attracting investment or creating good industrial jobs in Alberta. The failures of the UCP are, in his telling, always someone else’s fault.
Toews did not explain how or why he let a $4-billion petrochemical project die in his own riding last month. Nauticol Energy would have produced 3.4 million tonnes of net-zero blue methanol annually, and more importantly, would have created more than 6,000 construction and permanent jobs just outside of Grande Prairie.
Toews and the UCP simply let this project slip through their fingers. Nauticol chairman Leo de Bever told media that despite many conversations with him, the province didn’t act.
It’s a worrisome trend, coming on the heels of the layoffs at Benevity and the departure of Google’s DeepMind artificial intelligence facility in Edmonton, which sent world-class tech jobs to Toronto and Montreal.
The UCP is too busy pandering to their extremist fringe to focus on attracting investment and creating jobs.
Make no mistake, we are now in direct competition with the United States for the investment and talent that will fuel our economy in the coming decades. I am very proud that the Alberta NDP has released the Competitiveness, Jobs, and Investment Strategy. First presented to the Calgary Chamber in December, the strategy has five specific actions to build a resilient jobs economy in Alberta.
First, an Alberta NDP government will establish the Alberta’s Future Tax Credit, which would provide a refundable credit of 20 per cent on capital investment in emerging sectors, with an additional 10 per cent available to projects that create high-skilled jobs or create new technological capacity in Alberta.
Based on similar incentives in the United States’ Inflation Reduction Act, this tax credit will attract $10 billion in investment and create 20,000 jobs.
Second, we will supercharge the Alberta Petrochemical Incentive Program, which is a rebranded version of an Alberta NDP program which began in 2016. We will inject another 30 per cent or $70 million annually, driving another $10 billion in investment and 27,000 industrial jobs.
We support the UCP’s Alberta Indigenous Opportunities Corporation. But we have heard from many communities that the program is too narrow to support the size and type of projects communities are interested in. We will consult on ways to update the corporation to make capital available for a broader range of projects and communities.
We will establish a Performance Fast Pass. This means that companies who have a strong record of paying their taxes, honouring their environmental obligations and protecting workers will move to the front of the line. Every proponent will face the same scrutiny, but good actors will get their projects reviewed and approved and operational sooner.
Lastly, we will repeal the UCP’s Sovereignty Act. Toews said this legislation “hurts everyday Albertans” and is “dangerous for the province” before he voted in favour of it himself. An Alberta NDP government will make it clear to investors that our province is a stable jurisdiction to invest in, where they can rely on due process and the rule of law, both of which have been repeatedly attacked by Danielle Smith and the UCP.
I encourage Albertans to visit AlbertasFuture.ca to learn more about the Competitiveness, Jobs and Investment Strategy, and to check out our proposals on a range of economic sectors, including hydrogen, tech, geothermal, and bitumen beyond combustion.
Our Alberta NDP vision is for a resilient jobs economy, one that supports families and communities with good-paying jobs in oil and gas and in emerging industrial sectors.
