Alberta budget

[Rod1960]

The province is boosting a raft of fees — some by more than three-fold — that have remained unchanged since 2002 as part of Thursday’s budget released by the Stelmach government.

As of April 1, Service Alberta fees for motor vehicles, land titles and corporate registries will be going up, along with the cost to reserve a campsite in the province.

The Service Alberta fee increases will generate $83.5 million in revenue through hikes to vehicle registration (a $14 increase to $75), drivers licence renewal (a $20 jump to $75 for a five year renewal) and the cost of registering a mortgage at the land titles office (going up to $50 from $15).

“When revenue was good you didn’t have to look at everything as closely,” said Finance Minister Lloyd Snelgrove of the fees that haven’t changed in about nine years. “These are simply moving into cost recovery.”

The total spending for Service Alberta for 2011-12 is $300 million, a $7.7-million increase from the previous year.

New revenue generated by the increased fees will go toward more than the costs of administering the various registries, the province said.

“It goes to other programs like road maintenance, road safety programs, those kind of things,” said Service Alberta spokeswoman Sharon Lopatka. “With inflation and so on, costs just continued to go up (since 2002). It’s moving toward more of cost-recovery model, reflecting the costs for the services.”

Campsite reservation fees are jumping by $2, the first increase since the fee was introduced by Tourism, Parks and Recreation two years ago. It will now cost $12 for a reservation and $5 to change the reservation.

Based on 170,000 reservations made last year, the province expects to generate about $340,000 in new revenue to cover costs associated with Alberta’s campgrounds.

The province also announced it is ending the Tax Exempt Fuel Use rebate for licensed vehicles, including the Prescribed Rebate Off-road Percentages program, as of midnight Thursday.

The program was originally intended for employers in the oil and gas and agricultural industries who use unlicensed of road vehicles and machinery.

The program eventually grew to include licensed vehicles and the government claims it was being abused.

Companies can no long file for rebates for their licensed vehicles while farmers will still be able to get marked fuel at specific rural locations at a rate that doesn’t include the nine cent provincial fuel tax.

This move will affect largely the oil and gas and forestry industries as well as municipalities according to the province.

The government expects to keep about $65 million this year it would’ve handed out in rebates under the program while farmers will still save about $160 million on reduced rate gas for their vehicles and machinery.



© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald

Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/Raft+pr...#ixzz1EvNW0H8b

I won't be voting for these clowns again anytime soon.

[geo]

What really ****es me off is comments like this:

“When revenue was good you didn’t have to look at everything as closely,” said Finance Minister Lloyd Snelgrove of the fees that haven’t changed in about nine years. “These are simply moving into cost recovery.”

Then I see this no more than 3 lines below it:

“It goes to other programs like road maintenance, road safety programs, those kind of things,” said Service Alberta spokeswoman Sharon Lopatka. “With inflation and so on, costs just continued to go up (since 2002). It’s moving toward more of cost-recovery model, reflecting the costs for the services.”

This government is a complete joke. This isn't cost recovery, it's a tax grab. Road maintenance is not the cost of providing registry services.

Complete and utter joke. Need to tell Snelgrove to take his ridiculous budget, his couple weeks as finance minister and his lame duck leader and get the hell out of this province. The PC's may have built up the province to where it is today, but they're also doing a great job of tearing it apart in order to protect themselves and their friends.

Pay me $12 a reservation on campsites and I could manage the whole damn program and turn a huge profit. This isn't cost recovery. Our taxes may be low in Alberta, but these tax and spend liberals disguised as conservatives just find other ways to extract their pound of flesh.

And this:

“When revenue was good you didn’t have to look at everything as closely..."

What the heck is that?? Are you telling me they've been **** away our money for the last 20 years because revenues have been good enough they didn't have to care. Few million to friend A here, few more million to friend B there.

Too long in power.

[hal53]

Originally Posted by geo

What really ****es me off is comments like this:



Then I see this no more than 3 lines below it:



This government is a complete joke. This isn't cost recovery, it's a tax grab. Road maintenance is not the cost of providing registry services.

Complete and utter joke. Need to tell Snelgrove to take his ridiculous budget, his couple weeks as finance minister and his lame duck leader and get the hell out of this province. The PC's may have built up the province to where it is today, but they're also doing a great job of tearing it apart in order to protect themselves and their friends.

Pay me $12 a reservation on campsites and I could manage the whole damn program and turn a huge profit. This isn't cost recovery. Our taxes may be low in Alberta, but these tax and spend liberals disguised as conservatives just find other ways to extract their pound of flesh.

And this:

“When revenue was good you didn’t have to look at everything as closely..."

What the heck is that?? Are you telling me they've been **** away our money for the last 20 years because revenues have been good enough they didn't have to care. Few million to friend A here, few more million to friend B there.

Too long in power.

pretty pathetic overall...loud mouth Mason jar et al will have fun with this one.....the Tories are now like your aged grandparent sitting in the corner spewing nonsensical drivel....c'mon election!!!!!!!

[AxeMan]

Remember that this is Morton's budget, not Snelgrove's.

[FishingMOM]

We need another option for a party.

AO Common Sense Party

Premier would be Kenaovette

Finance Minister would be WWBIRDS

Health Minister would be Mudbug

Education would be Arn?Narn

Minster of Environment would be Hunter Dave

Minister of Justice would be non other than HUNTIN STUFF

[Dacotensis]

Has anyone reserved at Spruce Point in recent timesÉ Damn, there goes that question mark making an É again.
Anyways, $12 is not a lot of money to stay at a site.
I bet a large part of the population spends 6 times this on bait, or tire cleaner so the tires shine nice. Or timmies in two days.
How about hiring a babysitter so you can go out for the nightÉ
$75 for vehilce registrationÉ Ok, I have a 120L tank in each truck at $1.09 a L I guess I`ll have to stay longer when I go camping. Maybe I`ll buy a few less beer. I know... fightin words rightÉ
I`m glad there is no yearly renewal for trailer registration.
What is wrong with user based feesÉ
If you ride the bus, you pay.

It doesn`t matter what the PCs do. They will **** off someone. I`m sure when sex change opperations went on the hit list there were people upset over this as well.
Smokes go up, someone`s ****ed.
Booze goes up, same thing.
Greed is gonna get everyone in a pinch, Don`t get me going on the unions. For every public servant we hire, we are forever and a lifetime on the hook for Pay, retirement pack, health benefits.
People want more cops on the street, it`s going to cost us a lifetime. Danielle Smith wants more Nurses in the hospitals, we start paying for life the minute one is hired. It`s not just the cost of the day to day paycheck; it`s the additional costs that bury the taxpayer.
Think about this.
Complain to bylaw abut your neighbour and you justify the bylaw officers exsistence. They get so busy the municipality hires another one, buys them a cruiser etc, etc. That complsint is a vote for hire taxes.
I won`t vote that way.
Not everyone will always be happy,
The fact is there is still opportunity to be succesfull in this province. That`s why people are still moving here. Try BC, Not buisness freindly at all.
Yep! I **** Blue!
Dac

[Dacotensis]

FishingMoM,
We need an information minister. Your in!

Personally I don`t mind if any of these guys want to take front and centre.
I`ll stay in the wings, be a back bencher and collect the pay.
All I want is a Caribou Hunt with Jim Shockey and a White tail Hunt with his former camera man.
Does the benefit package include Rub and tugs

[AxeMan]

Originally Posted by FishingMOM

We need another option for a party.

AO Common Sense Party

Premier would be Kenaovette

Finance Minister would be WWBIRDS

Health Minister would be Mudbug

Education would be Arn?Narn

Minster of Environment would be Hunter Dave

Minister of Justice would be non other than HUNTIN STUFF

Come on....we don't need to go from bad to worse.....

[geo]

Originally Posted by Dacotensis

Anyways, $12 is not a lot of money to stay at a site.

That's just the the reservation cost. Your looking at up to $40 a night after that, post-increase. Two nights of camping will run about $92.

[hal53]

Originally Posted by FishingMOM

We need another option for a party.

AO Common Sense Party

Premier would be Kenaovette

Finance Minister would be WWBIRDS

Health Minister would be Mudbug

Education would be Arn?Narn

Minster of Environment would be Hunter Dave

Minister of Justice would be non other than HUNTIN STUFF

and Cat would be a great CFO!!! (not chief financial officer) LOL

[podman]

I don't mind the usage based fees, that way my taxes didn't go up. Also as stated above if you ride the bus you should pay if you don't why should you?

[FishingMOM]

Originally Posted by podman

I don't mind the usage based fees, that way my taxes didn't go up. Also as stated above if you ride the bus you should pay if you don't why should you?

Wonderful theory
However I dont use the libraries, university, the hospitals in edmonton,
So with your theory I should pay more because my son is in Kindergarten and uses a public school?
I dont use the jails either so can I avoid paying for the facilities and the staff to run them?

[Dacotensis]

I think we can all agree that we want an educated population.
God, I would go crazy dealing with more fools. If we don`t educate, we pay more for law and order and prisons.
Some expenses are unavoidable, short of having a test to become a parent and or forced sterilization. That might save us all a big pile of cash.

[hal53]

Originally Posted by FishingMOM

Wonderful theory
However I dont use the libraries, university, the hospitals in edmonton,
So with your theory I should pay more because my son is in Kindergarten and uses a public school?
I dont use the jails either so can I avoid paying for the facilities and the staff to run them?

agreed, very slippery slope...tell me once again why I am still paying school taxes????

[AxeMan]

Snelgrove says Service Alberta must be cost recovery and says licensing and registration must go up to accommodate this. He says these costs haven't been increased since 2002. Aren't these services privatized? How could license issuing cost Service Alberta more money when the service is already privatized? It is a tax grab and nothing less.

[rugatika]

Come on election...goodbye socialists.

[geo]

Originally Posted by podman

I don't mind the usage based fees, that way my taxes didn't go up. Also as stated above if you ride the bus you should pay if you don't why should you?

The issue here is that the fees aren't going specifically to the parks or what not.

The second quotation from the government official indicated that these were purely general revenue:

“It goes to other programs like road maintenance, road safety programs, those kind of things,” said Service Alberta spokeswoman Sharon Lopatka. “With inflation and so on, costs just continued to go up (since 2002). It’s moving toward more of cost-recovery model, reflecting the costs for the services.”

Having the fees go to other programs isn't cost-recovery, it's a hidden tax.

If it was about cost recovery, they'd disclose the profit that the private campsite operators make on operating our provincial parks. There is no evidence this has anything to do with costs. It's either increasing general revenue, or lining the pockets of the operators of these provincial parks (which is a private firm with no public accountability... we don't get to know if they are fleecing us).

A few hundred thousand won't make a difference. The problem with this government is no one is accountible for anything. Too many little side deals that are out of the public eye. I'm ok for private companies making a profit, but not an extortionary profit only possible because friends in government granted a monopoly to exploit public resources (our parks).

If someone is granted a monopoly, they must be regulated and publically accountible. I can't find anything on this PMS Ltd. (actually the name of the company) that runs all of our provincial parks for profit. No accountibility at all.

And I don't trust these boys to look after it.

EDIT: Point of clarification... seems like PMS Ltd. doesn't run ALL the parks, just some. There are other private operators.

[ABCowboy]

Well...all the squealing won't help.... votes at the polls are all that matters,,, in my riding, Lloyd Snelgrove's, who I've known for over 30 years, you could paint a fence post blue and orange, put Post, Fence on the ballot, and guess who would be elected.....

[North of Owlseye]

Originally Posted by AxeMan

Remember that this is Morton's budget, not Snelgrove's.

I thought Ted the terrible coulnd't stomach this type of budget and was about to lead a cockus revolt so Steady Eddie resigned so as to get Ted out of the finiance job. I think this is more a Stelmach and his cronies budget and Ted would have tried to make a slash and burn services budget so as to balance it. I still believe the party split is really the deficit supporters - Special Ed against the balanced budget fascists like Mortin.