Kenney Man, Kenney Man, screws AB like no one can: hijacks pensions, cut the AISH, punched your wallet in the face. Look out world, it's the Kenney Man.
Jason Kenney has spent the past month demonizing teachers and nurses after he already cut positions and wages, threatened to hijack worker pensions, sacked Alberta Justice public servants and redirected funding to his friends at TK, hung out with white nationalists at the UCP '19 Convention, and doing other shady stuff.
Kenney was already mask-off before the Alberta election: he ran on a platform of sticking it to LGBTQ+ kids, on cutting young workers' wages, on breaking unions, and on giving handouts to mega-profitable corporations.
In the previous few months, Kenney's kicked 46,000 seniors off provincial pharmacare, cancelled a major cancer clinic project, slashed funding for municipal police, slashed funding to municipalities, cut education funding, and cut health care programs.
Dude's now going after nurses and teachers because of course he can.
19B4: Games, Hacks, And Essays
Squinter Media
Bill 20 and Bill 21: Kenney's Latest Cash Grab
Let's start with some stats. These bills are gigantic. Between the 2 of them, they amend over 30 pieces of legislation, pass 3 new laws, and repeal 5 others. #ableg
— Amanda Henry (@amandocracy) December 5, 2019
They move $700 million dollars out of dedicated funds that do things like fund cancer research, community programs, and environmental protection out of restricted funds and into general revenue. This includes Lottery Fund money. #ableg
— Amanda Henry (@amandocracy) December 5, 2019
There's a tax grab too. They're de-indexing personal income taxes. Albertans will pay $600 million more in personal income taxes over the next 3 years. So, not a small thing. @jkenney himself called this particular tax grab "nefarious" when the feds did it...
— Amanda Henry (@amandocracy) December 5, 2019
But wait! There's more. The bills amend the Alberta Health Care Insurance Act. Extensively. In ways that *may* be unconstitutional (per court cases in other jurisdictions). #ableg
— Amanda Henry (@amandocracy) December 5, 2019
AND ANOTHER THING. They "de-index" income support programs for seniors and Albertans living with disabilities. That's going to take ~$30 a month out of the pockets of people living on fixed incomes. #ableg
— Amanda Henry (@amandocracy) December 5, 2019
They repeal Henson Trusts. Which is just kind of a petty, mean-spirited way to impact Alberta families trying to manage the estates of their loved ones. @MarieFrRenaud is trying to amend the bill to fix this (& here's some info on that) #ableghttps://t.co/DyYrKdc94z
— Amanda Henry (@amandocracy) December 5, 2019
The bills ALSO raise tuition and student loan interest rates. So that's going to cost post-secondary students millions of dollars. Cool. Guess this government thinks "living within its fiscal means" means pushing young people beyond theirs to get good educations. #ableg
— Amanda Henry (@amandocracy) December 5, 2019
And... we're not done, by the way.
— Amanda Henry (@amandocracy) December 5, 2019
Bill 20 & 21 also break promises to @CityofEdmonton and @cityofcalgary by tearing up City Charters. #ableg #yyccc #yegcc
They LEGISLATE changes to the already-in-place funding agreements for the Green Line and the Valley Line LRT projects. I'd hate to be those councils right now trying to work with a provincial government that just changes laws when they want to break deals.#ableg #yeg #yyc
— Amanda Henry (@amandocracy) December 5, 2019
One or the other of these bills (21 I think) gives the government the ability to claw back revenue for enforcement tickets that should be paid to municipalities. That's police funding (don't believe me? How about the Calgary police: https://t.co/n94UHrGDfL #ableg #yyc)
— Amanda Henry (@amandocracy) December 5, 2019
On that ticket revenue/police funding thing: @abndpcaucus thinks that the government should AT LEAST restrict that funding so it's used by the province for fighting crime and improving safety rather than general revenue. So we'll see how that goes. #ableg
— Amanda Henry (@amandocracy) December 5, 2019
They're also ending the electricity rate cap. Which will likely be about 20 bucks a month onto your monthly bill, give or take. #ableg
— Amanda Henry (@amandocracy) December 5, 2019
And there's more. There's so much more. They're changing the labour relations code, severance for public sector employees, the employment standards code, and then actual financial things around government contingency funds and financial reporting. #ableg
— Amanda Henry (@amandocracy) December 5, 2019
Photo credit: NeONBRAND
