Lethbridge candidates grilled on issues at forum

Phillips was asked about how the NDP would help small businesses. She answered, “There’s no question that small businesses are key to the local economy, and that’s why we’ve committed to eliminating the small business tax rate if we are elected.”

She said, “That is the small business rate of two per cent that applies to firms with fewer than $500,000 in income annually. We think that is the way to incite the economic growth we want in Lethbridge.”

The corporate tax rate was brought up. This came on the heels of the Alberta NDP releasing its fully costed economic plan. The plan includes increasing the corporate income tax rate to 11 per cent from eight per cent.

Phillips stated, “The General Corporate Rate applies to very large corporations who enjoy more than $500,000 in profit annually. The GCR was 12 percent, but when it was dropped to eight per cent, it came with a number of empty promises by the UCP that it would fill the office towers in Calgary, that jobs and investment would come back and none of that happened.”

She added, “In fact, those empty promises were accompanied by empty office towers in Calgary. What we have done is we have found the right balance here where we have dropped the small business rate to zero. The other jurisdiction that has a zero business rate is Manitoba, which was also brought in by an NDP government. What we will do is we will still ensure that we are still able to pay for those reinvestments in health care, in better education, in the priorities that Albertans are asking us to re-invest in by ensuring we’re finding that right balance for very profitable corporations.”

Both Seaborn and Chizek issued rebuttals.

Seaborn said, “When that announcement was made regarding the 38 per cent tax increase by the NDP government for corporate taxes, one of the reporters asked point blank, ‘What assessment has been done to see how that would impact the investments made in Alberta or if there was a job loss’, and quite frankly the answer was, ‘we have not done any assessment.’”

Seaborn added, “I think that we actually have, we saw what happened four years ago when the NDP [was] in power and we lost investments. We actually had the highest investment in Alberta in this last quarter in its history by businesses coming and investing in this province. We have people living here, we have jobs to offer, and history speaks for itself when we increase corporate rates.”

Chizek, meanwhile, said, “If someone is paying zero per cent, who is taking up the rest? Is eight per cent fair? Those are the questions we have to ask. I can see a business having an eight per cent or a two per cent. The big corporations, keep them at eight per cent as long as they are building and expanding on that site. If not, I think 10 per cent might be better, and if we need small business supports, I think we can give them other supports other than at zero per cent.”

Seaborn was asked about addressing the issue of homelessness in Lethbridge. She noted that tackling this issue includes working “hand-in-hand with municipalities,” Seaborn said. “The homeless population primarily suffers from mental health and addiction, and so the UCP has really made great strides in that. We focus on a lot of resources here in Lethbridge to try and mitigate some of that.”

“So, one of the things we’ve done is opened up a Fresh Start community, which will be accepting residents, and that’s a long-term plan for people to help them to recover from their addictions and mental health troubles long-term, meaning up to two years or more if needed. From there, we’re working with municipalities to supply and promote low-income housing.”

The UCP candidate spoke about supporting seniors.

Seaborn said, “Anybody making under $60,000 is going to be in new tax brackets, so there will be an eight per cent personal tax. Personal tax rates and business tax rates are going to be held where they are right now, they are not going to move, so that’s also very significant. Further from that, we are going to be offering different kinds of supports from a healthcare perspective to try and keep seniors at home for as long as they can, which is really significant to their well-being.”

Phillips issued a response, and said, “In the last four years, the UCP has threatened to withdraw us from the CPP [Canada Pension Plan], they’ve kicked tens of thousands of Albertans off the Senior Drug Plan. I spoke to one lady in Lethbridge-West who had to pay $900 for her medication after losing access to the Seniors Drug Benefit.”

Phillips added, “There’s been funding cuts to seniors’ housing, they’ve forced seniors to pay for their driver’s medicals, cut the seniors’ benefit from keeping pace with inflation, eliminated the seniors’ advocate. Of course, made devastating cuts to health care and neglected continuing care during the pandemic. What we will do is reverse a number of these things, all the while ensuring we post a $1.1 billion surplus this year, next year and the next, maintaining the lowest corporate tax and other tax environment in the country, lower than Doug Ford’s Ontario, lower than Scott Moe’s Saskatchewan.”

Chizek was asked about funding for education in Lethbridge, and said her party wants to encourage Albertans to study locally, and upon graduation, work in their communities.

She said, “We have a policy that says, for every year they go if they have a four-year degree, if they stay and work one year, we will reimburse their tuition. We’ve got to help them some way.”

Chizek added, “The second way we’re talking and thinking about is universities need a lot of money to run, so rather than making cuts and making students pay for it up front, maybe, and this is just a maybe, not a finalized policy, but, people like to donate money, and they like to donate to the university or college they went to. If we could get a better tax write-off for those to donate to the university. So if I give them $1,000, I get a $250 write-off.”

Chizek’s comment was halted by a timer for the event. Each candidate had one minute to answer posed questions during the Tuesday evening forum.

LETHBRIDGE-EAST

The second portion of the event allowed Lethbridge-East candidates to answer questions.

In attendance were the NDP’s Rob Miyashiro and incumbent Nathan Neudorf with the UCP. Helen McMenamin with the Alberta Liberals was not present at the forum.

(From L to R) Lethbridge-East candidates, Nathan Neudorf with the UCP and the NDP’s Rob Miyashiro took part in the all-candidates forum hosted by the Lethbridge Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday, May 16, 2023. (Photo: J. Goulet – LNN)

Some of the questions asked of Miyashiro and Neudorf focused on social issues and safety in the community, health care and an Alberta pension plan.

Miyashiro was asked numerous times whether he would support the construction of a new supervised consumption site in Lethbridge, and said, “At this time, at this exact moment, no.”

When addressing some of the social issues observed in the city, such as homelessness and addictions, Miyashiro said, “There’s not just one way to fix the social problems that are occurring in Lethbridge right now. It’s a multi-pronged approach and a multi-sector approach to dealing with this issue. When you talk about addiction, you have to look at how we can help people across the spectrum of services.”

Neudorf replied with, “It was the NDP that first brought the Supervised Consumption Site to Lethbridge and started the whole chaos off.”

He added, “We’ve actually put our money where our mouth is. We came in and started to address the issues here at hand by creating long-term treatment by not just trusting in one leg of the stool, but creating other legs of the stool and actually funding those wrap-around services.”

Neudorf cited the drug treatment court in Lethbridge, as well as the Lethbridge Recovery Community referenced earlier in the evening by Cheryl Seaborn, as success stories for his party.

Regarding a potential Alberta pension plan, Neudorf said, “We know that Alberta is approximately 12 per cent of the population of Canada. We also know that, in Alberta, we often contributed an oversized amount to the federal government in lots of areas.”

“We want you to have those facts, we want you to have that information and we want you to decide whether you want to remain in the Canada Pension Plan or do something different. We will not proceed unless directed to by Albertans, and we will not proceed without a referendum,” Neudorf added.

Miyashiro commented, “The whole idea of CPP is based on income. For the longest time, Albertans have had a resource-based economy and we’ve had the biggest income. That’s why our contribution is more. We also have a younger province, which just stands to reason that this happens.”

Miyashiro said the UCP’s leader, Danielle Smith, “muses about things publicly without having any idea what that means at the end of the road.”

In relation to health care, Neudorf said he would like to see Chinook Regional Hospital in Lethbridge go from being a tier three hospital to a tier two hospital, noting, “We’re one of the only communities without an urgent care centre.”

“We need to fund our system [appropriately] to the population base that we serve, which is closer to 350,000 than the 100,000 that is our population in Lethbridge,” Neudorf said.

General voting day for the provincial election is May 29, 2023.

Full election coverage: Alberta Votes 2023

by Justin Goulet and Christian Oldale

Lethbridge candidates grilled on issues at forum

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