Look, Mr. Mayor, average folk can use the dividend cheques
I was enthralled this past weekend by Julie McCullough’s wide-eyed performance in Stage West’s current production of the bedroom farce Pajama Tops—coming just about one decade to the year after the lusty June Wilkinson performed in the same show on the same stage.
Yes, I’ve always had an affinity for pretty women, although during the show my mind wandered to Premier Ralph Klein and Mayor Dave Bronconnier.
What, you may ask, have Klein and Bronconnier to do with a British sex comedy?
Stay with me and I’ll uncover all for you but, first, I must admit the two other risque ladies in the show, Jill Hayman and Melanie Merkosky, also kept all eyes to the stage, and aside from her appearance in the TV series Growing Pains, McCullough is known for showing more of her talents as Playboy’s Miss February 1986.
Anyway, during the interval, a nice fellow and his wife whispered that this was the first time they had made it to Stage West since Klein handed out government rebate cheques several years ago. With kids to bring up, they were on a limited budget, and used that rebate cheque for a rare entertaining night on the town. This time, they were only at Stage West because of a kind gesture from a friend.
A little over a week ago, after stonewalling about giving Albertans back some of their own money flowing in the billions of dollars into the provincial treasury from oil and natural gas revenues, Klein finally broke a little and suggested dividend cheques in the range of $300 may soon be in the mail.
Get this, a $5-billion surplus last year, a predicted $7-billion surplus this year, huge squandering of public money on all kinds of spending projects, 27% pay hikes for government insiders, and we working jerks might get a paltry $300!
Yet at least it’s a bit from this increasingly arrogant regime.
A day or so later, Bronconnier himself came out demanding 100% of property tax revenues go to the municipalities rather than the province taking 51%.
This, said Bronconnier, would give cities a fair, stable method of funding, rather than having constantly to ask for provincial grants in stop-gap fashion.
Obviously a quite sensible proposal.
But then Dave, sounding like a tax-and-spend Liberal, proclaimed rather than hand out dividend cheques to average Albertans that money should go to the cities, too.
He recalled when he received one of those rebate cheques several years ago he immediately donated it to charity.
Bronconnier then made a few more demands on the province that had Klein—quite rightly—fuming. The mayor should have just stuck to his property tax plan. Clear and simple.
It was Bronconnier’s demand rebate cash go to him—and other mayors—rather than cash-strapped individuals and families that got most of us riled.
Bronconnier may not need $150 or $300.
But with sky-high federal taxes, staggering housing costs making it harder and harder to own a home, and soaring gasoline and natural gas prices, most of us are feeling the pinch.
Cripes, it costs a family of four about $50 just to go for a night at the movies. Try that on minimum wage.
So while Dave can casually toss a $150 rebate cheque to a favourite charity—most of the folk I know used that cheque to pay bills, or, as my acquaintances at Stage West did, have an all-too-elusive night out.
The mayor could buy a table for eight darn near every week at Stage West for his well-heeled friends—or take his family out to the movies even more frequently—and not even feel a pinch.
That’s not how most Calgarians live.
Bronconnier has done a top-notch job as mayor—though we all cringe when he brings out his intricate charts of where the city should be going—but on this issue he’s way, way out of touch with average families.
If average families aren’t going to benefit from gushing oil wealth, what’s the point of that wealth?
Being able to afford a ticket to a comedy, or a movie, or buying necessities for the kids is a lot more relevant to most than filling in an extra pothole.
Dave, it was the common folk who twice put you into office with huge majorities, and it’ll be the common folk who take you out of office if you treat them callously.
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