McGowan will deliver his message at a meeting of union leaders and activists in Winnipeg today
WINNIPEG – In a speech to labour leaders and activists in Winnipeg today, the leader of Alberta’s labour movement will urge the federal government to say ‘no’ to Alberta Premier Jason Kenney’s plea for cash.
“Premier Kenney is in Ottawa today asking the federal government for $2.4 billion. We’re asking the Prime Minister to say no to Kenney’s demands — at least without attaching a few strings. We want to make sure that federal money isn’t used by the UCP to subsidize more corporate tax cuts at the expense of our public services,” says Gil McGowan, president of the Alberta Federation of Labour.
“We also think the federal government should make the money contingent on the Alberta government addressing the real problems facing our province, as opposed to manufactured boogeymen like the so-called foreign-funded campaign to landlock our oil or the conspiracy of ‘Laurentian elites’ that Kenney and his surrogates have been babbling about lately,” says McGowan.
“The first real problem that the federal government should require Kenney to address is our broken revenue system that relies on billions in resource royalties to pay the bills and balance the books each year. Why should the rest of the country help Alberta maintain irresponsibly low taxes on corporations and the wealthy? The second real problem that Ottawa needs to help us with has to do with the fact that the global oil and gas sector is being transformed by markets, technology and concerns about climate change. Albertans understand that there won’t be another boom. We need the rest of the country to help us prepare for a future that isn’t going to look like our past. That’s the kind of help Alberta needs from Ottawa, not a blank cheque that will help Kenney pursue an ideological agenda that doesn’t really help our province.”
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MEDIA MAY CONTACT GIL MCGOWAN DIRECTLY TODAY IN WINNIPEG:
Gil McGowan
President, Alberta Federation of Labour
780-218-9888
gmcgowan@afl.org