Jan. 10, 2019
Above: Shawna Gawreluck is seen at an all candidate’s forum in this 2017 Morinville News file photo.
by Morinville News Staff
The NDP announced Thursday night that Shawna Gawreluck is the Alberta NDP’s candidate for Morinville-St. Albert in the upcoming 2019 provincial election.
Gawreluck is a married mother of three who is a small business owner and a board member for the Jessica Martel Memorial Foundation.
She ran for the federal NDP in the 2017 by-election to replace Rona Ambrose’s vacated MP seat. In that election, she placed third in the race with 7.7% of the vote.
In a media release, Gawreluck said she does not think Jason Kenney will fight for what matters to families.
“I’ve lived through deep Conservative cuts. We were trying to grow our family and our business while paying for rising tuition and daycare fees,” she said. “Kenney and the UCP would make life harder for families like mine.”
Gawreluck went on to say that Kenney has proposed a $700-million tax cut for the wealthiest Albertans, and advocated for privatizing healthcare and cutting education.
“In the next few months, we face a critical choice. Take a close look at Kenney’s promises, and the choice becomes very clear,” Gawreluck said. “Rachel is the one who will fight for what matters.”
This past November, St. Albert resident Dale Nally was chosen by local United Conservative Party members to be their candidate in the next provincial election.
Morinville Community High School teacher Neil Korotash recently announced his bid to be the Alberta Party candidate for Morinville-St. Albert. He is running in the candidate race against former Morinville Public School principal Wayne Rufiange.
Pfft why even run ? think your gunna win. Your policy’s ruined our province.
Scott Pollard because she’s incredibly qualified as a business owner and community member and she’d make an exceptional MLA? Alberta is hardly “ruined”. We have the fastest growing economy, the highest wages, and the lowest debt in the country. If we had hacked and slashed like Saskwatchewan did and like Kenney from Ottawa wants to do, we’d still be in a recession rather than in a recovery. Sure, we’re facing some challenges from low oil prices and court delays on the pipeline, but that would be the same under any party and Notley is the only one with a plan to do anything about it, specifically to invest in upgrading and refining more of our oil and gas here in Alberta. The UCP plan is to plug their ears and give tax breaks to the wealthy by privatizing healthcare.
Andrew Robert Francis i
Good to see you took full advantage of pot legalization! 🙂
Fred William Glaubitz I in fact don’t partake, only thing I get high on is facts and truth!
But that’s also a good point now that you mention it: Alberta’s NDP government is also one of the only provinces that didn’t completely bungle cannabis legalization! And they’ve also quadrupled the size of our brewing industry in just three years ?
Andrew Robert Francis what do you do for work? do you work in industry the NDP has put together a platform that barley consults albertans and forces a socialist agenda of taxes and bad business judgement. The billions of dollars of investments that have left Alberta for the US but hey I don’t know how a mind set of someone that clearly thinks they did anything good in policies from the taxation of some bullshit carbon tax that does nothing but scare investors and makes things more expensive and we don’t see anything from it. Canada is carbon negative because of what our emissions are the vast forest acts as a carbon sink and captures more carbon then we emit. Notley and he upgrading my god the reason why their isn’t more refined product is because of 1 rule of supply and demand the influence of landlocked oil in this country is bullshit we buy our oil back from the us. Also Saskatchewan is doing well a lot better then Alberta because of existing infrastructure to get oil south and out. And not a problem I’d love a fucking tax break from all the bullshit taxes we pay for services that aren’t essential. I have no problem with a half privatized health care due to the fact if you can afford to get the treatment sooner it allows less stress on our crumbling emergency services our delapetated hospitals lol. Also we are going back into a recession we aren’t growing since the block of the trans mountain my entire industry has dropped all expenses more layoffs more companies going under do to the fact that we aren’t getting market value. Wanna know these transfer payments are killing us. Don’t see the ndp doing anything about that and if we can’t get our oil out let’s stop trade completely until our pipeline gets to tidewater if you want to live and get everything paid for then go fucking live our east on EI. Point being this isn’t an argument I have a different opnion on the matter based on the economic climate in my industry. Free country we are alowed to say what we want with free speech I understand your points but I feel that there is nothing worth while she has done other then a shitty production curtailment the rail cars lol just ruin getting grain out because we flood the tracks with oil just hurts our farmers that our hurting enough. Maybe these shitty MLA’s and MP’S should take a salary cut like my industry and rates and salary’s have been horrible since 2015 because of this. But hey don’t care if this offends you.
I’m going to break this down item by item because that’s a wall of text that Trump would be proud of, and then I’m done with this discussion.
1. The NDP has been the most consultative government Alberta has had since before Klein. On almost every major policy platform, the party has consulted with the public or experts prior to legislating. The carbon levy and rebate system was a result of a 6 month long consultation process. Their changes to farm labour laws were enacted last fall after two years of consultations. They’ve even ran surveys on things as mundane as “how much should Albertans pay for lunch time supervision at schools?” If you choose not to participate in consultations, that’s fine, but saying they don’t exist is utterly incorrect and demonstrably false. In fact, here are fifteen consultations that are currently going on the range from City Charters to fish management: https://www.alberta.ca/consultations.aspx
2. The Alberta NDP is not socialist and has not raised taxes excessively. The business tax rate under Notley is 12%. When Ralph Klein paid of Alberta’s debt in the late 90’s, it was 15.5%. Income tax rates for anyone making less than $120/k year under the NDP are 10%. Income tax rates under the Conservatives were 10%. Small business taxes under the Conservatives ranged from 3-6% – under the NDP they are 2% The ‘socialist’ NDP clearly have a sinister plot to make you – *gasp* – pay less tax than Ralph Klein did!
3. The carbon tax costs 6 cents a litre on gas. Gas is roughly 90 cents right now. It was about a buck twenty last year, when the carbon tax was still 6 cents on gas. Your gas prices in Alberta vary largely the same way that they did before the carbon tax came in, and will continue to do so in the future. For a family of four, the carbon tax costs roughly $30 a month. The claim that “we don’t see anything from it” is also demonstrably incorrect. 60% of Albertans receive some form of rebate from their carbon tax. The carbon tax paid for new LRT systems in Edmonton and Calgary, a tax cut in the small business tax rate to 2%, and a huge range of discounts, rebates, and subsidies to help people heat their homes for cheaper. Mad about how much it costs to heat your home? The NDP will literally give you $1500 dollars to help buy better windows so you lose less heat and therefore pay less carbon tax: https://www.efficiencyalberta.ca/home-improvement/windows/
4. I agree that it’s bullshit we buy back our landlocked oil from the US. That’s why the NDP is investing in partial upgrading and refining in-Alberta. The UCP plan on this file is to do nothing, and to cancel existing government contracts with value-added investments in the Industrial Heartland that the NDP funded via royalty credits because they consider it corporate welfare.
5. Saskatchewan is not doing better than Alberta. Saskatchewan’s economy grew by 1.5%~ last year, while Alberta’s grew by between 3-4%. Saskatchewan also carries much more debt than Alberta at around 16% of GDP, whereas Alberta’s is only ~7-8%. It’s inconsistent to support Saskatchewan as an example to follow and then bash the NDP for having high taxes. Saskatchewan has a 6% PST (that Brad Wall expanded to the construction industry, fucking them over mid-recession) and Alberta has no PST. Someone making $100k in Saskatchewan would be paying a 13% tax rate, where as in “socialist” Alberta, they’d be paying 10%.
7. The UCP have zero plan to lower tax rates on Albertans who make less than $120k a year. If you are making more than $120k and having your taxes go from 12% to 10% is a factor in how you vote, that’s fine! But if like the vast majority of Albertans you take home somewhere between $50-80k a year, your taxes under a Kenney government will remain as high as they are now under a Notley government.
8. Privatized healthcare leads to those who can afford the immense prices jumping the queue to get faster treatment and elective surgeries, while clogging up the rest of the system that everyone else has to use with the complex cases that the private system refuses to handle. The last thing our emergency room doctors and first responders need right now is longer wait times and less funding. Here’s a great article on why both the wealthy and the poor will suffer under private healthcare: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/time-to-lead/privatizing-health-care-is-risky-for-all-of-us/article1395420/
9. Alberta does not pay transfer payments. There is no cheque or expense in the Alberta budget for sending money to Quebec. Here’s the budget: https://open.alberta.ca/publications/budget-2018. It’s a common misconception and the system is very poorly explained. Transfer payments are funded by the taxes that each Canadian pays to the federal government, and then distributed by the formula made by the federal government. The current formula was written by the Harper government, which included Jason Kenney as a senior minister. Basically, a person making X amount of money in Quebec, Alberta, BC, or any other province is paying the exact same amount of their federal taxes to fund transfer payments as any other person making that same amount of money in any other province of the country, because we all pay the same federal tax rates. The reason Alberta seems to get a shit deal is because we have the highest incomes in the country, even in the recession. All Alberta political parties agree equalization is shitty. No Alberta political parties can do anything to change how the system works.
10. The first thing the NDP did in Alberta when they were elected was make all MLAs take a 5% pay cut and then freeze their own wages and the wages of all political and senior staff until the next election.
It’s absolutely a free country and everyone is entitled to their own opinion and their own vote. But there is a lot of misinformation, propaganda, and flat-out lies spreading in Alberta politics right now. If your industry is getting hit by low oil prices, I know that it’s cold comfort to hear that the rest of the economy is growing, and there are no simple solutions. Curtailment sucks but is necessary to avoid a complete price collapse, a fact that the NDP, UCP, and Alberta Party all in agreement on until we get a new pipeline to tidewater. No matter what party is in charge in Alberta, getting that pipeline done is unfortunately solely in the hands of the federal government, and I think all of us are keeping our fingers crossed.
Only an ignorant moron would say such thing. What policies? Let’s hear them Used Car Party boy… Scott’s taken too Kenney squirts to the face.
Andrew this is one of.the beat things I’ve ever read! Thank you for.your informed argument!!!
Andrew you are awesome! She has my vote!!!
They could have put God himself as the face of NDP, no one is going to vote it back in. The NDP ruined Alberta. You can put makeup on a pig, but it’s still Rachel Notley trying to ass rape us like her pimp Trudeau.
Andrew Robert Francis
Ok, keep smoking your crack pipe.
Wow, great arguments Darryl and Dakota! Rape joke and drugs.
So much for informed voters!
Thank you for the informed and intelligent answers Andrew!
Great work Andrew! Keep spreading facts! Go Shawna!
Go Shawna! You’ve got my family’s support! Four votes and a lawn sign in St. A!
Of course we’re going to win Scott
Dennis Schmidt Dennis lol clearly we don’t have the same political views lol ?
But that’s the best part of a free country I think we can all agree that Ottawa isn’t helping us I think even NDP goers agree with that.
Congrats This is one AMAZING hardworking, smart candidate. You are the best!
Way to go Shawna, you are going to make a great MLA!
Was she acclaimed? Who else ran if not?
Great candidate. Hopefully the eyes of the blind UCP supporters get opened up to FACTS. Then again facts are hard for these simple, stunted folk.
People are mad about this? Why? Yellow vest bitches.
I will vote for you Shawna
Darryl Enders Dylan Kohlman look at this ?? the comments
Daykota Mcculloch lol
4 years of NDP way to much another 4 years everyone in province well be bankrupt or moved out
Yay Shawna!!