Ladies and gentlemen I accepted this invitation because my organization believes its time to change the way we are doing things in this region.

 

OPTIMISM

 

If we continue to keep doing what we are doing we will keep getting what we are getting.

 

And what we’ve been getting isn’t very good.

 

Today New Brunswick has the highest unemployment rate of anywhere in Canada, taxpayers in this province shell out more of their hard earned money to the government than the Canadian average, and the province is running an almost half billion dollar deficit.

 

But, what I want to tell you is this.

 

It doesn’t have to be this way.

 

We can do better…

 

There is good reason to be optimistic about our future.

 

A pipeline from the west promises to reverse not just the flow of oil but also the years of New Brunswickers moving out west.

 

Gas under our feet, allows us to use our god given natural resources to build and grow our economy.

 

But we will never fully realize the potential of these projects unless we change the way we are doing things.

 

That’s why I want to start an honest conversation about how this province got into the mess we are in, and the difficult measures it will take to get us out.

 

Because I don’t think our economic circumstances are an accident, nor is as its been suggest a flaw in our character, nor is the problem the geography our where our province is located.

 

No, our problem is because we’ve failed to make difficult decisions when it counted.

 

Well, we can’t do that any more. Consider this

 

NEW BRUSIWCK’S PROBLEM

 

TAXES

Thanks to tax increases brought in July 1^st, New Brunswick taxpayers are now amongst the highest tax provinces in the nation.

 

If you earn about $30,000 you’ll pay about $174 dollars a year in extra tax, if you earn $60,000 a year you’ll pay about $800 bucks a year.

 

And while proponents of higher taxes point to Nova Scotia and say that New Brunswick’s taxes are lower,

 

The reality is New Brunswick is not competing for labour with Nova Scotia, we are competing with Alberta, and we’ll pay $1,800 a year more in taxes than someone earning $60,000.

 

And income taxes are part of the story.

 

If you want to own a little cottage somewhere in the province you’ll pay double the tax.

 

Over the last three years we’ve seen increases in everything from the cost to renew your drivers license, to getting a housing permit, and even the price beer at the liquor store.

 

And these high taxes leads to something else…our labour force leaving for better opportunities elsewhere.

OUT MIGRATION

 

New stats Canada numbers show that a record number of New Brunswickers are packing up and heading west

 

Between 2008-2013 3,400 New Brunswickers packed up and moved away to Alberta alone.

 

Gone.

 

To put that in perspective, it would be like packing up the entire town of Dalhousie or the combined populations of McAdam, Hartland and St. Andrew’s.

This is important.

 

How can we ever take advantages of opportunities in, resource development and technology if all of our people are not here, but sitting in a mobile home in Ft MacMurray.

 

We can’t.

 

Want to keep our hospitals and schools funded…well can’t do that if all our taxpayers leave.

 

Which raises another issue…spending.

 

NEW BRUNSWICK GOVERNMENT SPENDING

 

Our governments have been on a spending binge for years now.

 

Since 2008 (five years ago), the government of New Brunswick spent $6.2 billion on all departmental spending.

 

Now this year the government will spend $8.4 billion.

 

That’s an increase of 30 per cent over the last five years, or about $3,000 per every many woman and child in the province.

 

I bet you we’d all in this room be hard pressed to find a New Brunswicker who’s spending that much more over such a short period of time.

 

But all that spending only tells part of the story…

 

We owe as a province almost $11billion that’s over $14,000 per New Brunswicker…and we wonder why babies when they are brought into this world start to cry…they not even a few hours old and they’re already in debt!

 

WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT THIS?

 

It’s because of these issues that in the bottom floor of this building three years ago this month our group launched the Atlantic Division of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

 

What is Canadian Taxpayers Federation?

 

You see our group approaches issues a little differently. We don’t seek the favour of politicians.

 

We speak out, say the things that need to be said, and try to change and motivate public to change government policy.

 

The CTF is an organization with 80,000 supporters from across Canada. We fight for the principals of lower taxes, less waste and more accountable government.

 

Now my organization was first formed over 20 years ago during the 1980’s.

 

Then government spending was adrift, deficits were spiraling out of control and, the government in Ottawa had introduced the brand new national value added tax known as the GST despite telling Canadians that they wouldn’t raise taxes.

 

There was a growing sense at that time that politics had gone wrong. Politicians it seemed forgot that they were not the employer of taxpayers but they were the employees of taxpayers.

 

Anger began to boil over.

 

And people began to organize.

 

Citizens began meeting in small church basements, in community halls, in bars and pubs and in large convention centers.  And they began to start organizations of concerned taxpayers who didn’t see anyone fighting for them.

 

The Saskatchewan Taxpayers Association was the first group to spring up then others in Alberta and other parts of the country began to spring up. All the organizations shared a common goal, of defeating the GST.

 

Now we didn’t win that battle against the GST twenty years ago, but a commitment was made to continue the war, so the various provincial organizations found an interest in combining resources and formed the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, Canada’s largest citizen’s advocacy organization.

 

And since that time we’ve certainly had our fair share of victories.

 

No better example than our work on the outrageously rich MLA pension program.

 

So rich is this program that for every $1 an MLA puts into the program taxpayers match it with $16.

 

And after years of speaking out the parties committed to a review and later government introduced new legislation which would reduce overall benefits and bring them more in line with those of the taxpayer who is paying for them.

 

We didn’t get everything we wanted with these reforms…but there has been change.

 

SOLUTIONS

 

High taxes, big deficit, corporate give a ways and wasteful spending. Those are the choices time in and time again that our governments have made.

 

Let me offer some ideas we want to see government discuss.

 

1 SUNSET TAX INCREAES

 

There is perhaps no promise more often broken by politicians than the one where they all say they won’t raise taxes.

 

But throughout our 160-year history, we have been caught in a cycle spending beyond our means, going into deficit, then being forced to raise taxes in order to cover it.

 

We need to break this cycle.

 

Heading into the July 1^st tax increases I certainly heard from many pundits, lobbyists, interest groups who all want higher taxes and to keep the government  spending.

 

They say raise the taxes…tax reductions made by the previous government haven’t worked.

 

But this argument ignores that our economic problems go back waaaayyyy before 2008…If all we had to do is increase taxes and keep increasing government spending to create prosperity, we’d all be very rich right now…but we’re not.

 

You can’t judge a policy after such a short period of time, and when the full program was never fully implemented. After I’d suggest continually raising taxes hasn’t really been a successful strategy either.

 

You see proponents of high taxes want things to just continue the way they are because the system works for them. They get corporate government hand outs, but want more taxes from the little guy, who’s salary is barely keeping up with all the increases in costs of things he needs.

 

These proponents of higher taxes think that one of the problems is that working families just don’t pay enough tax…well that is crazy.

 

And if you don’t believe these tax increases are having a negative effect

 

 

Those tax measures have already had an effect; RBC says New Brunswick’s economy will be held back thanks to these very tax increases. That means fewer jobs.

 

Now the government says it needed these tax measures to fight the deficit.

 

Fine, then the government can commit that when the budget is balanced they can take remove these tax increases they’ve put in place and give working families a break.

 

2 End Giveaways to Corporations

 

Second, end Corporate Handouts: There is something wrong with our system of government that we charge high taxes those who are contributing to the economy so that they can’t invest more.

 

And take the money, give it to the government then only for them to take your hard earned money and give it to a company that is unsuccessful.

 

The kicker being that then politicians hold a press conference to take credit for their “job creation”.

 

At its most fundamental the ATCON mess wasn’t about a party, giving money to companies t is just a bad policy, and you can’t make bad policy good, not matter how smart a government is or what political colour it is.

 

3 Reduce the spending

 

I mentioned earlier that government spending has gone up $2.2 billion since 2008.

 

And despite all that spending, does anyone really believe that our roads are smoother, our hospital waiting times are significantly shorter or our schools are educating our kids better.

 

No.

 

But one thing did improve over this same period of time, high-end government salaries…the number of people making over $100,000 in govt doubled.

 

Its time to focus government on the services we want govt to do such as education, health care and roads.

 

And perhaps its time to get out of other areas…like why do we need government to sell us beer?

 

Privitization experiment in Alberta resulted a growth in jobs, total number of stores, more product and even the government’s tax revues increased.

 

It was a win win win, and we need to think more of this kind of out of the box thinking.

 

4. TOUCH THE UNTOUBABLES

 

Four touch the untouchables.

 

For too long there are too many issue politicians have been kicking down the field on important issues because they’ve been afraid to deal with them.

 

Issues like Employment Insurance & public sector pension reform.

 

Right now have areas where of high unemployment yet companies have to bring in labour from other parts of the world because they can’t fill the jobs. And in the case of pension we have some asking for working families who have no pension at all asked to give more of their money to those who have good pensions.

 

We need an honest conversation on these issues.

 

We can’t for create a 52-week modern economy on 14-week seasonal jobs.

 

And we can’t have a system where some people’s pensions are protected while those paying for those pensions are not.

 

Now I could do a whole talk on these two issues.

 

And there are plenty of problems with the proposal by the feds on EI and the prov on pensions.

 

But my pitch today on these is more fundamental.

 

I want to challenge us about the way we talk about these issues.

 

We all know it doesn’t make a heck of a lot of sense that EI is used as a wage crutch, and we know that taxpayers can’t keep funding the pension system through successive losses.

 

So why do we reject any discussion of reform.

 

What message do we send to the rest of Canada about the type of province New Brunswick is if throw out politicians solely for taking on badly needed EI reform.

 

And does it say if you vote out politicians for trying to bring more fairness into the pension system.

 

If you want to vote them out for other reasons, I’m ok with that. But lets really think about these issues and what it says about us, in how we deal with them.

 

CONCLUSION

 

The next few months will be important as this time next year we’ll have just finished a provincial election.

 

And I’m willing to bet we’ll see lots of promises in the coming months.

 

Last election campaign the political parties made…get this…800 promises during the campaign.

 

That’s an average of about 20 a day…

 

Lots of blame can be put on the back of politicians but we also have a responsibility to ask for a different tone, and importantly new ideas.

 

Lets not reward politicians for ignoring the hard issues, and allowing them to promise during election time for what can’t be done in-between elections.

 

Conclusion

 

Folks, we’ve gone through a really bad patch the last few years.

 

And we’ve struggled for a long time.

 

But there is hope, and opportunities right before us…all we have to do is change…and grab it.

 

We live in the greatest place, but in order to remain great we need to fight for it.

 

Speak out, for too long we’ve been too worried to upset politicians, many groups don’t want politicians angry at them. But you can’t bring about fundamental changes by talking to politicians; you have to talk to the real people who vote for them.

 

And, take action (C-CAT story, about the letter)

 

That’s why change is so important right now. If we keep going down the road we’ve been going down we’ll keep getting the government that we’ve gotten.

 

We need to do more.

 

Thank you very much for your time.

 

END