Alberta taxpayers are being overcharged by $10 billion every year for government services, but somehow Alberta’s Economic Development, Trade and Tourism Minister Tanya Fir still thinks it’s a good idea to play venture capitalist with taxpayers’ money.

Fir recently stood outside the Legislature and smiled for the camera while announcing the government would be giving $10 million to McRock Capital, a global venture capital firm that will be investing in “Canada, the U.S., and Europe.”

Fir’s business handout was announced one day before the federal Conservatives pledged to cut corporate welfare by $1.5 billion. The federal Conservatives understand the need to cut corporate welfare and most of Alberta’s United Conservatives seem to understand the need to stop the runaway spending. Maybe Fir didn’t get the memo?

Imagine being a fly on the wall at the next cabinet meeting. 

Premier Jason Kenney has lectured the government unions on how the “reckless dive into debt” will mean there is less money for services. Finance Minister Travis Toews has proven that he’s ready to go toe-to-toe with unions on behalf of taxpayers and he says his team will “reverse the previous excesses and poor judgment.”

“My expectation is that it’s going to have to be more than $600 million,” Toews said following the release of the MacKinnon report.

Alberta’s premier and budget boss are going to bat for taxpayers. So, what went through their heads when the economic development minister tossed $10 million to a business? You have to wonder if Kenney or Toews even knew this was happening. 

Now fast forward three and a half years and imagine Fir having to explain to voters in her east Calgary riding that she’s been busy handing out their money to venture capitalists. The government was given a clear mandate to fire-up the economy through tax relief, but Fir’s constituents didn’t send her to Edmonton to rubberstamp cheques for businesses.

Fir does have a crucial role to play within this government’s mandate. But rather than signing cheques, the minister should be weeding out the corporate welfare in the Department of Economic Development and focusing on creating the right environment for Alberta’s economy, like she did by reducing internal trade barriers.

The first weed Fir needs to yank out is the Alberta Enterprise Corporation (AEC), which wrote the $10 million cheque for McRock Capital.

The Alberta government has over $160 million worth of financial assets in the AEC, according to its last budget. Fir should immediately end all future AEC corporate welfare and work to get taxpayers’ money back. And she should leave consumers and investors to decide which businesses are winners, instead of politicians and bureaucrats placing taxpayer-funded bets on their pet projects.

Fir has more work to do. The last annual report tabled by Fir’s department shows just how out of control the government’s corporate welfare has become. The Alberta government has doled out hundreds of millions of dollars for businesses such as petrochemical firms, oil upgraders, bioindustrial companies and the technology sector.

While politicians like to put an up-beat spin on their handouts, the truth is that corporate welfare has been haunting taxpayers for a long time.

“For too long, politicians have pretended that they were businessmen, investing with other peoples’ money and they made an absolute failure out of it,” stated Kenney in 1995.

If that’s what Kenney said decades ago, imagine what he said when he saw it happening in his own government while he’s struggling with a huge deficit.

Fir should have never given millions of dollars to the venture capital firm, but the minister can still do a lot of good for taxpayers by cracking down on the corporate welfare, rather than celebrating it.

This column was originally published in the Calgary Sun on September 28, 2019.