Premier Jason Kenney used to talk a big game about protecting the public purse from business interests. But since he’s become premier, the United Conservative government has been setting aside buckets of cash for hand-picked businesses and sectors, which could cost taxpayers billions of dollars.

Finance Minister Travis Toews will be releasing the 2021 budget on Feb. 25 and it’s going to be covered top-to-bottom in red ink. The provincial government may soon be tempted to raise taxes to cover its corporate welfare spending. That’s wrong.

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation identified 14 corporate welfare announcements since the UCP took over, with the tab reaching $5 billion. That’s $1,125 per Albertan.

The payments that are helping the broader business community get through lockdowns and restrictions are not counted in this figure. Subsidies to help restaurants and gyms keep their lights on through government-imposed lockdowns aren’t the issue. The massive handouts going to the petrochemical sector, among other similar subsidies, are the issue.

In 2019, the UCP decided to move forward with the Petrochemical Diversification Program, costing an extra $950 million. This is the program that the finance department warned lacked economic merit, would blow a further hole in the budget and “could benefit projects that would have gone ahead regardless of the incentives.”

Last July the government announced another subsidy for the petrochemical industry, which Kenney estimates could cost $1 billion. This isn’t replacing the other petrochemical subsidy, it’s just more money for that sector. The government also didn’t cap program costs, so no one really knows how much money taxpayers will be on the hook for.

Kenney’s corporate welfare is leaving taxpayers scratching our heads. Afterall, Albertans didn’t send the UCP to Edmonton so they could have their turn playing investment banker with our tax dollars.

Only a few months before unveiling the second round of pork for the petrochemical industry, Kenney acknowledged that “picking winners and losers is not a strategy for long-term economic success.”

In 2017, Kenney said he “would get the Alberta government out of the business of business, out of the losing business of picking winners and losers.”

Kenney knows that corporate welfare is a risky business and taxpayers shouldn’t bet on getting that money back.

“When politicians are risking your money instead of their own you might as well send them to the casino,” said Kenney referencing the government’s failures with loans, grants and loan guarantees.

“They have no incentive to get it right and so we lost $9 billion between 1986 and 1992 as a result of those bad government so-called ‘investments.’”

Kenney also added that he “would bring back legislation to keep the government out of the market,” similar to the “No More Boondoggles” law he successfully campaigned for in the 1990s as head of the CTF.

Taxpayers are rightly wondering what happened to that commitment.

Politicians may say these business subsidies are needed because those companies are struggling. But everyone is struggling. The answer isn’t to make struggling families pay higher taxes. The answer is to reduce taxes to attract investment, let job creators reinvest in their businesses and let Albertans spend more of our own money at local shops.

Kenney has done some good work reducing taxes. He reversed the NDP’s business tax cut, which cost the average two-income household $830 per year in lost earnings, and went even further to make Alberta’s business taxes one of the most competitive in all of North America. For that he deserves a lot of credit. Now he needs to give families some relief, and he can start by scrapping his bracket creep income tax hike.

The 2021 budget is right around the corner. Kenney needs to scrap these corporate subsidies instead of raising taxes and sticking families with the tab.

This column was originally published in the Edmonton Sun on Feb. 24, 2021.