Coalition asks Auditor to investigate governmentís money losses
On February 17th, a coalition of unions called on Alberta's Auditor General to investigate why the government is failing to meet its own targets for collecting revenue from non-renewable resource extraction.
"The province is missing out on billions of dollars in revenue that it should be collecting. If that money was being collected, then there would be no need to even consider deep and destabilizing cuts to things like health care, education and other core services," says Gil McGowan, president of the Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL), which represents 140,000 workers.
"That's why we're asking for an investigation into the government's mishandling of revenue collection: given our province's continued prosperity, there is simply no good reason why we should be looking at another austerity budget."
"We are here to talk about the state of Alberta finances and the issue being that we have a huge revenue problem, not so much a spending problem in this province. That comes from the Alberta Government not collecting the revenues that they should be and that they promised to do," said UNA First Vice-President Bev Dick.
The union coalition has written to Auditor General Merwan Saher (click here for full text of letter), asking him to examine government policies and whether it is meeting its own targets.
"The government's purse isn't empty because it's spending too much - it's empty because the government isn't bothering to collect what it should - and what Albertans, as the owner of the resource, are actually owed," says McGowan.
