Kris Austin Wants Minority Government, Give ‘Little Guys Fair Shake’ Against Big Business
FREDERICTON – David Campbell, a New Brunswick economic development writer and consultant would say, “It’s about the economy, stupid,” the name of an insightful and interesting blog that he’s written for years.
Others like Krista Ross of the Fredericton Chamber of Commerce put it more diplomatically, arguing that the provision of social services like health care and education depends upon a robust economy that generates tax money to pay for them.
But however they frame their arguments – bluntly or more gently persuasive – many business people, economists, and economic development consultants and experts say much the same thing: a healthy economy is a foundation for a strong province.
With this in mind, I had conversations with some of the leaders of the province’s main political parties about the economy in advance of the vote next Monday, September 24. Today, we hear from People’s Alliance Party Leader Kris Austin.
Here is an edited and condensed version of our conversation:
What is it about your life experience or work history outside politics that would make you a good steward of the province’s economy?
It goes back to my upbringing. I was raised in a home that struggled financially. I learned the value of a dollar and how to manage it and stretch it as far as possible. Growing up in the Minto area of the economic situation wasn’t always the best, so you learned the value of hard work and learning how to manage money properly and make sure it goes as far as you need it to go.
I’ve also been an independent business owner. We ran a silviculture company for a few years, had several employees under us there and also ran a wedding business for a bit and had some success there as well. I’ve done labour work, management – pretty much everything
I understanding how to budget properly and live within your means.
What are the key planks of the People’s Alliance platform in terms of economic development?
We want to shift the focus from a government giving tax dollars to large corporate corporations or corporate handouts in the effort to stimulate the economy. We’d much rather reform the tax system so that current businesses that are here aren’t overburdened with taxes to bring in bigger businesses that don’t need the subsidies. Let’s eliminate these archaic taxes like the double tax, even the small business tax, to help the little guy have a fair shake at growing your business here at home.
The last two provincial governments – the PCs and the Liberals – have used payroll rebates and loan guarantees as a way of attracting new businesses to the province. You think that’s not the right strategy.
I don’t believe that is the right strategy because it’s a short-term economic fix. I question the viability of the long-term impact of that strategy. My argument simply is this: if these corporate subsidies are working the way they’re intended to work, then how come we don’t do any longterm research on the effects of those types of handouts. We will increase the Auditor General’s budget to do just that. If we increase her budget and give her the specific mandate of looking into subsidies given out over the last 15 years, how many businesses stayed, how many employees remained, over the long term, then I think with her expertise and auditing the books and doing the investigative research, we could find out what subsidies work and what ones don’t. Is there a key link between the successful ones and the unsuccessful ones.
But they’ve never done that and that’s the problem I have with government. They keep doing these same things when the unemployment rate doesn’t seem to change a whole lot based on those actions. We need something more concrete, more analytical, to be able to justify what we’re doing.
What is your party’s approach to resource development?
We’re certainly supportive of resource development. [But] there are several concerns with natural gas development. One is the current market price. When it comes to natural gas, it’s not a renewable resource. You only get one kick at the can, and I’d hate to develop that resource when the market’s at its lowest because we wouldn’t get the same amount of royalties that we could get if we waited for the market to improve. That’s one issue from a fiscal point of view. Of course, we always have concerns about the environment and mitigating risk, but we’re always hearing too that technology is changing within the industry to make it safer and to mitigate the risks as much as possible in terms of shale gas. So we’re open to it. I’m not going to close the door on it as the Liberals did completely, but we have to make sure the timing is right in terms of finances and that the risk is mitigated.
Other resource development would be on a case-by-case basis. We’re not going to completely bypass environmental concerns or people’s concerns in resource development. But at the same time, we have to be open to the possibility of resource development because we’re sending our best and brightest to areas of the country where they’re doing just that, and then we’re receiving transfer payments down here on the east coast, and not doing what we could be [in terms of resource development]. There’s got to be a balanced approach.
You make it clear in your platform that you would approach resource development on a regional basis and potentially use referendums as a way of gauging public support.
I’m not prepared to push anything down people’s throats. When you talk about something as controversial as shale gas, you have to let the people speak for themselves and that’s why we’ve kind of broken it down to a regional basis. If there’s a certain region of the province where they’re just simply dead set against it, they should have an option not to allow it. That’s where the referendum would come in.
On forestry issues, I see a strong small business and environmental focus in terms of your approach to developing the resources.
We want to see a level playing field as it relates to forestry. We basically now have industry managing the forests, which if you look at licenses and that sort of thing, it certainly does create an uncompetitive advantage. We want to make sure that the little guy’s got a fair shake in running a mill or using crown resources as fairly as the big guys. With that said, you have to strike a balance. Forestry in New Brunswick employs, I think, 22,000 [people] and we have to do what we can to not do anything harmful to that. There’s a fair balance that has to be struck there, but I think at the end of the day it really is about management. It’s about proper stumpage fees and royalties and making sure that the taxpayers at large get a fair shake of what’s developed on crown land.
You have certain policy ideas about reducing the percentage of clear-cutting and eliminating the spraying of glyphosate. Do you have concerns that could threaten jobs?
No, I think the opposite. By banning glyphosate you’ll actually create jobs because rather than having a pilot flying over a plane with a few people on the ground setting up a perimeter, you’re going to have actual people working silviculture and machinery, clearing NB Power lines and managing the forest in other ways. We’ve estimated there’d be, you know, close to a 1,000 new jobs created. Taxpayers are also paying to spray the land and I’d rather take that $3-million to $4-million a year and reinvest it in getting people working, managing the forest way by hand than by machine.
What are the kinds of government policy tools you would use to try to create opportunities for local small- and medium-sized businesses?
Tax reform is a big one. The elimination of the double tax would give a huge boost to business owners in the province as well as developers. Eliminating the small business tax not only helps businesses here, but it would also help recruit new businesses to New Brunswick. I think it’s a marketing tool as well. We could market ourselves as a place that won’t gauge you with taxes and create opportunities for small businesses that start up here at home.
We give out over $200-million dollars a year in corporate handouts. Instead, we’re saying eliminate the small business tax and get rid of the double tax. Economic development from eliminating those taxes would more than offset any revenue loss in the long term.
What about Worksafe NB and the concerns of business owners over rising premiums?
We get a lot of complaints from businesses about the premiums and how they’ve skyrocketed. We’d like to see WorksafeNB tackle that and our approach would be simply just to keep the pressure on them to find solutions. The biggest thing that I heard even from the CFIB was that when there’s a surplus of funds to WorksafeNB, that should be redirected back to businesses and employers that are paying these premiums. I think that’s reasonable and that’s something we’d look at.
What role do you immigration has in growing the province’s population and its workforce?
The first thing we have to do is stop bleeding people from New Brunswick out West. If you want to talk about increasing the labour force here at home we have to give the people we have here the opportunities to work here. That’d be our first priority. We’re certainly open to immigration. We do want to see it focused on skilled labour, meeting certain private sector demands and forecasted demands to make sure that people coming in can fill jobs that cannot be filled by New Brunswickers here.
But again, that’s after we stopped the bleeding because it’s a kind of a conundrum here in New Brunswick is you’ve got a relatively high unemployment rate. But yet if you talk to people in business, there are huge labour shortages. We’ve talked about things like instead of giving free tuition to everybody for anything, why don’t we forecast the needs of the private sector over the next two to three years and start offering free tuition for students wanting to take certain courses to fill the gaps in the private sector, two to three years out. That would make much more sense than just free tuition for anybody for anything, and then they leave the province and there’s no benefit to the taxpayer in the end.
We published a commentary recently by Marie Chamberland of the Conseil économique du Nouveau-Brunswick. She says we focus too much on the costs of bilingualism and not enough on the economic benefits of having an educated bilingual private sector workforce.
I absolutely agree that bilingualism is an asset in the private sector. What I don’t necessarily agree with is the way bilingualism is implemented in the government and specifically getting away from bilingualism significantly with duality. For government revenue to be paying for two health authorities and two bussing systems just simply based on language is a waste of money. I think what we need to do is support the right of French and English citizens to receive government services. As far as the private sector goes, absolutely. I can’t [disagree] that bilingualism in the private sector would be a plus.
Are you optimistic about the next four years in terms of economic growth in the province?
I think there’s an opportunity here and that’s why we’re really hoping for a minority government because in a minority government it makes all the parties negotiate. You’ve got the Liberals and Conservatives which oftentimes have very socialist stamps of high taxes and big government. If we can get in the middle to kind of control some of that, to see taxes lowered and government get a little bit smaller, I think we have a chance here to maybe least start to turn the ship away from the iceberg.
This was an edited and condensed conversation with People’s Alliance Party leader Kris Austin, part of a series of interviews with provincial political leaders in advance of the September 24 election.
Past Interviews:
- Blaine Higgs Says Taxpayers Deserve To Have Their Tax Dollars Well Spent
- Brian Gallant Inspired By Early Family Financial Struggles To Campaign For A Fair Economy
- David Coon Says A Local, Green Economy Could Create 14,000 New Jobs
- Jennifer McKenzie Sees Potential In N.B. Entrepreneurial Drive And Spirit