EDMONTON – The Alberta government is spending $350,000 to mail out an eight-page, full-colour brochure highlighting the 2013-14 budget to Alberta homes.
“We made some fundamental decisions in this budget that restructured the fiscal framework for the province,” said Premier Alison Redford.
“We want to make sure that Albertans clearly have that information available to them, and understand, from our perspective, why we made those decisions and how it will impact their lives.”
Opposition members say it’s a poor use of public money given the budget is reducing or cutting services across the board while running up millions in debt.
Wildrose leader Danielle Smith calls the pamphlet “a blatant example of a misuse of taxpayer dollars that could be better spent elsewhere.”
“This is pretty outrageous,” she adds.
When shown the brochure and informed of the cost, Liberal MLA Laurie Blakeman responded, “on the taxpayers’ dime?”
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“Using taxpayer dollars to try to sell an idea back to them… not what I think government is supposed to be doing,” she added.
Critics also say the pamphlet – which uses the orange and blue colours of the Progressive Conservative party – is too partisan to be taxpayer funded.
“Well this looks like very, very expensive propaganda,” said NDP leader Brian Mason.
“I notice it’s in the Progressive Conservative party’s colours. It’s supposed to be a non-partisan report from the government of Alberta. But to me, it’s nothing but a very expensive and taxpayer funded piece of propaganda for a government whose fortunes are sagging badly.”
“This isn’t the brand of the province,” echoes Liberal leader Raj Sherman. “It’s the brand of a political party, and the premier should not be using taxpayer dollars to campaign.”
However, the premier said things the opposition has said made the pamphlet necessary.
“We’re going to keep providing information directly to households. We think that it’s important to change the political dialogue,” said Redford.
“I think it’s about political parties introducing information that they state over and over again is fact, which clearly isn’t fact.”
However, Smith – leader of the Official Opposition – says the premier has many methods of getting her message out, and should not be using taxpayer dollars in this way.
“It’s just one more sign that we have a premier that doesn’t know the difference between legitimate partisan political activity and taxpayer funded government activity. This is absolutely not appropriate to be sending out PC propaganda on the taxpayer dime.”
“If we were to send something out that was branded with our party colours, there’s no way that the Legislative offices would pay for it,” adds Smith. “There are rules. You’re not allowed to use your partisan political material and have it paid for by taxpayers. It seems the only people the rules don’t apply to are the government.”
With files from the Canadian Press
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