FFWD Weekly
Copyright © 1997. All Rights Reserved.
Lost without a deficit
Klein's Conservatives continue to search for election issues.
By Hamish MacAulayLast week, Ralph Klein announced the second plank in the Conservative's Drive-For-Eight election platform when he unveiled yet another economic development policy. In an innovative move designed to stun the ever dangerous Liberals, Klein has bellowed the tried and true election moose-call of, "jobs, jobs, jobs." The policy shows the Conservatives do have the imagination needed to turn peanut butter and jam into a sandwich. It also proves Ralph Klein knows a government cannot take credit for a booming economy and the jobs it creates unless it has an economic policy. What the policy does and says is not as important as having one.
Now the Conservatives have one and - no matter what the price of oil, pulp or wheat - Ralph Klein, Steve West and an economic policy written by Pia Zadora can take credit for our economic success. At least there is the entertainment value of watching West, a man who has made a career of eliminating jobs, claim that he and his government will create over 100,000 jobs. Unfortunately, this economic policy, like that of its predecessors and every other provincial and federal economic policy, relies on a number of tried and failed strategies.
In complete disregard for Alberta's remarkable bankruptcy rate, the Conservatives promise to help small businesses access start-up capital (exactly how loaning money to businesses that are too risky for Canada's greedy banks will help Alberta's economy is not immediately obvious). Everywhere this policy has been tried during an economic upswing, the businesses helped by the government have failed at a higher rate than their competitors. The policy also runs in the face of the Klein government's endless rhetoric about even playing-fields and the government not understanding the economy the way the private sector does.
The new, improved job training initiative also fails in critical areas that will have negative long-term effects. That certain sectors of Alberta's economy are crying out for trained employees cannot be denied. Not for the first or the last time, economic growth has lead to shortages of trained individuals in some parts of the economy.
That changes to the education system are the solution does not tell the story of the Canadian business and its shortsighted views on research and training. Canadian businesses rank a distant last among the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries in money spent on research and development. They also rank a distant last on money spent on employee training. While the Conservative's economic policy recognizes this problem in a small way, many businesses still believe that Canada's education system should produce perfectly trained workers for every type of job imaginable. It takes a minimum of four years to develop two-year training programs and produce graduates. Find a company president who can tell you what kind of workers the economy will need in four years and you will have found a remarkable exception. A brief look at the two most successful economies of the last 40 years shows that the businesses in Japan and Germany do not expect the education system to train their workers; they expect to do the training themselves.
Bad economic policy is a given these days - at least the Klein government gives us less of it than most politicians. The two most disturbing aspects of this announcement have little to do with the details of the policy itself. That the Klein crew bothered to trot out such a vague and meaningless policy when the economy is booming is the height of political cynicism. Finally, it should frighten you that it took 100 of Alberta's best and brightest from the business and education sectors over two years to develop this policy.
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