CALGRY, Alta. – Alberta NDP Leader Rachel Notley says the United Conservative Party’s budget plan will leave oil in the ground, limit job creation and cost the province $2.2 billion in royalties.
Notley says UCP Leader Jason Kenney needs to account for lost revenue in his budget platform, since he would cancel the government’s plan to get more oil to market by leasing rail cars.
Kenney has said the $3.7-billion lease deal doesn’t make financial sense.
Notley will get a chance to put her concerns to Kenney directly in the leaders’ debate Thursday.
Her campaign team has confirmed she will join three other party leaders in the televised forum.
Voters go to the polls on April 16.
Notley commented on Kenney’s budget plan Monday while in Calgary on Monday as the election campaign nears its midpoint.
Notley told reporters the rail lease deal will move an additional 120,000 barrels a day.
“Not only will this investment make a $2.2-billion profit for Albertans, it will help get people back to work,” she said.
“It will help us get our production up so we can bring curtailment to an end sooner, and it will do so of course without affecting (rail) shipments of our agricultural goods.”
Since the start of the year, Notley’s government has also mandated production cuts in oil for large producers to reduce a widening gap in prices that threatened layoffs or similar drastic industry countermeasures.