Acknowledgements

As this book was taking shape, I sought out the opinions of a wide array of Albertans on the subject of a sales tax. Some I interviewed, and many others shared their views in informal settings, but, regardless of the context in which they spoke, I am deeply grateful to all of them for their thoughts and candour. These are the people for whom this book is written—people whose lives are daily impacted by the state of the province’s finances.

From the beginning, my wife, Linda, has been a constant ally, a wise critic, and a stalwart supporter—patient, forgiving, and willing to read whatever I threw her way. Glenn Rollans, of Brush Publishing, with whom I discussed earlier plans to write a fiscal history of the province, has continued to offer valuable counsel, and I am indebted to him for his knowledge and advice.

My former colleague Robert Bhatia has been an ongoing source of inspiration. As I groped my way through various iterations of the earlier fiscal history project, it was he who pointed me toward the issue of a sales tax and then encouraged me to move beyond the question of why Alberta should have a sales tax to consider how the provincial government might be persuaded to bring one in. I have also benefited from conversations with Al O’Brien, especially with regard to the qualitative difference between revenue from the sale of public assets, in the form of non-renewable resources, and revenue from taxes. His experience and insights have proved invaluable.

As goes without saying, I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to all the contributors to this volume, for their enthusiasm, their creative ideas, their wealth of knowledge, and their commitment both to this project and to Alberta’s future. I am especially grateful to Trevor Harrison, for his constructively critical review of an earlier draft of the manuscript and for his willingness to write an afterword for the book, and to Kevin Taft, for sharing his perspectives in his foreword to the volume.

I must also extend my heartfelt thanks to two long-time friends, Virendra Gupta and Dale Moll, who provided helpful feedback on early drafts of various chapters. I am likewise grateful to the two anonymous peer readers of the manuscript for their thoughtful criticisms and suggestions, which have further enriched the volume. Assistance from Val Footz, Heather Close, and staff of the Alberta Legislature Library has also been especially valuable.

Last but not least, it has been my pleasure and good fortune to work with the team at Athabasca University Press. In particular, acquisitions editor Pamela Holway has been a consistent source of encouragement, intellectual engagement, and editorial guidance. I am grateful as well to Megan Hall, the press director, for her depth of understanding and clarity of sight, to Sergiy Kozakov, for his expert redrawing of the book’s numerous charts and graphs, and to Mary Lou Roy, for her meticulous work as production editor. Perhaps above all, I am deeply indebted to Kay Rollans. Far more than a copyeditor, she worked to sharpen the focus of individual arguments and to give the book a stronger sense of forward motion, and I cannot thank her enough for her help.

Sadly, we live in an era of polarization, and Alberta’s political culture is no exception. In the present atmosphere, open and informed debate around public policy issues has all but vanished. We also live in a time of growing precarity, as costs soar and incomes drop. At the same time, the province’s fiscal health remains dependent on world oil prices, which continue to fluctuate unpredictably—while the government continues to compensate for shortfalls by cuts to public services.

In the face of the ongoing erosion their quality of life, Albertans have every right to be concerned about the future. But concern alone will not solve problems. It is my hope that this book will inform the public about the considerations underlying the issue of a sales tax—what it would accomplish and what the potential drawbacks are. It is my conviction that if we sincerely wish to hold government officials accountable for their actions or inactions, we must first form a clear picture of what is at stake.