Following the most recent report from ATB Financial released on confidence among small and medium sized business in the province, Wildrose is sounding the alarm that confidence among SME’s is plummeting to unprecedented lows.
“This report paints a bleak picture of business confidence in our province being at an all-time low,” Wildrose Jobs, Skills, Training, Labour and Red Tape Reduction Shadow Minister Grant Hunter said. “To make matters worse, Premier Notley has burdened our province with the pursuit of a risky ideological economic agenda when we can least afford it.”
Since taking office, the NDP have implemented anti-business policies of raising business and personal taxes, planning a dramatic 50 per cent increase to minimum wage, and has created economic uncertainty with the threat of an increase in royalties following the royalty review.
“When a majority of Albertan small business owners, the most resilient group of people I know, believe that the province will be worse off in six months from now, it is time for government to reevaluate priorities, not continue to pile on,” Hunter said. “We need to restore confidence in Alberta’s small business owners who are the backbone of our province.”
Wildrose will stand up for Alberta’s small business owners, and will push the government to reduce regulatory burden and red tape, and to reduce small business taxes from 3 per cent to 2 per cent.