UCP ABANDON CALGARY AS TOEWS SAYS ITS NOT HIS JOB TO FILL OFFICE TOWERS

CALGARY - Finance Minister Travis Toews abandoned a central promise of Jason Kenney’s 2019 campaign today, and told media that it’s not his job to create jobs to fill vacant towers in the city’s embattled downtown core. 

In an interview Friday, Finance Minister Travis Toews said “I would suggest that the province shouldn’t be putting out a specific program for vacancies in both our major cities.” 

“Jason Kenney made a specific, explicit promise to refill Calgary’s towers,” said Shannon Phillips, NDP Finance Critic. “After two years of failure, and the day after presenting his disastrous budget, his finance minister says the economic health of Alberta’s largest city is someone else’s problem.”

During the 2019 election, Jason Kenney promised that UCP policies would “create billions of dollars of new investment and start to fill up those office towers all over again.”

“Jason Kenney’s $4.7-billion corporate handout and his deep cuts have failed Calgarians and all Albertans,” Phillips said. “But instead of changing their failed policies, Toews and Kenney are trying to duck responsibility.”

Budget 2021, presented by Toews yesterday, has no plan or vision to create jobs, makes no mention of critical projects that would create jobs like the Calgary Greenline, and even removes $132 million from the Calgary Cancer Centre project.

“Rachel Notley and our NDP caucus are committed to refilling the vacant towers and putting Calgarians back to work,” said Phillips. “Toews and Kenney need to explain why at a time when they continue to waste tens of millions of dollars on their ridiculous war room, they have no intention of reviving Calgary’s economic centre.”