In an earlier post, in the fall of 1983, Preston Manning, then President of Manning Consultants a firm his father established wished push fiscal policy changes. The timing may be significant because by that time Peter Lougheed had been in office for 12 years and there was speculation growing about when her would exit.
Lou Hyndman’s somewhat testy reply to Preston Manning’s circulation of his groups report to all M.L.A.’s and to Progressive Conservative delegates at the annual convention was especially cool. The displeasure is evident in Manning’s courageous and naive proposal to reduce the size of the Alberta Legislative Assembly consistent with principles that fiscal discipline should begin at the top. His reference to the earlier Social Credit government allowing the civil service to run the government is a criticism of Premier Manning’s reign.
The closure of rural hospitals is another idea which, from a management consultants’ point of view makes sense, but is also politically naive. Under the direction of Dr. Hugh Horner, Peter Lougheed’s astute rural lieutenant and with the enormous gusher of royalties, the Progressive Conservative party dominated the Legislative Assembly for another 30 years. Hyndman also emphasizes the importance of the government caucus as critical source of advice to the provincial cabinet- another shot at Manning Senior whose dominance over Alberta politics was legend.
Hyndman’s reference to health care solutions confirms the worry that treasury officials felt as cost pressures began to present future budget difficulties. It may be interesting whether Preston Manning recommends policies like hospital user fees, deductibles or extra-billing now believed to be outside health policy norms.
Provincial Treasurer
323 Legislature Building, Edmonton, Alberta Canada T5K 2B6
403-427-8809
April 9, 1984
Mr. E. Preston Manning
President
Manning Consultants Ltd.
11440 Kingsway Ave.
Edmonton, Alberta
T5G 0X4
Dear Mr. Manning:
I have your letter of March 22nd, 1984 and enclosures. As copies of your letter went to the Premier and all government M.L.A.’s, I am responding on their behalf as well.
it puzzles me that we received the suggestions of your group on March 22nd. I would have thought that you would have waited five days for our March 27th Budget and then held your workshop to give us some constructive suggestions.
On March 28th, we wrote to your father and other business and community leaders requesting their views on the 1984 budget and asked them to write to us with further suggestions to reduce our expenditure base for the next budget expected in March, 1985
We have always welcome constructive suggestions and I confirm this on page 17 of our Budget Address in issuing this invitation to all Albertans: “I welcome constructive government ‘down-sizing’ suggestions from citizens all over the province. With your assistance we can continue the process of evolving a trimmer, leaner government”.
I note that the first paragraph in your letter refers to ”the ever increasing growth of government spending” but the new 1984-85 Budget contains a reduction in government spending, the first in 40 years.
A number of key recommendations of your group surprise me.
Your group recommended, in effect, major changes which would be negative for rural Alberta as follows:
-Elimination of 16 rural Members of the Legislative Assembly
.-Termination of small rural hospitals, the operating costs of which total only 7%the total hospital operating budget of the province.
-Phasing out of our very positive policy of decentralization of government services, which was part of our mandate in 1971 when we defeated the previous Social Credit government.
I am also puzzled by your view that we should eliminate or combine a number of departments. The result of that would be to return to the situation that we had in the 1960s, where a significant part of the government was run by the public service rather than by elected Members of the Legislative Assembly.
In the document that you distributed to hotel rooms during our convention, you highlighted the concept of advisory committees. We function through the government caucus comprising Members of the Legislative Assembly. In turn, constituency organizations function effectively as advisory committees to. M.L.A.’s and thus to government.
We note that you have referred to the control of health care costs. I would be interested in your group’s further views on controlling healthcare costs as mentioned on page 11 of your document. We are specifically interested in the views of your group with respect to allowing extra billing by doctors and the option of hospitals introducing user fees. In particular, could you provide us with the advantages and disadvantages of the concept of a dollar deductible amount for health care services.
I look forward to receiving further suggestions from your group.
Yours truly,
Lou Hyndman
Provincial Treasurer
LDH/kaz
bcc: All Government M.L.A.’s
Source: Provincial Archives of Alberta, PR-1986.0245 (Hyndman papers), Box 105, File # 1416