This was an eventful week in western Canada. Alberta had a provincial election on Tuesday, and the outcome has brought fear to the energy sector on both Canada and the United States. The Progressive Conservative Party was decimated in the election. They were in power for 44 years straight. With the fallen oil prices, Premier Jim Prentice and the PCs released on budget with new tax increases and user fees etc. They asked people who make more to a pay a little more. The PC party did not raise corporate taxes. Premier Prentice said the budget will start a plan in which the province doesn't rely on oil and gas royalties to run government and provide services. Prentice believed that an election was the right thing to do because the budget was so drastic compared to previous budgets.
Previous scandals that plagued the government under former Premier Alison Redford, not raising corporate taxes, and Premier Prentice telling Albertans to look in the mirror when it comes blame who cause the financial problems of the government over the years. The PC party lost 61 seats in the election and do not even form the official opposition. The NDP government won 53 seats and formed a majority government. An NDP government is not good for Alberta and lots of business people agree.
On election night, Prentice resigned as leader of the PC Party and resigned as MLA before all the votes were counted, saying it is "time to spend time being a husband, father and grandfather". He was running to be Premier , which would be the total opposite of this statement because he would be traveling a lot plus would be out of his constituency a lot. I do not vote, but from previous experience living in a province with NDP government it was quite bad.
I am a shareholder in companies that are involved in the energy sector, so I will be paying attention to what happens more closely with government announcements.
Some articles that I read during the week, that you might find interesting are as follows:
Dividend Mantra, wrote a posted on his Freedom Fund. Dividend Mantra is making remarkable progress in his goal to obtain financial independence. If you have not started saving and investing money start now! It won't seem significant at first, but you will start to see great results in a short will. I continue to add to my portfolio every month.
Liquid Independence posted his fiscal update. Liquid is making tremendous progress in his goal of being financial independent. Some of his investments differ from most of the bloggers in the financial area.
Dividend Hustler posted about one of his goals. This is a great read and I highly recommend everyone to read this post. A lot of people what everything all at once such as big house and new expensive car or truck. An investor has to make sacrifices now to have a better life with less stress down the road. Growing passive income allows you more freedom to choose what to do with your time which is the reason why I love increasing my passive income.
Tawcan posted about frugality. For me, being frugal allows me to have a higher savings rate which leads me to be able to invest more money and grow passive income at a quicker rate. I choose to buy a bus pass each month instead of having a car. I choose to not have cable, but instead watch some shows on the computer such as Shark Tank and Dragon's Den.
I wrote about my most recent buy, which was an investment in dividend growth stock. This investment is one I want to hold for a long time as it has strong competitive advantages.
Photo Credit : www.cafepress.com
Hey IP. Thanks for including me my friend. Thanks for sharing. Glad to be traveling this journey with you bud. Keep it up and wish us tons of success. Take care and I like the CN buy. Forever stock for sure.
ReplyDelete