Since 1992, Canadians have been part of a “loyalty” reward program called Air Miles. According to their own website more than 70 per cent of Canadians actively collect Air Miles. Martha — one of Premier Ralph Klein’s imaginary “ordinary Albertans” — has collected for a decade and chances are that you collect Air Miles too.

So you are no doubt familiar with the glossy brochures full of products you can “buy” with your points and destinations you can fly to on those miles. But have you ever noticed how much a “mile” costs you to earn? Martha has done the math and that cute little DVD player she has her eye on in the Air Miles catalogue is going to cost her about $16,000 in purchases to “earn” the item. The DVD player is worth less than five per cent of that amount.

It struck Martha that sometimes when things get gift wrapped for us they look like more of a prize than they are. It reminded Martha of the new “Ralph Rewards” program in Alberta. For just being an Albertan in 2005 every woman, man, and child will get $400 before Christmas.

Now if you don’t live in Alberta you may not have heard about just how controversial this “Ralph Reward” is. A recent Ipsos-Reid poll found that half of Albertans think it is a good idea and half think it is a bad idea. The Canada West Foundation and the Canadian Taxpayers Federation have both spoken out about what a bad idea it is to just cut a cheque for every Martha, Henry, Dick and Jane in the province.

Even Martha and Henry have had some pretty fiery dinnertime conversations since the reward program was announced. Henry wants to use the money to buy some new gadget he saw on a Canadian Tire ad. But Martha is just so conflicted about the whole idea of giving money to individuals due to the coincidence of their address. I mean, almost all of us want a little money but this gift-wrapped reward program just seems to come at too high a price for Martha’s liking.

It got Martha thinking back to her first year politics course at University where she learnt what governments do. While everyone pretty much agrees that governments are needed, not everyone agrees how much they should do. Some of the old classical liberals thought a government shouldn’t do much beyond some real basics like providing police and paving roads.

But in Canada you would be hard pressed to find anyone who thinks that should be all a government does. We have had a long history of helping out the neighbours and working together to get something done. Martha’s grandparents told stories of how they survived the Depression by pooling resources with their neighbours. After that, pressure from citizens made governments become welfare states where much more than roads and police were provided. Governments were expected to provide schools, health care, and a social safety net for those unable to cover their basic needs.

So governments started to tax people so that they could redistribute wealth and ensure a decent standard of living for everyone. It became obvious that a government can redistribute the money in ways that individuals just can’t do.

But now in Alberta, we have a government that is unwilling to govern (this whole $400 reward decision was made behind closed caucus doors and announced in front of TV cameras because the legislature has not been opened since its summer break). We also have a government that wishes individuals to make decisions of how to redistribute the communal wealth. So Henry will buy a gadget, Mary will donate to the food bank, Margaret and Bob are planning on buying a new couch, and we will still have to sell cookie dough for our preschools and magazine subscriptions for our women’s shelters.

See the lesson of Martha’s grandparents was that individuals may act in their neighbour’s best interests OR they may act in their own best interests. That is why we ask our government to make decisions about where there is the greatest need for money. Now, Premier Klein may not want to make those decisions but cutting everyone a cheque and asking them to make that decision doesn’t make any sense. I may prefer to buy a new couch rather than fund that hip replacement for some guy I don’t know. And once we start getting “Ralph Rewards” for possessing an Alberta residence how much longer will it be until we have to start using those Ralph Bucks to pay for our own hip replacement?

This individualization of government and community responsibility leaves us open to more and more individualization of the costs of government. As much as Martha could use the $400 right now, she knows that the “greater good” of the community will need it more. She wishes her government could understand that. Her greatest fear is that they do understand that and that Ralph Rewards is one more step on the slippery slope of privatization of all collective goods like health care, education, road construction, and policing.

Martha has decided to forget about the DVD player that in the end will cost her dearly. And she has decided to donate her $400 to her favourite charity. But she can’t shake the thought that this “Ralph Reward” is cynical since it just deflects people’s attention from the reality that this government has created in virtually every aspect of Albertans’ lives. The same government that caused the problems has steadfastly refused to use the province’s wealth to address these problems systematically and collectively. This Reward just comes at too high a price.

If you think that the Alberta government should use the $1.4 billion in “Ralph Rewards” to fund schools (so we don’t have to sell any more cookie dough), fund hospitals (so we don’t have anymore 50/50 draws for MRIs) and eliminate the health care premium (that costs us $1 billion/yr), then join Martha in sending Premier Klein a letter.

Tell him you want this money to be used to improve services like schools, post-secondary institutions, hospitals, long-term care homes, women’s shelters, and to fund research into sustainable energy sources. Tell him you wish to register discontent over the decision to issue this money without any debate in the legislature. Such important decisions about the uses of public wealth should not be made behind closed doors.