I had to chuckle over the complaints municipal government leaders are having with Premier Jason Kenney. They should have seen the conflict coming with the way Mr. Kenny approached negotiations/discussions with the doctors, nurses, hospitals, teachers, ambulance services, etcetera.
Remember how the government tried to sneak in coal mining operation in the West Country, but was forced to relent after tremendous push-back by ranchers, farmers, ordinary citizens, and “tree huggers” (communists, socialists, liberals, environmentalists, etcetera)? Selling off Crown land to private developers?
Despite objections from educators and the majority of school boards, the minister of Alberta Education, Adriana LaGrange, is still planning to introduce a K-6 program. Yes! We want American-style education: Lots of memorization, but little into the who, what, and why.
Also, limit the discussion of racism and bigotry in Canada’s past. Let’s not discuss BLM or Indigenous residential schools, eh? Let’s be like the southern states that have introduced legislation to prevent teachers from discussing America’s history of bigotry towards Blacks, Indigenous peoples, women, Jews, Mormons, Asians, Hispanics/Latinos, and immigrants.
Remember that Mr. Kenney created the “War Room” at a cost of $30 million, plus a salary of $170,000-plus to the executive of that new department to produce propaganda favouring the energy attacking while attacking anyone critical of the energy sector.
Mr. Kenney must have forgotten that the energy companies, plus billionaire investors, regularly attack environmentalists in the media. Oh, well. Who needs more money for victim services, police services, public education, public hospitals, emergency medical services, mental health services, fire departments, eh?
Who cares about the need for more money to public service and to public servants? With inflation running at 7.5 per cent or better, a 2.2 per cent raise for public services is a “drop in the bucket."
Questions: How much has the Kenney government invested in the Alberta Heritage Trust Fund since he came to power? How much does the fund have now?
How about publishing accurate records showing how much money our provincial government has spent on various private companies and individuals since he came to power, eh?
Let’s have accountability. Let’s have referendums on establishing a provincial police force, on having a new pension program to replace CPP and OAS, on funding for private schools and charter schools, for providing more money to private health services at the expense of our public health-care system.
There are some matters which are too important to be left up to politicians to decide.
George Thatcher,
Trochu
