Alberta.. ironically, under stress because the Government isn't Conservative.. enough

So, in reviewing economic forecasts for my home province of Alberta, it comes as no suprise that Alberta is taking a bit of a beat-down these days as oil prices have dropped and the global economy shrinks.

Que sera - we ride high when things are good, we hunker down and work through it when times are less good.. no panic for this Albertan who recalls when he graduated law school in 1985 and jobs were scarce and interest rates for student loans and homes were astronomical comparatively.

My point.. the Province is in a pickle because, well, they weren't conservative.. enough.

When times were good - perhaps to do the right thing, perhaps to appease the angry masses, the Province increased pay for civil servants to levels making them the envy of all Canada, and most of North America. The Alberta government increased it's spending so that, when I assisted in the 2004 election, I could look our electorate in the eye and say, "contrary to Liberal complaints, we spend more, per capita, on education and health care than any other Province in Canada."

That's a fact. The big, bad conservatives opened the bank as the debt began to dissapear, and the irony is, the achilles heal of the Alberta Government, health care and education, were the largest recipients of government largess and the least appreciative.

I'll tell you a story.. I'm knocking on doors, and I walk up to a home in a nice local neighborhood, beautiful house, large curving driveway, brand new SUV in front.. and as I knock on the door, it's answered by a teacher. Now - I'm happy to chat with anyone - they don't have to support my party, even when you talk to people who disagree with you, you learn things, you know?

Problem is, this teacher was an ass. "I'm a teacher, and if you think I'm going to listen to anything you have to say after what Ralph Klein did to education, you're dreaming". Ok - no problem - have a nice day.

Hmm. What the PC's did to education?

Here's something I discovered as I looked into it - because it bothered me, and I'm no kool-aid drinking conservative. It appeared that for all our money, we still had class-size issues. How could that be? We pay more for education than anyone - how can we still suffer disproportionately-sized classrooms?

Well - when I later spoke to a former School Trustee - this is what I discovered. As more money goes to the Boards, the demand for use of that money by the teaching profession goes to.. wages. And as the vast majority of the increased budget went to make Alberta teachers the highest-paid educators in North America.. there was no money for new teachers to reduce class size, no money to improve facilities to the extend needed, no money to improve books and materials.

And now. Well, we're in a shrinking economy - but we have these wage contracts that obligate us to continue with these high salaries - and what are the odds that those same teachers are going to consider a wage cut?

But hey - we can't blame the teachers - they just asked for it - the Government is the body who gave it to them. They allowed the ATA to whip-saw individual school boards, the ATA essentially bargaining on a Provincial basis with boards who were limited to their local budgets. The government could have, and should have, said "no". We'll bargain provincially. We'll agree to reasonable wages - commensurate with the rest of the country - and no more. Because we knew that the economy would eventually cool, and when it did, we'd be saddled with these contracts. That would have been the truly "conservative" thing to do. But we didn't, c'est la vie.

And now? Well, we live in interesting times, and it may well be that the labor peace that was purchased at a heavy price will need to be, well, tested for the sake of budgetary responsibility. That is, if we're truly being "conservative".