Coming soon to the PC Party of Alberta..?
Well.
I hate to be an "I told you so" kinda guy.. but..
It seems like just last week I was suggesting that our new Premier might be just a little bit cozy with the left side of the political spectrum, being praised along with NDP MP Megan Leslie for their visionary approach to the energy industry (Alison things a National Energy program would be a great idea).
Well.
Color me completely unsuprised by the announcement today that Liberal MLA Bridget Pastoor has crossed the floor and joined the Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta.
Apparently Alison Redford is quite pleased with this new addition of yet another Liberal to the PC Party of Alberta, according to the Calgary Herald.
And.
In a completely related story:
Alberta projecting $3.1 billion deficit
Finance minister raises possibility of restoring health-care premiums to raise revenue
With the province facing an estimated $3.1-billion deficit this year, largely due to declining resource and investment income, Liepert suggested his department is looking at a variety of ways to improve the books — perhaps even by restoring health-care premiums.Really?
“With all that is going on with the global (uncertainty), it’s going to be a challenge over the next couple of years to get the budget balanced,” Liepert said. “There are some tough choices ahead.”
Tough choices like buying the PC Leadership by giving over $107 million in taxpayer dollars to already amply paid Alberta Teachers?
There is a reckoning coming in this Province, and when it hits, you might expect that "Mr. I Told You So" will be back to say... well.. "I told you so."
According to the Edmonton Journal Article,
7 comments:
Yeah, those damn teachers, they're only educating our children and future generations, we should let anyone be a teacher and pay them shit salaries while we're at it. Schools don't need money, learning takes place in the mind anyway!
One more move like that and they will have leapt past the Liberals and be encroaching on NDP territory.
Chris, that’s an awfully lame defense of your fellow teachers, especially the part where you patted yourself on the back for “only educating our children and future generations”.
What do you think the rest of us are doing? Sitting around all summer and drinking Kool-Aid at the beach? You have things all backwards. That would be the teachers who do that and it’s the rest of us who deserve a pat on the back for putting up with the ATA and their political machinations.
If the ATA and the teachers really cared so much for the darling little children, they’d show some responsibility and leadership by not trying to bury them in debt!
Or is that someone else’s department?
Did you see Dipper Duncan's tweet,
Redford = NDP enviro platform:
@LindaDuncanMP
Linda Duncan #yegfed # cdnpoli pleased Redford adopting federal NDP platform for public dialogue on sustainable energy future for Canadians
Wildrose website keeping tabs on the Red team:
http://redfordfiles.ca/
Oh please Chris. Peddle your bullshit somewhere else. The fact is that Alberta teachers over the last decade have been consistently the highest paid in Canada, and in fact, the highest paid in public school in North America.
The other notable fact is that whenever the government increases funding to education, it gets eaten up in teacher's salaries - not in hiring new teachers or program costs.
So, yeah, there was no need to hand over another $107 million to teachers.
The only teachers in Canada making more than Alberta teachers are in the Yukon - for obvious reasons... so, yes, the teachers in Alberta are a pampered, spoiled lot who don't know a good thing when they have it.
As it is, there are people lined up for teachers' jobs in Alberta, so, please explain your opinion, if you will.
Rather than give us the usual, tired and sad, "they are our future", why don't you justify by facts just why our per capita funding for education and why our current level of teachers' salaries is insufficient.
What's that sound I hear?
Crickets chirping?
Redford has only been in the job a few weeks. The deficit is all Stelmach and Morton.
I miss the fiscal discipline of Paul Martin. Federal and provincial tories completely lack the skill set to make tough decisions and balance the budget. Tories always buy votes and friends with taxpayer money.
It should come as no surprise that a party in power for 40 years has a wide spectrum of people in it. Alberta is a liberal province andthe Tories have occupied the liberal political spectrum for a long time.
Don't beleive Alberta is liberal? Here are a few conservative ideas that have never been implemented in Alberta, despite massive majorities: recall legislation, balanced budgets, elected judges, abortion is legal and paid for by taxpayers, death penalty is non-existent, no provincial police force, no provincial pension plan, gay marriage and Human Rights Commission.
Oh yeah, Ralph Klein was a liberal.
It's going to be fun watching what kind of campaign Danielle runs against Redford. So far, Danielle's manner, rhetoric and preparation reminds me of Harper, circa 2002 to 2004.
So hopefully, she will have learned what to do at crunch time, from the master, and similarly avoid the mistakes of Hudak.
I'd like to see a narrative along the lines of: Let's bring back the Alberta Advantage, get our fiscal house in order ASAP, get back to basics of what a conservative provincial government is supposed to do, demand more accountability from departments and equalization-receiving provinces. That's got to sell better than the progressive tripe we've been getting from Redford.
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