Alberta Election 2019
Working People Are Fighting for a Pro-Social Direction
for Alberta
Alberta has a population of 4.3 million, a million
people are next door in Saskatchewan and another million in Manitoba,
all
interconnected with the Prairie. A natural region perhaps, which
could even include the north.
 Just imagine the human and
natural resources this region
possesses: vast agriculture, oil, natural gas, coking coal for
steel, uranium, timber, diamonds, potash, wind and sun galore
and who knows what else replete with an educated working class.
Why the recurring crises? Who or what is blocking the development
of the New and why? The possibilities are endless for the region
to develop an independent diverse economy with resource
extraction, manufacturing, social programs, public services and
modern infrastructure, an economy that has as its motive to
guarantee the well-being and security of the people and the
humanization of the social and natural environment.
This is not the agenda in the provincial election
scheduled to
take place on Tuesday, April 16. On the contrary, the agenda has been
set by the ruling elite and the people are supposed to take sides
for one version or another of an agenda which they do not set and
which does not represent their interests and claims on society.
For instance, the ruling elite in Alberta persist in privatizing health
care despite the broad opposition of the
people. They refuse to increase public investments in health
care, which would resolve persistent problems of wait times in
acute care and the lack of a modern and humane seniors' care
system with adequate staffing.
Health care and other public sector workers continue to
face wage freezes, growing workloads and the refusal of the ruling
elite to recognize that their working conditions are the living
conditions of patients and seniors in their care.
The working people have long laid their claim to health
care
as a right. Despite massive disinformation campaigns over
balancing budgets, pushing private control and ownership of
health care, the expansion of two-tier medicine, and putting all
economic eggs in the same old resource extraction sector, the
ruling circles have failed to blunt the working people's demand
for a pro-social alternative. The people of Alberta have always
met the anti-social campaigns with resistance. They are facing
the problem of how to empower themselves politically to build the New
in a
decisive way with no turning back.
 The long-standing demand of
the working people is that those
in government must take up their social responsibility to
organize the productive forces to guarantee the right of all to
the highest quality health care and seniors' care, as well as
education and other aspects of public services which affect their
lives. Albertans reject policy objectives and electoral platforms
full of platitudes from the cartel parties, or the obscurantism
of balancing a budget through austerity where those in power
control what is being balanced or not balanced and who
benefits.
Albertans do not let up on their demand for concrete
results,
beginning with increased investments in social programs in the
here and now. More broadly, they require a new direction for the
economy away from reliance on natural resources controlled by
outside forces not interested in building a modern all-sided
Albertan economy based on manufacturing, resource extraction,
agriculture, public services and social programs to meet the
needs of all and guarantee their rights and well-being.
Albertans demand accountability from governments as to
what is
being done to restrict and eliminate private control and
ownership of social programs where enterprise and interest profit
sap the lifeblood of the health and education sectors. The aim of
private ownership and control is not the well-being of the people
but enriching wealthy private interests and taking value out of
the economy to be used elsewhere. Value produced in Alberta must
remain in the economy and be invested in ways that build its
self-reliance in opposition to the destructive grip of the global
oligarchs, in particular the oil barons.
A Pro-Social Alternative Is Right Before Our Eyes
 The cartel parties vying
for power in the Alberta election all represent to one degree or
another the neo-liberal line that the right to health care cannot be
guaranteed because of a "lack of money." The budget plans of the New
Democratic Party (NDP) and the United Conservative Party (UCP) both
reject increased investments in social programs and public services.
Instead they call for cuts to spending on social programs and public
services with only the degree marking any difference. The working
people are told that the only choice is to accept "compassionate
austerity" or be faced later with massive cuts, two-tier medicine, and
more privatization to serve the rich.
The alternative of mobilizing the modern productive
forces in
a pro-social direction is staring us in the face. It can be seen in the
fight of
health care workers and professionals and teachers and education
workers who know what is needed to guarantee health care and
education as a right. They raise the real issues they and the
people face which puts the lie to the neo-liberal jargon of
experts who make a mystery of everything. One example is the
refrain of "throwing more money at it does not guarantee a
solution." Of course, when money is thrown at something not to
solve problems but to line the pockets of private interests this
guarantees failure.
In this issue of TML Weekly, several articles
testify
to the people's struggles in defence of the rights of all which
will be pursued irrespective of who wins the Alberta
election.
This article was published in
Volume 49 Number
13 - April 13, 2019
Article Link:
Alberta
Election
2019: Working People Are Fighting for a Pro-Social Direction
for Alberta
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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