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Alberta Government Steps Up Brutal Anti-Social Offensive Kenney Government's Wrecking BallThe Kenney government introduced its budget on October 24, the first since taking office in April 2019, followed by two omnibus bills and outrageous announcements all intended to overwhelm the workers' and peoples' movement in defence of rights.
The next day, October 29, the labour minister publicly announced that he had changed his position of no wage increases for public sector workers. He said that the government would now seek wage rollbacks of two to five per cent in upcoming arbitrations which affect some 180,000 public sector workers. He threatened that if arbitrators awarded wage increases, this would likely lead to more layoffs in the public sector. While these massive bills are before the legislature, the government has continued to make one announcement after another that another program has been axed, or that the government has torn up another contract. The government is using the U.S. imperialist style "shock and awe" tactics in which one assault after another is launched in rapid succession in an effort to keep everyone off balance and unable to catch their breath. And there is no dearth of appeasers either. The use of shock and awe tactics in the U.S. invasion of Iraq was based on the narcissistic view that the people would come out in droves to hail their "liberators." Of course, it did not happen, which is why the revanchist spirit of the U.S. imperialists was so prominent there. Likewise in Alberta, the ruling class is engaged is presenting the measures as if they have a legitimate aim which the people should welcome. However, the attempts to present the vicious anti-social offensive as anything but self-serving have failed, and this is the final nail in the coffin of the Kenney government's claims to legitimacy for its anti-social wrecking. Writing in the Edmonton Journal, journalist Keith Gerein comments, "Since the tabling of the budget back on October 24, important fiscal changes that initially went undiscovered or undisclosed, have been revealed at such a fast and furious rate that it's been near impossible to keep focused. Just as you begin to get your head around the crunch delivered to one program, two more bombshells have already hit the news cycle. To some degree, this is by necessity. "As it's turning out, the volume of reforms, rethinks and petty reductions in this budget is so substantial that it would have been unfair -- not to mention logistically insane -- for the government to dump it all out on budget day. However, there is also a strong odour of political design to this. Colleagues who covered Ralph Klein's cuts in the mid-1990s recall being inundated with information, and suggest Premier Jason Kenney's crew has adopted much the same playbook. "The strategy allows the government to claim it's being transparent, even though the effect is largely the opposite, since keeping the media, opposition and public dizzy with announcements undermines any ability to achieve a clear picture of all the bad news."
The argument that the government has a mandate to carry out such anti-social acts and to act with impunity in the name of rule of law is absurd. The process itself shows that this is fraud from beginning to end. Workers who provide public services and care have shown that they care deeply about the work they do and its importance to society. They have shown they will fight to defend their own rights and the rights of all and in doing so defend these public services. Submitting to these attacks or appeasing them are not a choice. The human toll of these anti-social measures will also contribute to exacerbating the crisis. Only by fighting can the truth be revealed and the situation be turned around to favour the working people. (Photos: CUPE, AUPE)
This article was published in Article Link:   Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca |
The
budget documents and speech were designed to hide the extent of the
wrecking of public services, especially health care and education,
which when inflation and population growth are factored in amounts to
an 18-30 per cent cut over four years. The budget was rapidly followed
by the introduction of Bills 20 and 21 on October 28,
omnibus bills containing 35 different regressive legislative measures.
These bills include amendments to existing legislation as well as new
legislation in the form of a bill within a bill.
All
of this is yet another indication that the state is being restructured
to eliminate any vestiges of a public authority of any kind. The
dog-fight within the ruling elite is so sharp that it brooks no
compromise. Nothing can be sorted out through discussion, negotiation
or compromise because there are no politics, just the dictate of the
interests of
the financial oligarchy to get its pound of flesh. What are called the
"democratic institutions" have become anachronistic. The use of
negotiations to sort out the competing interests in society is replaced
with force and dictate. The workers are to be deprived of any peaceful
method to defend their rights and the rights of all. And not only the
workers, as dictate extends to every sector, whether it is
municipalities, school boards, doctors, or other organizations or
individuals who have contractual economic relations with the state of
one sort or another. Government contracts and agreements are torn up
without warning or consultation of any kind. Meanwhile the role of the
legislature to
take decisions has been usurped holus-bolus.