Alberta Government’s Anti-Social Budget Met with Strong Resistance

Budget Shows What Conservative Sweep Truly Means

– Peggy Morton –

Rally at Alberta Legislature, October 18, 2019, opposes Bill 9 and condemns the cuts expected in the budget.
 

The fighting spirit of Alberta workers is evident for all to see despite attempts of the ruling class to say otherwise. Attempts to portray the working people as those who love the policies of Jason Kenney are a figment of a self-serving narrative. The truth of the matter is quite different and can be seen in the resistance to the Kenney government’s assault on public services and the workers and professionals who deliver them. This was expressed across the province as Finance Minister Trevor Toews on October 24 delivered the first budget since the United Conservative Party (UCP) was elected in April.

During the federal election campaign, Jason Kenney criss-crossed Canada stumping for Andrew Scheer and the federal Conservatives. From New Brunswick to Ontario to Alberta, he pitched the line that a Conservative government would make life more affordable for Canadians with the slogan “It’s time for you to get ahead.” Not a week later, and Kenney was back at the Alberta Legislature as the United Conservative Party government brought down its first budget. The budget is evidence of what his promises to make life more affordable mean, or his provincial election slogans of jobs and economic prosperity. They are a vicious anti-social assault on the rights of Albertans to public services and the rights of the workers who deliver them.

Claiming the budget is about “surgical cuts,” not a matter of slashing across the board, the Kenney government went all out to portray the budget as nothing like the ones experienced during the Klein years. Much was made of the claim that the cuts were only 2.8 per cent over four years, and that health care and education were not included. That deception was swiftly uncovered by the unions and concerned organizations which pointed to the government’s own fiscal tables which show that inflation and population growth over the next four years in Alberta will total 18.1 per cent. This means any sector which the government claims is not being cut in fact receives an 18.1 per cent reduction. By this account, K-12 education budgets would be cut by over 20 per cent, post-secondary budgets by about 30 per cent.

The government also made it clear that it will use dictate and not negotiations, saying that there will be no wage increases for public sector workers for the next four years. Public sector workers have not received any wage increase for two to five years depending on the sector. These attacks on the right to wages, benefits and working conditions acceptable to those who provide the services according to their needs are unconscionable. The workers will not accept them.

Kenney gave a short televised address the night before the budget in which he tried to cover up his anti-social assault using the pitch that Albertans are all hunkering down in their western fortress to do battle with the rest of Canada. Albertans can’t count on Ottawa, he said, so they have to be self-reliant and get their own house in order. Apparently no one told Kenney about the large number of workers at the Legislature last week chanting “Whose House? Our House.”

Besides anything else, what Kenney is suggesting is the farthest thing from self-reliance possible. Successive governments have refused to use the tremendous wealth created by the working people to develop an all-sided self-reliant economy without boom and bust. They stubbornly insist that all decisions about the economy should be left to the energy oligarchs who must be provided even more pay-the-rich schemes.

Where have the billions of dollars from the hard work of Alberta working people gone so that now the government claims it must carry out its wrecking? Its anti-social offensive wrecks the public education system; freezes the meagre incomes of people with severe disabilities; refuses to provide the necessary health care and seniors’ care; attacks post-secondary education by slashing budgets, increasing student debt and making post-secondary education even more unaffordable; and much more.

Public sector workers are already facing unsustainable workloads without the staffing levels and resources they need to provide care and services. These workers are precious to society. They do their duty and take up their responsibilities day in and day out. They are not “things” to be subjected to “surgical cuts,” or tossed aside.

The government states that 3.5 per cent of the budget goes to pay the interest on the debt. As an interim measure, a temporary moratorium could be placed on the interest payments while an investigation is carried out to determine who benefitted from the pay-the-rich schemes that left the province in debt. The government says Albertans cannot rely on boom and bust, but insists that there is no alternative to handing over even more to the energy oligarchs with the tired old claim that some of this will trickle down.

What the “Conservative sweep” in Alberta really means is that the workers are deprived of political power. Modern arrangements are needed which serve the interests of the working people and not those of the rich. Working people have their own interests and claims on society as the producers of wealth and those who keep society functioning. These claims are just. This is what their resistance to the anti-social offensive brings to the fore.

(Photos: AUPE, RU)

This article was published in:

Renewal Update No. 44, October 25, 2019

Article Link:
Alberta Government’s Anti-Social Budget Met with Strong Resistance: Budget Shows What Conservative Sweep Truly Means – Peggy Morton