NDP has UCP budget in crosshairs

EDMONTON More than 200 individuals filled the gymnasium of Escuela Mill Creek in Edmonton on Tuesday night as the Alberta NDP launched a series of six budget town halls to take place across the province over the next month.

Leader of the opposition Rachel Notley and finance critic Shannon Phillips said the UCP have not sufficiently consulted Albertans for the budget — expected to come at the end of October — and pledged to present a shadow budget based on their discussions with Albertans at these town halls.

“This is going to be more than a budget,” Notley said to an animated crowd. “This is going to be the first sign of what the next four years will look like for our families, for our neighbourhoods and for our communities.”

Recommendations made in the recently released blue-ribbon panel report headed up by former Saskatchewan finance minister Janice Mackinnon — including significantly cutting health, education and public spending overall — suggest major cuts to front-line services in the future.

But Notley said the UCP were elected on a platform that promised to maintain or increase spending on health and education, and she doesn’t see the report as an absolution of that responsibility.

“If some of the suggestions that the Mackinnon report makes come to fruition, I think what we’re going to end up seeing is some tremendous suffering on the part of Albertans and people in their families,” Notley said in an interview Tuesday evening. “You can’t cut health care by 20 per cent and not have an impact.”

Similar concerns were top of mind for the dozens of community members who flocked to the mic to share their views.

“We are desperate for funding,” said Laurie de Grace, executive director of the Macdougall House Recovery Home for Women in Edmonton, which she said is 80 per cent government funded.

“We cannot afford to lose that funding.”

A senior addressed the need to ensure health care and pensions for the elderly keep up with rising costs of living, while a mother of two children with learning disabilities criticized a proposal in the Mackinnon report that would fund schools based on how students perform.

“We need needs-based funding,” she said. “Our children aren’t getting help.”

Notley said the feedback will be analyzed to produce an alternative shadow budget to be presented later in October.

The next town hall is in Grande Prairie on Sept. 17.