Prepare for UCP cuts, SACPA told
Lethbridge families are being hurt by the United Conservatives’ ongoing budget cuts. Holy Spirit and Lethbridge District 51 school boards each laid off 15 employees in recent weeks, says Lethbridge West MLA Shannon Phillips. The University of Lethbridge cut 19 positions, she said Thursday.
The non-profit Family Centre has just issued layoff notices to 25 staff members, Phillips told participants at the Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs. It can’t find out if its funding will continue past March 31.
And the provincial agriculture and forestry department terminated 50 employees before Christmas — including a number of people at the research station in Lethbridge.
And there’s more to come, the Official Opposition’s finance critic said. Front-line health-care staff in Lethbridge could be hard hit as Premier Jason Kenney pushes ahead on plans to eliminate 5,000 publicsector positions across Alberta.
At the same time, Phillips said Kenney has failed to act on projects promised here during the election campaign.
“That’s a double-whammy for Lethbridge,” she said.
As well, Phillips warned Alberta’s property taxes, income taxes and insurance rates will be going up year by year due to the new government’s decisions. And there’s more.
“They’re looking at massive restructuring in our relationship with our health care, education and other social services programs,” she said. Alberta’s professional ambulance service could be handed over to free enterprise.
But none of these service cuts are needed, Phillips maintained. Alberta has by far the lowest spending in Canada, she said, in comparison to the province’s gross domestic product — about eight per cent.
Phillips said the reason seniors, families and students are facing big cuts is Kenney’s pledge to give away $4.7 billion to Alberta’s biggest companies in hopes they might re-invest it here.
That “blew a hole in the budget” and Phillips predicted despite ongoing cuts, the Kenney government will be unable to balance its budget — with a debt projected at $93 billion — by the end of its term. While continuing to support economic diversification and maintaining service levels, she said the opposition New Democrats planned for a balanced budget by 2023 — at $92 billion.
That would mean cancelling the $4.7billion giveaway, she said, and reinstituting an income tax hike on Alberta’s richest one per cent.
Contrary to “ruining the economy,” Phillips said Alberta led the nation in economic growth after two years of New Democrat administration. But now the Bank of Canada and the commercial banks have announced economic growth rate predictions far below what the UCP government’s budget is assuming.
Responding to questions, she said the most effective way for teachers to register concerns about the government taking over their pension fund is to contact their local government MLA.
Cancelling the cost-shared RCMP contract in favour of returning to an Alberta police force would prove costly, she told another audience member.
And Phillips agreed with criticisms of the premier’s $30-million-per-year “war room,” aiming at anyone who speaks ill of the long-dominant energy industry.
It’s become “a ridiculous clown show,” she said. “It has become a joke, and it has to be dismantled.”