Danielle Smith’s United Conservative Government must have received one hell of a blast from parents about the appalling crowding in Alberta’s schools when classes started two weeks ago, judging from the policy lurch Alberta’s premier revealed last night in a hastily cobbled together TV announcement.
In her 10-minute pre-recorded remarks – her little video was too short to be passed off as an address or a speech – Ms. Smith said her government will pour $8.6 billion over the next three years into building new K-12 schools and upgrading old ones, although where she’s going to find the teachers to run them is not all that clear.
That’s up from $2.1 billion over the same time period in the previous provincial budget.
This will add about 50,000 new student spaces by the end of the 2026-2027 fiscal year, she said, some of them in modular classrooms.
Naturally, this “one-time funding boost” is being joyfully touted by the UCP’s friends in the commentariat. The premier is “uncorking the Alberta treasury,” enthused one. Another strained credulity by claiming 35 new schools could be built every year.
But with the caveat that a lot of beans are in motion under a lot of walnut shells here, so it’ll take a little while to see clearly what is really going to happen, we’ll have to take it on faith that the government truly intends to create 200,000 new student spaces over the next seven years. As for the premier’s promise they’ll do it without causing a budget deficit, that remains to be seen.
To keep the UCP base sweet, Ms. Smith’s sudden announcement included another 12,500 seats in charter schools, and more funds for private schools to “incentivize investment in the creation of thousands of new independent school student spaces at a reduced per-student cost to taxpayers.” How that magic is supposed to work is not clear.
Nevertheless, it’s a big change, and a sudden one – even for a province with a history of bi-polar policy making.
It’ll be “quite literally the fastest and largest build our province can manage given available construction workforce capacity and the time it takes to permit, prepare and service available school sites,” Ms. Smith’s avatar boasted in her dinnertime remarks streamed on the government website and a couple of TV stations.
I say Ms. Smith’s avatar because if you happened to have any questions, by the time the video started the premier had already jetted off to New York City to try to persuade American fossil fuel investors there’s still life in the old Athabasca tar patch. She’s supposed to be at a news conference this morning, though, so expect the school-building topic to be high on the media’s agenda.
Anyway, in her remarks, the premier expressed shock at the number of school aged kids moving here.
Who could have known, she wondered, despite her government’s efforts for the past two years to persuade folks to move here from other provinces because “Alberta is Calling”? She blamed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for the unexpected crowd, because of course she did. “The Trudeau Government’s unrestrained open-border policies,” she called the federal Liberals’ immigration policy, lauding the memory of the Harper Government.
Nor did the premier mention that Alberta had refused to take part in the committee trying to figure out where to send asylum seekers, and dog-whistled a little more about the kind of “core values” her government thinks immigrants should have. They should “believe in working hard, protecting our freedoms, contributing to society, following the rule of law, and … have a deep respect for other cultures and faiths different from their own,” she said, as if they don’t.
She also advised municipalities to get cracking on fast-tracking building permits and approvals or she’ll be blaming them for making the scheme fall apart – although that last bit was unspoken, for the moment. “Cut the red tape,” she warned.
Last year, Ms. Smith and Finance Minister Nate Horner were all gloom and doom about looming deficits. Now they plan to include a massive increase in the next couple of budgets. That long-delayed tax cut will also be in the next budget, she promised.
Even NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi wasn’t too hard on the government, although he said the UCP should have seen the crisis coming, and criticized the UCP’s planned spending on private schools.
Suddenly announcing the Big Spend on an accelerated timeline will increase construction costs and slow the construction of affordable housing, he suggested, accurately enough.
But who knows what will happen after the UCP annual general meeting’s leadership review on Nov. 1 and 2?
We do economic roller coasters here and we’re not about to stop. Albertans complain about it all the time, but obviously they like it that way.
So stay awake! It could all change again tomorrow!
Actions speak louder than words.
Talk is cheap. Building is expensive.
Wonder if Smith will go the route the B.C. Lieberals did when they built new hospitals–public/private partnerships–what a disaster that was.
Given Smith’s attitude towards “values” wonder if she’ll be willing to “finance” private school established for children whose parents want them to have a Muslim or Sikh faith based education. We have both private schools in Richmond, B.C. Alberta has its share of bible pounders, so it will be interesting if other faiths will be accomodated like those christian types. Wonder if she even thought about it?
Surrey,, B.C. has a crisis due to the lack of schools. Its not because of immigration or migrants or what ever else politicians like to pedal, its because families are moving to Surrey. Its less expensive to rent or buy a home there than it is in Vancouver, Richmond, New Westminister, Burnaby, North and West Vancouver.
It was Smith who opened her mouth and suggested people move to Alberta. Perhaps she should think before she speaks. She might not like the results.
“Perhaps…”?
So all those schools – how nice. Who is going to teach in all those schools. There is a teacher shortage!!!
It’s like health care – sure let’s build more facilities – who is going to work there – There is a shortage of all health related staff!!
In the meantime there is still a housing shortage!!!
Is it too much to hope things will work out!!
Yes, there was an odd honey I spent the surplus moment about Smith’s announcement. For a government that has spent the last year constantly preaching restraint this was particularly surprising, like a spouse showing up with a shiny new car after repeatedly saying you have to reign in your spending on groceries.
Speaking of surprised, I wonder when Finance Minister Horner found out about this? I could even understand the Premier wanting the limelight here, but normally such big announcements would also be part of a coordinated plan like a budget or an economic update.
One also has to wonder now that much of the surplus has been spent on a random Tuesday in mid September what happens for health care or other things. And if Smith is counting on rising oil prices to bail her out again, I’ve got bad news for her and us on that. They have been rather tepid and shaky lately, and it looks like that will continue.
This blame the immigrants line Smith is now pushing is also odd. Most of the people moving to Alberta are actually coming from elsewhere in Canada, not supposed dog and cat eating countries. Also temporary foreign workers can’t normally bring their kids here anyways. But like much of what Smith says, this requires her supporters to suspend disbelief and not examine it too closely or it starts to fall apart.
I suppose we will get to see Smith in New York spending part of what remains of our surplus on her trip. I wonder how much of the media will be able to follow her there given their more limited budgets, so it has a too clever catch me if you can feel about it. At least Kenney had the good sense to usually stick around and try to condescendingly explain when his policy unexpectedly lurched before going into hiding on some trip. But I suppose all the questions if not answered will remain for when she gets back.
Danielle Smith is babbling a bunch of malarkey. Government support for private and charter schools (which are basically cut from the same cloth), get more funding, while the public education system doesn’t. Government funding for the public education system in Alberta is abysmally low, and it’s the lowest in Canada. However, in this province, funding for charter and private schools (again, they are pretty much cut from the same cloth), in Alberta, are the highest in Canada.
With these new schools being built (seeing is believing, because Danielle Smith has a history of promising things and not fulfilling those promises), they require teachers and staff. Where will those come from?
Danielle Smith and the UCP are causing big problems with the public education system and the public education system in Alberta, so they can have private for profit models. This was Ralph Klein’s goal too.
The UCP cabinet doesn’t even match what Danielle Smith claims. Nate Horner even contradicts himself, and the premier. We have a paper surplus (which isn’t even a surplus at all), then we will have no surplus, and it’s back to the borrowing bandwagon.
It would be quite surprising to see Danielle Smith survive her leadership review unscathed. By the looks of things, she is throwing all kinds of enticements around, as if it were a provincial election, because she sees she is in danger of being ousted. Unfortunately, whomever replaces Danielle Smith could be just as bad, or even worse.
Albertans didn’t learn when they put a two time political loser in power. The Alberta PCs fired Danielle Smith, when she had been a public school trustee, because her ideas were even way too farfetched for them to accept. We are in a horrific mess, and it shows.
I’m currently reading Murray Sinclair’s book on the History of Canada’s Residential Schools and the part of Danielle Smith’s speech about Charter School funding was of particular interest. I may have drawn a link that isn’t there, but I don’t think so.
There was a day when government thought that “Charter” Indian Day Schools was a good idea and Canada is currently compensating those harmed . I know the conditions and treatment do not compare, but today’s Charter Schools in terms of segregation and mind shaping curriculum share some similarities.
Segregating kid’s along economic, ethnic, and often religious lines does not end well in my opinion. In general, I feel that kids educated in the public system and exposed to a variety of classmates from other backgrounds and cultures are more accepting, understanding and inclusive when dealing with those different from themselves.
We are using taxpayer funds to increase enrollment in Charter Schools. Is it too much of a stretch to wonder if we will need to fund the compensation for those enrolled sometime down the road?
Schools, trains, beautiful reclaimed oil wells, arenas, cancelled Green Line contracts…for fiscal conservatives, they sure like to spend money.
This is just another repeat of a previous repeat and so on. According to the UCP they are already building schools everywhere and spending more than anyone else in he world doing so. The fact is they keep announcing new schools but never get any of them built. Stay tuned, there will be another 5 or 6 big school building announcements as the UCP needs to get as much out of this as they can.
Another interesting point with these clowns is apparently they gave the feds back $126M that was to be used for orphan well clean up and they didn’t use and want to give oil and gas money for clean up?
Given all this, don’t hold your breath waiting for the so called promised income tax break, someone has to pay for all this and it certainly won’t be the oil and gas industry.
OA: That was my point with the beans under the walnut shells. The last budget promised 58 new schools in three years. This announcement promises 30, or 60, or 105 if you believe David Staples. But some of those will be modulars – basically ATCO trailers. And some of them may be charter schools or really sketchy private schools. This all needs clarification. DJC
Like the well cleanup. The funds will be there but ‘You can’t expect us to spend all of this in minus-35 degree weather when the ground is frozen…” Oh and look, all those jobs we were going to give to the Indigenous, but, look they’re just so hard to train, we just didn’t have time! https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbc.ca/amp/1.7324701
And by ramping up funding to private and charter schools we can finally break the teachers’ union, that thorn in our side. Down with gold-plated pensions for the lazy buggers! And as for the non-teaching staff- a host of non-union, undertrained and underpaid young women in private business are bringing up our preschoolers right now; surely we can apply that for- profit model in our K-12 schools.
Sarcasm from me; probably policy soon to be announced by Ms. Smith.
“They should ‘believe in working hard, protecting our freedoms, contributing to society, following the rule of law, and … have a deep respect for other cultures and faiths different from their own…’” Actually, can we start, not with immigrants, but with far-right and/or white supremacists coming to Alberta from other parts of the country?
To borrow and twist Devin Dreeshen’s quote about the Green Line, this plan sounds like it was hatched like an alien egg on the back of a napkin, perhaps late at night in a bar after realizing the $2.1-billion fiasco that has been foisted on the citizens/ratepayers of Calgary, thanks to Smith deep-sixing that project after construction had started. Higher civic taxes and thanks for nothing, Danielle Smith!
It should be noted that Danielle Smith couldn’t be bothered to show up for last night’s announcement because she was out of the country (again) in New York. It should be noted that Smith couldn’t be bothered to show up for the catastrophic cancellation of Green Line funding announcement, either, because she was allegedly out of the country in Panama. Nothing says absentee landlord like leaving the country constantly.
Can we trust her this time? Sure, ask the companies in the renewables sector. Ask the Green Line construction companies that she hung out to dry. Make no mistake: all of these decisions are Danielle Smith-approved.
Ohio, anyone? No, I’m not talking about the Trump speech about Springfield residents dining on dogs, cats and pets, although last night Smith came close. I’m talking about another September 17 Ohio story:
https://www.propublica.org/article/ohio-taxpayer-money-funding-private-religious-schools
After living in Alberta for over 40 years, this latest BS exemplifies the mindset of Albertan “conservatives”. Ignore everything until it comes to a head, brag about how much money they are saving by not maintaining infrastructure, spend ridiculous amounts of money to fix what they let happen, then blame the feds. Sadly, Alberta voters are suckers and losers.
Forgot to include the upcoming dual credit program in which 13 year-olds will ‘volunteer’ as educational assistants in primary classrooms. Now there’s a win- grade 8 girls are impossible to teach; put ’em to work raising kids. Relief all around.
Bear with me as I skimmed through Ms. Smith’s address, and being a product of the public system in Alberta, my math may be off, but my recollection was Ms. Smith noted that expected student enrollment was to increase by 33,000 per year for the next 3 years (33,000 x 3 = 99,000), while, as DJC points out, student spaces are to increase by 50,000. So the proposed solution will address 50.5% of the problem, a passing grade, but just barely.
Does a one time funding boost cover the ongoing salaries of the teachers that will teach these new students (if said teachers can be found, oh wait, there they are, mingling with all the extra doctors and nurses at the employment centre), and the ongoing costs to operate and maintain these new schools, or will those ongoing expenditures be the responsibility of the respective school boards?
Oh my! The sturm and drang is writ large in your headline photo! Again kudos! So for the best elder who still has the temerity to peddle “journalism” I have a song! https://youtu.be/mJag19WoAe0
I remember BC premier Christy Clark making pie-in-the-sky promises like Danielle Smith just did. In the 2013 election she promised to build fifteen (!) LNG export facilities on the West Coast and wipe out the debt in a term or two (!)—in which she plainly expected to be premier. Fortunately or unfortunately not a single one of the LNG plants was built; Christy actually added fully one-quarter of BC’s debt after actually winning 2013 with such preposterous promises (she was premier for six of the BC Liberals’ 16-year regime which inherited a $31-billion debt from the NDP in 2001 and turned it into somewhere north of $110-billion); and she resigned both party leadership and her seat in the Assembly in a holy snit when the Governor would not grant her another, second 2017 election and after a Green-Dipper alliance toppled her brand-new minority government—a move that allowed the new alliance to govern without needing the Speaker to break tie votes (credit where due, one of the BC Liberals volunteered for the Speaker’s job and was summarily booted from his caucus, thus subtracting two of its MLAs to give the GreenDP the edge—the proverbial thin end of the wedge). That was back in the day when BC politics was considered so polarized it was nationally called “crazy.” You see, Left Coasters could be as easily gulled as Alberta voters through whose post-2019 ballot-box decisions have since hiked ‘crazy’ over the Continental Divide in the eastward direction.
Apparently Alberta voters are surprise-shy. They were flabbergasted when Wildrose leader Danielle Smith crossed the floor to the now-defunct ProgCons with half her caucus. They surprised themselves in 2015 by electing an NDP majority, a jolt out of eight decades of right-wing rule. They were surprised again when Premier Rachel Notley provided a pretty good government. Covid affected the trifecta of their astonishment during the contagious viral pandemic when UCP Mother Goose —who honked from the Stampede grounds that Alberta’s summer of fun was on, damn the body count!— had to recant that it would be curtailed somewhat after all. ‘Enough with the surprises,’ they cried!
I have to admit that when “United-We-Roll” (2019) and the “Freedom Convoy” (2022) headed to the Capital honking hateful slogans, I wasn’t much surprised myself. Just a little disappointed.
Albertans got their wish, alright, although only by putting the surprisingly narrowing margin of victory in 2023 out of their minds. Smith&Parker are predictably the gang that can’t shoot straight, much to the astonishment of objective observers but something the S&P Gang thinks is the kind of reliability Albertans want. No surprises.
That, of course, remains to be seen.
One thing that doesn’t surprise me is the walnuts-and-beans allusion because the age-old, midway-huckster’s shell-and-pea game requires spherical objects for the illusion to work: while distracting the victim’s attention with the hand that lifts the shell, the pea that they guessed was there is deftly and stealthily rolled off the table and out of sight—the peas have to be round to do this sleight-of-hand quickly enough. Granted, there are a number of political allusions at play including, especially, that the S&P Gang don’t so much do politics as fumble with oblong beans that don’t quite fool anyone. You might say S&P just doesn’t know how to roll with politics. Why, they’ve politically shot themselves in the foot so many times that their cowboy boots leave holes in their tracks as they retreat from reporters while affecting a snide Peewee Herman rejoinder: “I meant to do that [Justin].”
Meanwhile, as Danielle Smith retreats to the land that gave the world Donald tRump, we keep getting reminders that she’ll be bringing back some more tRumpublicanisms—which I suppose makes criticisms of the same lexical origin (on this blog) sufficiently tolerable, as in Smith’s “babbling bunch of malarkey.” (It’s true, it’s really happening: where, for example, have we heard “wide-open borders” before?…)
But “honey, I spent the surplus” takes the cake! Good one!! I’m sure I’ll enjoy reading more of them as the day progresses. Ahhh, progress!
All the best from BC, my Alberta friends!
While I’m certain the charter schools will be cashing those cheques immediately, the caveat that “some may be portables” gives away the whole dog and pony show. ATCO is going to be doing some good numbers here I bet, especially in rural alberta where infrastructure (ESPECIALLY FOR EDUCATION) has proceeded with an out of sight out of mind program since the Klein years. (For the record this bird spent a season or two educated in a ATCO trailer at an alberta public school and it was among the more miserable and humiliating experiences of my terrible journey through Alberta’s (then mid , now reportedly much worse ) public school system.
Fwiw she needs private / charter (read: religious) school people because it’s one of the main ways conservatives buy off religious fundamentalists in this province and maintain their loyalty at the ballot box.
But yeah, brick and mortar schools for 50,000 students within the next eight years? (which is pretty fanciful on the part of the UCP to assume they’ll still even exist in eight bloody years)
If you believe that I have a bridge for sale, in Manhattan.
I wonder if the true point of the exercise is to funnel more cash to the private and charter schools with the public school building plan thrown in to make the deal more acceptable for all concerned. As was mentioned, every year dozens of new schools are promised only to be re-promised the year after. Everyone is so focused on the building of public schools, no one notices the buckets of taxpayer dollars going to the privates and charters in the form of cash dollars.
Here’s one of our human based elder states persons playing with their fingers! https://youtu.be/wneStosrfU8 Can’t get it? That’s on you! https://youtu.be/wneStosrfU8
No way Batshit Smith will send all that money and build all those schools. Sorry, I don’t believe her. Anyone who thinks that money will go t public schools is delusional. They will find out eventually.
I see as a compromise.
$8 B over three years, huh? I guess that will be in fair exchange for the $230+ B for RStar — or whatever they call it now. In the end, this is to repair the massive damage caused by the childfree Jason Kenney, which has been handed off to the childfree Queen Danielle. And the message to Alberta was pre-recorded, because Smith is off in the US, doing US/GOP stuff.
This is really rich that the UCP are being pressured into building schools. Absent from the announcement was any talk about staffing these new schools. Smith was evasive when asked about that. Perhaps it is because Ft. McMurray school staff are embroiled in a labor dispute and want to strike. Smith has quietly taken away these people’s right to collective bargaining, which is totally in line with the anti-union approach of the Conservatives and UCP.
Attached is the latest from CUPE. https://alberta.cupe.ca/2024/09/17/outrage-among-fort-mcmurray-school-division-workers-as-government-violates-charter-protected-right-to-strike/
Once again, policy flies out of this government with little planning or foresight. I think this little video clip is the best illustration of their policy-making process …
https://youtu.be/SYWZ_90BZ2Y?si=Se48KeWF5g0vNMF_
FWIW— just to add to the “education files”……
Press Progress– Sept 18 2024
Pierre Polievre is headlining a fundraising dinner to place a far-right Alberta Magazine Publisher’s books in schools.
Alberta Premier DS and former PM Stephen Harper will join Polievre in ” toasting controversial author Ted Byfield.
—-Byfields legacy remains influential in the province through his son Vince Byfield who won a seat on the board of the UCP. This was achieved at least in part through the efforts of the far-right group TBA, of which he was a leading organizer.
DJC— when you said avatar, I think you’re right, isn’t that the same setting ( dress, hair etc.) when she made another “heart felt” speech a few months back?
AI generated speech?
Was she still in Texas and flying straight to NY and meeting with Williams there?
Anyone see any cowboy hats on Long Island? Hmmm?
Randi-lee: “Anyone see any cowboy hats on Long Island?” Only on Halloween. DJC
I believe from all of the comments so far, there are very many disillusioned people in this province. Sad that no one seems to acknowledge the chaos through out our world, as it implodes. Most of our politicians, provincially, federally & municipality are doing THEIR best to right the many wrongs, & it will take years, if ever. Education is key. Without it, we indeed are doomed. But we will never all think alike! Or have the same beliefs. Humanity needs to quit trying to force every one to be clones. No person or party is perfect, but thankfully most keep trying to improve our country. And this will, obviously take a great deal longer than it would have 50 years ago. More wants, created by ever more humans on the planet! Good luck with your negativity, hope it makes you all very happy! June
Lady if you can’t take people criticizing your hobby horse politics probably isn’t for you.