Was it mere coincidence Alberta Finance Minister Nate Horner released an unhappy statement saying the province’s projected budget deficit will be $1.3 billion bigger than what he promised in last February’s Budget Speech on the very same day as he put out a statement complaining that contract negotiations with the province’s teachers appear to be going off the rails?
Oh, probably. After all, the first statement was posted before noon and the second one didn’t appear until it was sent to media just after 8:30 p.m., and it wasn’t linked from the government website’s news page until after 10:30 p.m. This suggests panicky haste.
Still, the coincidence underlines Alberta’s continued status as the whiny poor little rich kid of Confederation – always bragging about how rich it is until it starts complaining how poor it is, especially whenever negotiations about public sector salaries roll around.
Well, you can’t stop public employees who are looking for a significant raise to make up for the pressure inflation’s been putting on their salaries from pointing to the way the Alberta’s United Conservative Party Government was bragging last year about that $8.3-billion surplus it posted.
But it sure doesn’t hurt if you’ve just given your bargaining team a secret mandate to hold the line on any pay increases teachers can get if you can call a news conference and cry poverty, which is in fact just what Mr. Horner did yesterday.
Mr. Horner’s gloomy news release was headlined, “Steering thorough the storm,” never mind that outside in Edmonton it was 30 degrees Celsius without a puff of wind. Hey! Cognitive dissonance is our middle name here in Wild Rose County! (Forging through the heat would never do as a header, given that our provincial motto is “Don’t worry! Keep drilling!”*)
“Global economic uncertainty affects Q1 projections,” Mr. Horner’s news release explained – something the UCP never used to say when they were blaming the NDP for the impact of global economic uncertainty.
“The first quarter update projects the 2025-26 deficit will reach $6.5 billion, up $1.3 billion from Budget 2025’s forecast,” the statement continued. “The most significant factor in the growth of the deficit is related to a 38 per cent decline of natural resource revenue, which has decreased from its peak of $25.2 billion in 2022-23 to a forecast of $15.7 billion in 2025-26.”
Someone is sure to say, if only we had a sales tax in Alberta, we could smooth out those peaks and valleys and actually finance government services like grownups. Of course, if someone did, stunned silence would follow. Albertans just don’t say those kinds of things in public.
“Alberta is also facing added pressure from a growing population, which is projected to increase 2.4 per cent in 2025-26,” the statement pointed out, accurately – you know, just what we were demanding a year ago before we started hammering the Liberals in Ottawa for doing what we said.
“We know the road ahead has its challenges, but with disciplined financial management and smart investments, we will stand by families, rein in the deficit and secure a stronger future,” Mr. Horner said in the news release’s traditional canned quote.
Which brings us to the teachers. It was only a few hours before Mr. Horner published another statement, this one jointly with Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides, complaining churlishly about how disappointed they both are “with the decision of the Alberta Teachers’ Association to break off negotiations with so much at stake, and so close to a reasonable settlement.”
The apparent problem, according to the ministers, is that those stubborn teachers want more than a three-per-cent-a-year raise over four years, which is all the government says it’s willing to give up.
But the ATA said they needed more teachers, the desperate duo wailed. And we promised to hire more! “They have been offered what they asked for,” they cried plaintively. “They have been offered what they said was needed.”
Gosh, it sounds like the ATA went into bargaining intending to … you know! Bargain!
What next?
What do you want to bet that the ATA understands that the government has to hire more teachers because of that population growth Mr. Horner was talking about a few hours before. Otherwise, parents will be furious, and quite possibly finally convinced the UCP doesn’t have the chops to manage a unilingual hotdog stand.
Well, sometimes you draw a good hand in bargaining. Sometimes you don’t. That’s also how negotiations work.
“On August 27, the ATA’s bargaining team rejected this offer, and suggested that a contract with fewer teachers would save money and that funding could be funnelled into even higher salaries,” the ministers’ statement says, doubtlessly highly tendentiously.
“The union’s strategy and tactics have been exposed and called out,” they whined. “We cannot sit idle while the public, parents and students are manipulated into supporting a union that has shown its primary interest is in diverting supports away from the classroom to further drive up teacher compensation.”
This, of course, is what is colloquially known as bullshit, surely a perfectly honourable expression out here in the New West.
Mr. Horner and Dr. Nicolaides plan a news conference at 8:30 tomorrow morning to repeat the stuff they said tonight. The ATA is sure to have something to say in response.
Meanwhile, getting back to Mr. Horner’s financial statement, it ended with a vow that “Alberta’s government is working on a broader strategy to further diversify the economy, reduce vulnerability to oil price swings and trade disruptions, and build a stronger, more resilient Alberta.”
God help us all if it’s anything like their plan to ensure that we’re all safe from measles and COVID-19, or their plan to restructure health care so that it runs better, or their plan to encourage the development of renewable energy out here on the sunny, windy plains!
*Don’t worry. Keep drilling. Isn’t that what “Fortis et liber” means?
I suppose the deficit will be blamed on Ottawa, because it’s making Alberta do things that make it UnfreeDUMB. This is the level of the idiocy we are dealing with.
Since it looks like the US is teetering into civil war, one wonders what kind of brainstorm Queen Danielle will come up with?
PM Daddy Carney was outside of Canada for better than a decade, so there’s no doubt he’s familiar with the darker arts of statecraft. I mean, when you’ve been around the French for any bit of time, you tend to pick up some bad habits, like not playing nice and forgetting what Canadian fair play is. I suspect that Carney is one of these no nonsense kind of people. So, when he sees a perpetual clown/narcissistic play date like Smith, he’s inclined to take her as seriously as one takes a pesky housefly. Roll up a metaphorical magazine and squash the annoying bug.
Smith is looking especially unhealthy these days. Her swollen face and that weird droop on the left side of her mouth indicates that she may have had some kind of cerebral episode. The audio from the Ft. McMurray town hall indicates that Smith’s speech seems slightly slurred and brittle. Maybe she’s going to way of the Donald? We can all hope.
Mo’popcorn
FWIW— as if it’s not already hot enough in Alberta….
1. Alberta is banning ( not banning, just by ministerial order) 200 books. The Great Gatsby??? Seriously?
2. No money for teachers who are expected to digitize all the books in schools, because they have nothing else to do during school hours.
Coincidentally just when d’rump announces that he is signing an order to get rid of collective bargaining for unions. Way to go Marlaina, you almost missed the deadline for your report, hope you still get your gold star.
3. Nathan Neudorf and Searle Turton write letters for gerry-mandering. Neudorf skips across the pond, and Turton takes d’rumps supporter the so-called pastor on a private tour in the legislature to ‘pray’. But Turton promises to follow the rules next time.
(NDP caucus: Rahki Pancholi calls him out)
4. Alberta next panel member Trevor Tombe, looking very uncomfortable at the town hall listening to Marlaina as she “lies” to Albertans— probably hoping that the video doesn’t come out… too bad Trevor.
On Oct 18 2021 Albertans will be asked to vote in a referendum on equalization …
We asked renowned economist Trevor Tombe this question..
” why are Albertans forced to pay more towards equalization than people in other provinces ”
Trevor Tombe ” Albertans DO NOT PAY MORE “…
Oh dear!! Whoopsie.
5. AER CEO claims unprecedented power to cancel public hearings for coal.
Another gold star for Marlaina in her support for d’rump….we have the cleanest coal.
6. The UCP quietly updated their website, kids under 12 can now get the covid vaccine, they still have to pay, but they can get it. Just another expense for back to school supplies that parents have to be cognitive of.
If and when school starts .
7. Alberta introduces new levy framework for AI data Centres.
” the plan to make sure that Albertans see their share of the money that Data Centres will generate. ”
BWAHAHAHA!!
8. Rebecca Shultz- minister of O& G posted…
“Great news. Thanks to provincial efforts, the northern leopard frog is showing strong signs of recovery in Alberta….”
Ironically using a headline from the JT propaganda media CBC news…go figure. WTH?
9. The APP held an event on Tues in Okotoks—as it continues to collect signatures for its independence petition.
( I hope Thomas is aware, I wouldn’t put it past them to try and pull something shady, it’s not like they have a sterling reputation)
10. To all the
# Forever-Canadians
Happy Labour Day Wknd
PS… something has been bugging me about Marlaina’s claim about the number of covid vaccines that were “wasted”. I realize that she has totally torn apart AHS , and maybe the files “got lost ” or temporarily misplaced…when they stopped publishing the numbers……..
However ,since people had to sign up for their shots, and we’ve been contacted to book for follow ups, there’s a record of how many people are getting the vaccine. So it would seem that after the first 2 yrs ,you would have a pretty good idea of how many vaccines to order.
Did Marlaina try to pull a fast one on the feds for how many doses they were going to pay for and is now stuck with surplus, just like the Tylenot purchase?
Hmmm??
And the closest figure that I could find on the costs was between $15 -$20 … but there was no time frame. Usually they are more expensive to start, and now with them being made in Canada, hard to say.
The rising deficit, after months of languishing and falling oil prices, was as predictable as fall following summer. Hopefully this will puncture the unearned reputation for competent financial management Smith and the UCP tried so hard to create on the tailwind of a few fleeting years of high oil prices.
Despite their talk of diversification, the province’s financial fortunes remain tied to the price of oil. It probably doesn’t help that they tried to shut down our growing renewable energy industry because of stubborn ideological reasons, spite or both. They may also now be wishing they had back some of the money they made AHS foolishly waste on inflated contracts to their well connected friends for private surgery contracts. It is almost time to start printing the I promise not to p*ss away the next boom bumper stickers once again.
However, before they do that they will probably try to scapegoat any public worker who wants a decent raise. After years of austerity Alberta’s classroom spending is now amongst the lowest in Canada, something that would probably shock those who can remember the days when our PC governments would regularly boast of the highest spending levels in everything while also running surpluses.
Unemployment in Alberta is above the national average as well and wages for non public employees have also languished too. Lets keep this all in mind when deficit Dani invariably comes out to glibly try tell us things are not so bad. Her skills at gaslighting will be put to the test when she tries to sugarcoat or contradict hard economic reality.
AB Finance minister screws up badly, blaming World oil price & teachers while banning renewables that will reduce volatility. RESIGN!
So, Nate Horner is worried about the suddenly-worse deficit, is he? Yeah, he should be. Especially since the Utterly inCompetent Party has apparently blown through an eight billion dollar surplus, and that since March this year.
Well, if they’re so worried about the deficit, they can always reverse Jason Kenney’s corporate Covid tax cut…heh…and raise the tax…ah haha…raise it back…ha ha ha…back from eight..ha haaaa…to twelve…ha ha HAHAHA…twelve per cent. HAHA HAHAHAAAA HAAA HAAA HAAA!!!
You can’t keep feeding the criminal oligarchs AND the teachers. Unfortunately the oligarchs are scarier
Jane: Teachers are scarier if you a thoroughly indoctrinated MAGA zealot. In the Internet Age, Ignorance is Strength and Hate is Love. Fortunately, we are not yet in a state of Peace with ourselves. DJC