If anyone still subscribes to the quaint notion “conservative” governments are somehow better at managing the complex financial machinery of government than more progressive ones, they might want to reconsider in light of today’s vote by more than 43,000 public, Catholic and francophone schoolteachers to reject the province’s latest contract offer.
The overwhelming result: 89.5 per cent of the teachers voting rejecting the proposal. Only 10.5 per cent voted to accept it.
As a result, a province-wide teachers’ strike potentially impacting more than 700,000 students at 2,500 schools seems all but inevitable by next Monday.
Moreover, it’s extremely hard to imagine the government, which has dug itself into a bargaining position clearly rejected by rank-and-file teachers, finding a way to cough up the pay increases members of the Alberta Teachers Association obviously require.
As ATA President Jason Schilling said in a press release tonight, “The proposed agreement failed to meet the needs of teachers, failed to improve student classroom conditions in a concrete and meaningful way, and failed to show teachers the respect they deserve.”
“By rejecting this agreement, teachers have signaled that classroom complexities have not been adequately addressed and an increase of 12 per cent is insufficient,” the ATA news release went on to say. “Over the last decade, teachers have received a total salary increase of less than six per cent, while being promised that they would be fairly compensated in their next collective agreement.”
Try as they surely will to put the blame this entirely on the union, Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservative Party Government obviously hasn’t got a handle on how to successfully negotiate with restive public sector unions, and the impact of the vote is almost certain to have serious consequences for thousands of families and students.
While the government employs competent negotiators, constant political meddling in the process by the UCP through its legislated secret negotiating mandates, general underfunding of public education, trying to get teachers to pay in their contract for basic classroom needs, and constant disrespect for teachers and other education workers have all contributed to the situation in which the province now finds itself.
It is a historical fact that that the NDP government of former premier Rachel Notley successfully negotiated a much less generous agreement with ATA members and other public-sector unions. Teachers and other unionized public employees are well aware of that and determined it will never happen again, including with any future NDP government, but it does make it difficult for the UCP to blame Ms. Notley’s government for its troubles, as it is inclined to do.
What are they supposed to say? That the NDP had no business being better at bargaining tough contracts than they are? Well, Alberta Conservatives have said stuff this dumb before, so you can’t rule that out entirely.
“This is the second time teachers have rejected a potential settlement that provided what their union said teachers wanted in response to growing classroom complexities,” Finance Minister Nate Horner said in a statement this evening.
“With two failed ratification votes, I am left questioning whether the union fully understands what their members are seeking,” Mr. Horner’s statement continued. “If teachers did not want this deal, then why was it proposed by the ATA in the first place?”
Well, he may have a point there. Last May, the ATA’s Provincial Executive Council voted to recommend the union’s members accept a mediator’s report that also recommended a 12-per-cent pay increase over four years and “a government commitment of more than $400 million in classroom improvements which would have started this fall.”
That was rejected by more than 62 per cent of the teachers who voted, suggesting a mood of impatience and militance similar to that seen in other Canadian unions in recent months. Today’s rejection of a revised agreement surely confirms that teachers want their union to focus on their pay, and not, as Mr. Schilling put it, “to bargain for basic classroom needs, which is both inappropriate and embarrassing.”
Mr. Horner went on to say, a little too cutely: “I encourage the ATA’s leadership to take time to meet with their members and gain clarity on what teachers are seeking out of a deal.”
His problem now, of course, is that there’s no way either the government or the ATA’s leadership can say in light of what’s just happened that they don’t understand exactly what teachers want.
They want to be paid significantly more money than the government is willing to part with, dammit, and what happens next is what’s known as being caught between a rock and a hard place. Only in this case, it’s parents and students who are going to get squeezed.
The influential extremist fringe of the UCP – of which Mr. Horner is pretty clearly not a part, although his boss the premier certainly leans that way – will naturally demand harsh and arbitrary measures to end the possibility of a strike.
The problem with that, as the grownups in the room will understand, is that instead of fighting one union with a track record of trying to reach a deal its members could live with, it would in effect have to deal with a multitude of uncooperative mostly conservative lawyers hired by a significant number of the province’s 51,000 teachers. No way that’s going to cost less!
Plus, of course, there are multitude of ways unhappy teachers forced back to work without a satisfactory settlement can and will passively resist an authoritarian government’s commands.
Ms. Smith, Mr. Horner, and Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides are scheduled to hold a news conference at noon tomorrow to try to explain how they propose to make an imminent teachers’ strike less of a disaster than it obviously would be.
The statement “questioning whether the union fully understands what their members are seeking” is such a transparently false “spin”.
The union knows what its members want – and so does the government –
A) the previous rejection of an essentially identical offer in May makes clear what teachers want more money in the new agreement,
and…
B) with the government unmovable on salary, teachers want better classroom conditions (measured, and enforced not just promised) like more teachers (1000/year just barely keeps up with ongoing population increases), firm classroom size limits, more EAs, more schools, repairs to aging schools, more supports of ELA etc.
Unfortunately the ALRB ruled such things are outside of teacher negotiations.
But I’m sure noon will bring a whirling convoluted vortex of dizzying blaming, shaming and deflection.
And honest questions will be cut off at the microphone and the questioner will be bent over their parents’ knee.
At the Calgary town hall apparently Bruce McAllister cut off several Albertans before they were finished asking a question, and showed his contempt for them. A high school student mentioned the strike vote results, then started to ask a question, and McAllister not only cut his mic, he told the kid he should be put over some one’s knee and spanked. What an arrogant bully. Those clips from the town hall should lose the UCP the election.
Furthermore, this guy says Smith signalled for the mic to be cut.
https://x.com/KootenayGreg/status/1973073071025066379
On the video Smith puts her hand to her chin shortly before the mic is cut for
Evan Li; and she does it again for the next questioner, Jennifer, although there is a longer space before McAllister cuts the mic during her question, then mocks her.
But I wonder if that signal by Smith appears in all the videos of all the panels where McAllister cut the mic and was obnoxious. Here’s the Calgary town hall video, Evan’s question is after 1:11:11:
Val Jobson: This is a big joke. Hard to listen to this.
Saw other people saying this so it’s not exactly novel but beating your kids is cannon in evangelical churches. Their high priest; James Dobson commanded it and it spread through successive generations like wildfire. They think it’s normal to hit children, and they even teach that a child who CRIES TOO MUCH when you beat them should be beat again, because they’re manipulating the parents. We have to stop giving these people the benefit of the doubt because they’ve gone entirely away from the beatitudes, they worship power, like Trump, and they don’t care how they seize it.
They lost the potential votes of a lot of 17 and 18 year olds that will be eligible to vote next election.
Marlaina has a pathological hatred of teachers. Good on teachers for standing up to her. She must of thought they would cave like the AUPE did.
Dingy Smith has gotten exactly what she deserves. Her flippant comments about teachers has done nothing to help negotiations along. She keeps claiming that they have no more money to give teachers when she just gave Westjet (a profitable company) $11M and other profitable companies $8M to hire young people. Along with this she is cutting $187M from AISH so she can start a program to kick people off AISH. Given there are a number of other Provincial staff that have not settled, as I mentioned a while ago, this is going to get real ugly for the UCP.
Unfortunately, the UCP probably see the strike as saving them substantial amounts of money, so expect a long grinding dispute. They don’t give a monkeys cuss for children’s quality of education, or absence of it.
are /Smith and company just plain old stupid or just pretending to be, so the union will cave before they go crazy from dealing with people who don’t understand negotiations in this century. The teachers have been clear what they want and for the government to suggest the union consult with their members to find out what they want, well again, the government must be made up of dundder heads who are just too stupid to figure anything out. Smith and company can only play dumb for so long before the electorate decide they are too dumb to be in office.
There are shortages of teachers in other parts of Canada who pay more.
Smith and co. can try legislating the teachers back to work, but if they do and the teachers don’t the government will have a problem One of the nice things about living in B.C., is when labour negotiations are at an impasse they can always call in Vince Ready.
Perhaps Smith and co are hoping a long strike will cause parents to establish union free private schools
With the majority of parents working these days disruptions at schools is not going to make those parents happy.
hope you are still enjoying your vacations.
During the pandemic, illness and death notwithstanding, the UCP were adamant that every school desk had to have a child sitting in it.
Now that the teachers are asking the UCP to improve learning conditions for the children, as far as the UCP are concerned the tiny tots can sit at home till the cows return.
As we saw last night from the premier’s Alberta Next Panel, the solution to all this is simply to stop listening, shut down the mics of any students who ask questions and tell parents they should hit their kids more often? Yes, that happened. Every member of the panel sat there like lumps on a log and did nothing about the abusive, disrespectful behavior of the premier’s executive director. Apparently there were no adults on the stage in that room.
This government’s attacks on trans children and current attempt to remove their Charter rights is just the beginning. They have no intention of “protecting” them or any other children. They’d be happy to make child assault great again and probably spousal abuse too. Where does one stop when calling for violence?
I’ve been saying in private that we are quietly slipping into fascism. Now it’s public. Last night made it obvious that this government will happily follow the U.S. into totalitarianism. It was only a few months ago that Danielle Smith went to Mar-a-Lago. The path was set.
As for the weak idea that teachers could be lured into ratifying the contract offer with the promise of access to the Covid vaccine? Pfffttt! Maybe they found out that certain crown corporation employees have been told that they will be able to get the shot, reimbursable by their benefit plan, minus a moderate injection fee, likely at a pharmacy. This makes me wonder why we’ve had this charade about signing up to pre-book, but I digress.
Given the current state of nastiness on a certain social media platform, I’d say the pending teachers’ strike has hit several dozen raw nerves in the premier’s office. She unleashed her beast at the forum last night. Can we expect Alberta Sheriffs taking over our cities while the citizens of Alberta Cha-Cha slide and blow bubbles, like they’re Portlanders in 2025?
Alberta has a new family allowance plan for the Section 43 kids. Parents will get paid $150 per week for each child 12 and under during the teachers’ strike. These children can be spanked, as suggested by the premier’s right hand man. If you have the teenage variety of child, age 13 to 17, you will not get any money at all. These children do not fall under S. 43. Hitting them could land you in jail.
I’m sure it’s a coincidence that the premier cooked up this plan the day after Mr. McAllister’s remarks. This money couldn’t possibly be intended to make you forget the government’s views on child assault.
Also, we live in a rule of law country and no one representing any government should suggest assaulting anyone, let alone children under 18. Don’t listen to the Alberta premier’s spokesperson. Hitting children in any age group is never okay, notwithstanding the laws of the land.
One of the government’s public comments on this matter would be hilarious if this weren’t so serious. What they basically asked was, “why did the union put this tentative agreement to a vote if they knew it would be rejected”, when as we all know, if a union refuses to put tentative agreements to a vote on those very same grounds, this government would force an LRB-supervised vote anyway, over the union’s express objections.
The only “improvement” this newly-rejected offer reportedly made over the last, also-rejected offer, was to offer free COVID immunizations to teachers. Given that forcing people to pay for the shot at all is absurd and irresponsible public policy, that isn’t much of an improvement.
“Report of the Royal Commission on Education, 1959 In an era of affluence, rapid transportation, limitless communication, entertainment and material advances, individuals have become enamored of immediate personal benefits and self-interests. To the same degree, long range considerations of the future have diminished in favor of preoccupation with the present.” Glad they got that stuff sorted out. There’s a tidy analysis in here of the fantastic job done by the regime of the Blue-eyed Sheikh to respond to the Kratzmann Report back in 1980. Where can we find such men to Make Alberta Great Again? https://legacy.teachers.ab.ca/News%20Room/ata%20magazine/Volume%2083/Number%201/Articles/Pages/A%20Half%20Century%20of%20Unfulfilled%20Dreams.aspx
Shame on those teachers, turning down the overly generous government sweetener of free Covid shots. (That’s sarcasm, in case anyone is wondering.)
THAT addition, combined with the same offer as before, was a blatant insult.
Earlier this month I received a community newsletter with a message from my MLA indicating that the government just recorded an enormous surplus. That money has conveniently disappeared. Is it going to help teachers or is it going to be passed under the table to assist private schools or perhaps homeless and starving Imperial Oil execs?
(Welcome home David. SSDD)
Im sorry. When I went to school we had 36 students in our classroom and 1 teacher! Grade 1 to Grade 9. It was never an issue. I just read how much a teachers daily wage is. 480.00 a day! Thats over 11,000.00 a month! And that’s not enough!
You know, judging from your syntax and grammar, I believe you. Having spent some time in county #1 and their school system, I can confirm they were terrible and only a handful of my classmates went to post secondary.
They were chronically under funded in every possible way. Portables instead of classrooms, outdated textbooks in poor condition, few extra curricular activities, even fewer arts programs and the ones we had were so poorly funded students had to share project materials or watch the instructor. Oh and yes of course no advanced academic or prep courses because hey no one is going to post sec anyway.
I think the problem with 36 students to a teacher is a lot of those folks don’t learn and they grow up to say things like you just said.
The tendency for rural albertans to be violently opposed to anyone other than them getting an adequate PROFESSIONAL wage proportional to their EDUCATION and EXPERIENCE is something I’m very familiar with, and disgusted by. Not to mention rural Alberta’s violent opposition to anyone with a higher education. Mind your own cabbage patch.
Alberta has the lowest per student funding in the entire COUNTRY it is quite obvious that would mean that alberta teachers are not overpaid. We’ll see how much albertans would rather pay for child care, instead of getting their kids the tools they need to be successful in life. I think it’s highly likely the wrath of alberta parents is about to fall on Danielle Smiths corrupt and incompetent government, rather than the people standing up for Albertas kids.
Apparently their plan is to give folks thirty dollars, in a month. Clowns to a person; resign already or call an election you will surely lose Yankee Doodle Dani…
So the Provincial Government around every corner likes to boast how the province is an ‘economic engine’ of the country and speak of the wealth of opportunities here. Has a purposeful plan to increase the population of the province through immigration, even pays people with a $5,000 refundable tax credit for this but fails to plan for the increased population by building proper infrastructure, including schools? Then also fails to provide appropriate funding for schools? A simple method would be to take an average base line of what is provided in BC, Manitoba and Saskatchewan and use that for a funding level. In addition, those provinces have a system in place to deal with class room sizes, no need to re-invent the wheel here… just look at those existing models.
Attracting teachers and retaining them will continue to be a challenge when the adjacent provinces are doing a better job at keeping the work environment sane.
When I went to school, we used ink wells and straight pens. Students were expected to learn in whichever manner the teacher taught; students with problems learning just fell by the wayside and sought whatever jobs they could find. Times have changed, Lee Anne. We know 36 students in a classroom cannot be given the individual attention most students need and parents demand. And no parent wants their child to fall by the wayside and have to try and find a job in this high unemployment environment.
As for your teacher wage estimate, different Boards pay differently and salary differs by teachers’ education and years of experience. Where did you find your wage figures?
Unless I am mistaken, a first year teacher with a BA level of university makes $61,607.45. That’s $5133.95/month. When you consider that teachers are expected to ensure the success of EVERY student and they often put in 10 hr days (in-school presence and marking), that’s not a great salary.
We cannot compare teaching in 2025 to teaching 5 decades ago.
Teachers today need adequate compensation for the very complex work they do, and students need much better conditions in which to learn than what they presently have.
Perhaps Danielle Smith should ensure that every public school be modelled on the classroom conditions of the private schools she dearly loves to support with taxpayer money.
Let’s do some more math: 11000/$480 = 22.91666… working days per month. How many months have that many working days? I know I certainly am not paid $11 000 before taxes.
I think your comment provides evidence that students benefit from smaller class sizes.
Well Lachance, you aren’t perchance a UCP bot? There is not a teacher in a public system anywhere that makes 11 grand per month but I suspect you know that. Meaning you are disingenuous as best or a liar at worst. Plus you claim there’s no issue with 36 kids per class? I’d say more but I’m sure the regular readership will be along soon to rip you a new one. I bid you adieu!
There isn’t a teacher in Alberta who earns that much. Please check the materials you are referencing.
Back in the one-room school house, the teacher had 36 children in Grades One to Nine. Congratulations! You have made it to a ripe old age.
Times have changed. I suppose you want teachers to haul water from the well, light a fire in the pot belly stove, clean the slates and board with a local farm family, too?
“Lee Anne” sounds like a popular name from the 1930s. Yes, it does. Lee Anne, father has the horse and wagon ready to take you and your nine brothers and sisters home from school. Don’t forget your corn syrup can, because mother needs it for tomorrow’s lard and bread sandwich. It’s almost time for father to get out the sleigh. How exciting!
Now, now, Abs. I know lots of contemporaneous Lee Annes, Leannes, and Lee-anns. DJC
That’s $132,000 annually. Source please? Also, are you saying there’s no salary grid for teachers? Sounds like disinformation to me.
Yes “Leanne” is literally alleging every teacher in the province is paid the SAME Salary; adds a lot of weight to their nonsense argument doesn’t it
Nowhere in your link does it give information on teacher’s salaries, so I’d like to know your source. In the CBE document attached, the starting salary for a teacher with 4 years education is $59,054/yr. The highest pay for a teacher with 6 years of education (master’s degree) and 10 years’ experience is $105,000/yr. What do you suppose a production engineer in the oilpatch would make, with a 4-year investment in education? I’ll wager significantly more than the teacher.
https://local38.teachers.ab.ca/SiteCollectionDocuments/Salaries%20and%20Benefits/2022-24%20SALARY%20GRID%20ALLOWANCES.pdf
I do not know how much a teacher makes a day and so I have no comment but ask a different question – How much does the person that just fired 900 employees makes an hour. The province still subsidizes these companies despite the millions they make in profits every single day. They lower their taxes, their royalties to levels only seen in third world corrupt autocracies and then squeeze us all in the name of balanced budgets. Apparently the CEOs have made more than any regular worker on January 2nd of each year. Never mind the bonuses.
I am sure Danielle Smith would love to open a foreign worker program to get teachers at a third of the cost and fast track them to teach in our schools. Education is not that important in their world of fact less existence where all that matters is perception. She will soon fall in her own septic ideology tank and discover truthfulness.
Lee Anne, Where is this information from?
I cannot verify this from pay scales from the ASTA. From their published information: yearly rate of $65,000 and running up to 85,000 for those with seniority. Remember also teachers do not get holiday pay for the 10 week or so summer break either, and Christmas break. So they get paid for perhaps 40 weeks per year. I am uncertain if at any point they can claim EI benefits. Perhaps other readers can clarify this information. I do know teachers with a masters degree are compensated better, as are those with a prior undergrad degree.
Lee Anne Lachance: There was never 36 students in a classroom prior to Ralph Klein doing very brutal cuts to the public education system in Alberta.
No doubt the UCP will use the news conference to spin their blame the teachers message. I suppose we will see how well that works.
The UCP seems to have had some success in avoiding health care strikes, but seem to have dug in their heels with the teachers. With their recent book banning and other problematic micromanaging, it seems Smith is shifting the UCP to a war against education. These are not the only reasons teachers are not happy, but I suspect this sure doesn’t help.
If there is a strike, it will affect a lot of people very quickly and parents will be paying close attention to what is said and what happens. Smith’s usual pattern of glib happy talk and blaming others may not go over so well.
Furthermore, this guy says Smith signalled for the mic to be cut.
https://x.com/KootenayGreg/status/1973073071025066379
On the video Smith puts her hand to her chin shortly before the mic is cut for
Evan Li; and she does it again for the next questioner, Jennifer, although there is a longer space before McAllister cuts the mic during her question, then mocks her.
But I wonder if that signal by Smith appears in all the videos of all the panels where McAllister cut the mic and was obnoxious. Here’s the Calgary town hall video, Evan’s question is after 1:11:11:
Is it true that teachers make between $60,000 and $100,000 per year?
Yeah, that’s pretty close. https://local38.teachers.ab.ca/SiteCollectionDocuments/Salaries%20and%20Benefits/2022-24%20SALARY%20GRID%20ALLOWANCES.pdf
There’s a rock, and then there’s a hard place, but the situations are different for the hapless UCP government and for ordinary students and their parents—one appearing immediately: there is nothing ordinary about elected representatives who won’t, apparently can’t, and in any case don’t do politics in the public assembly where voters put them, supposedly to do just that.
The other betwixt situation, geographically much more diffuse, is called child-rearing, replete with an education, figuratively the ‘mezuzah’ instruction nailed to the doorpost of every civilized nation in the world (in others words, parents are obliged to get their kids to school else get a visit from the mythologically dreaded Truant Officer who, back when I was attending our little Upper Canadian hamlet’s grades-one-to-eight, two-room schoolhouse, was every bit a bogeyman kids were warned about as the Devil himself).
And between these two, oft-unhappy camps is that of the teachers’ union demanding a contract with a substantial pay increase—although, compared to some other post-Covid pandemic labour contracts, a relatively modest one—and a commitment that government will make long overdue investments in education to improve working and schooling conditions.
What the UCP does instead is appease its predominant, radicalized, and secessionist Take-Back-Alberta faction by favouring Big Bitumen at Albertans’ expense, and scapegoating Ottawa and Liberals, although Danielle Smith —who put the “imp” in “impolitic”—has laid off of this old tactic recently, presumably so’s not to disturb the federal CPC leader (now back in Ottawa but elected in Alberta after losing his Capital City seat last April) during his bid to survive the CPC leadership review next January: the separatist drum she’d been banging on hitherto his by-election campaign is not a good look for a federal leader (especially to Eastern Tory-like members who take a very dim view of Alberta secession), further to blame the NDP Opposition for everything (and probably the federal NDP now that Edmonton MP Heather MacPherson has announced her bid to lead that party), and, as always, to vilify the caring professions in public employ as lazy, selfish, greedy, conniving, and evil.
If, as it appears, the UCP does virtually everything for purely partisan reasons, it’s no wonder it can’t do politics. But wait!—the UCP does appear to have a policy—that is, to secede from Canada and confederate with the USA; isn’t getting policy done the definition of politics? Well, yes, but given this “policy” goal is virtually impossible to achieve, it’s unlikely anything that might look like politics to this end would be anything but a big fat waste of time and public money.
Besides, we’re talking PUBLIC policy, here, which introduces the Democratic factor that the electorate must ultimately approve of the policy; if that’s as unlikely as winning a referendum (that complies with the federal Clarity Act) to secede and then achieving the constitutional amendment (seven provincial legislatures representing >50% of the national population, plus the federal HoC must ratify) which the SCoC says is required to enshrine the conditions by which any province may secede —and that’s even before actually exercising that new amendment (where all eleven sovereign parliaments of Canada ratify the secession), then it is surely no wonder the UCP can’t do the politics required to get good public policy done that voters will approve.
The UCP’s perversion of politics into partisanship so extreme it could be called chauvinistic bigotry; it is so similar to tRumpublicanism in the USA that we may put yet another nail in the coffin of UCP/TBA “politics”: we are reminded of tRump’s 2016 campaign boast that, “I’m no politician,” to roars of approval from his growing MAGA base; we may recollect he promised to “drain the swamp”—that is, get rid of government; and recall that he promised evangelicals during his successful 2024 campaign that, “If you vote for me just this one more time, you’ll never have to vote again—I’ll fix it so you’ll never have to vote again.” Remember, he claimed the 2008 and 2012 elections were illegal, that the 2016 election was rigged even when he won, claimed the 2018 midterms in which the Dems took control of Congress were rigged against him, claimed the 2024 election was rigged, again even though he won, now claims the 2026 midterms will be rigged and of course the 2028 presidential election will be also rigged against him—which is ominous because by law he is limited to two terms: he’s plainly making the case that there’s no point, therefore, in having elections at all. This, naturally, would obviate any sort of recognizable good public policy implementation, neatly make politics moot and democracy unnecessary.
One would have to be thoroughly deluded —perhaps even an idiot in the literal sense—to believe those undemocratic (and illegal) goals are achievable, yet that’s the only way to rationalize complete neglect of politics. Psephologically, it can’t work.
It does not bode well for freely bargaining a labour contract, such negotiations needing all the ingredients of politics: compromise, cooperation—“the art of the possible.” The UCP doesn’t do politics but teachers just want to get this done—the policy that kids should get a good education—and get back to what they are experts at. It is daunting that the UCP can only arrive at “the possible”—what governments are elected to do—by skunk-spraying itself into an inevitable corner.
I wish the teachers’ union all the best and, instead of relying on luck—or at least as adjunct to—goggles, rain-gear, rubber gloves, and a good supply of tomato juice just might wring a bit of politics out of the 51st Dreamlanders yet.
Good luck, my Alberta friends.
Thank you for these post which is great as always.
Just a comment – the UCP is not a ‘conservative’ cult. That is as bad as calling Danielle Smith an honest person.
I wished I had been the young man that got his mic turned off during the ‘democratic’, ‘Meet the Propaganda’ gathering yesterday. She would have to do way more than just apologize.
No they’re far right of traditional conservatives. They’re still conservatives though, and few people will accept you saying otherwise.
Carlos: I know propaganda when I see it. That’s all The Alberta Next Panel is.