Dear Mr. Orr and Premier Kenny,
A government’s job is to provide and maintain health, safety and education for its constituents. Currently you are batting 0 for 3.
You apparently have missed it, but our province, like everywhere else is hopefully exiting a pandemic. You have picked a fight with our doctors mid-pandemic, now, while you praise nurses/healthcare staff for their extended exhausting and exceedingly stressful hard work, you want to roll back their wages. Realistically, it isn’t just 3 per cent — our present cost of living is over 3 per cent, equalling more than 6 per cent. You then blackmail support staff, by stating that by taking the pay cut, they will get job security. Many of these healthcare staff not only cared for Albertans in the worst of times, but because of exposure to COVID, had to sometimes repeatedly quarantine from work and families, now to get slap in the face from our government. You repeatedly compare wages you want to cut to those of other provinces. Look at your own wages, committee remunerations and staff wages that are higher when compared to other provinces. Shame on you.
Your proposed curriculum is a joke, ignoring 30+ years of educational best practices, student readiness and relevant content. The hours of misguided input was wasted time on the part of some. Shame on you.
The proposed coal mine developments on the Eastern Slopes threaten the health of people downstream with air and water pollution from coal particulates and selenium, as well as the biodiversity in these waters and mountains, and the agriculture downstream, through three provinces. Yet you keep granting water rights. Water in ordinary years is a precious commodity, never mind this year where one district has declared drought conditions, so far. Weekly in this Climate Crisis, international organizations are urging moving on from coal. Alberta cannot support any more coal mining in the present nor anytime in our future. Shame on you.
I was born an Albertan and am a proud Albertan in spite of your government not because of it. We need a government that puts Albertans first, not self-promoting politicians apparently practicing slight-of-hand tactics. Shame on you.
Carolyn Ramey,
Ponoka