Concerns around funding for education, health care and disability supports were top of mind during a budget town hall hosted by the Alberta NDP Wednesday night in St. Albert.
About 50 people gathered at the St. Albert Curling Club to participate in the town hall, hosted by Opposition leader Rachel Notley and St. Albert MLA Marie Renaud. Notley said the town halls would help inform a shadow provincial budget the NDP would release shortly after the UCP hands down its first budget in government by end of October. The provincial UCP budget is set for release Oct. 24.
The St. Albert town hall was the NDP’s fifth across the province and Notley said in an interview they are aiming to talk to “regular folks” about budget issues, which she accused the UCP of refusing to do.
“(The UCP) don’t seem to be doing that, and so if they won’t listen, we will,” she said.
On Thursday afternoon, the Alberta government said in a media release Finance Minister Travis Toews would be holding two telephone town hall meetings Oct. 7 and 9 – the first for northern Alberta and the second for southern Alberta – for citizens to ask questions and “provide their views on the provincial budget and Alberta’s finances.”
Since the province’s blue-ribbon panel on Alberta’s finances came out with its report last month suggesting sweeping reforms to education and healthcare, Premier Jason Kenney’s government has been signalling restraint in their upcoming budget will be necessary. Kenney ran on a platform that promised to maintain or increase healthcare spending.
Notley said in opening remarks at the town hall the budget would have “significant” impacts on Albertans' daily lives.
“It’s going to have an impact on what kind of classrooms our children have, what kind of workplaces we go to, what level of care our loved ones receive when they need that care,” she said.
One attendee, Claude Lalonde, said he is a “firm believer” in healthcare. Originally from Ontario, he chose Alberta as the best place to retire in. Lalonde has had plenty of experience with the healthcare system and spoke about losing his wife in early 2017. He also shared his experience being rushed to hospital with an aortic dissection, requiring major surgery.
“If budget cuts mean lowering the standard of healthcare in this province, and care to seniors, then most of us in here will not make it for the next five years,” he said.
Bekah Marcellus said when discussing cuts around healthcare, she fears mental health would be “one of the first” items on the chopping block.
“It’s quite often not considered healthcare, it’s not seen as the disease that it is,” she said. “Our mental health system is already really, really bad, and I’m worried about how much worse it’s going to get with all of these cuts, and the lack of empathy for people who are suffering from something that is very real and something that is often not understood very well.”
Another attendee expressed concern about the UCP government’s review of supervised consumption sites. Dakota Hourie spoke about losing his uncle a few years ago to an overdose.
“He went out one night and didn’t come home,” he said. “That overdose changed us, which is why I came here today about the absolute importance of continued funding for mental health and addictions, particularly harm reduction and supervised consumption sites.”
Greater St. Albert Catholic Schools board chair Joe Becigneul said he is “very concerned” about potential actions Kenney’s government will take to balance the provincial government. He said the former NDP government had an education ministry that recognized the school division was growing and supported that through renovating old schools.
“My concern, and I’m thinking back to the (Ralph) Klein cuts in the early-to mid-'90s where in their haste to balance the budget they neglected the infrastructure,” he said.
Another person, Mick Barry, said he was distraught the government canned the NDP’s plan to build a $450-million super lab in Edmonton, which would consolidate medical lab testing for northern Alberta in one central facility.
One Grade 3 student, Blake Anderson, got up and told the audience: “This government needs to start dealing with climate change.”
