I must be in the target age and demographic the UCP is targeting with its various social media blitzes because I'm seeing a lot of nonsense pop up on my Facebook, X, and TikTok feeds. But I saw a quote today to the effect of, "If they're going to strike, make it so painful that they won't do it again." Have a feeling that's exactly what this government is going for.
I can’t fathom how it is living with such a punitive and angry lens directed at other people.
__________________
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hockey Fan #751
The Oilers won't finish 14th in the West forever.
Eventually a couple of expansion teams will be added which will nestle the Oilers into 16th.
Honestly just partially addressing some of the things above would get me to vote yes. But the government refuses to even talk about any of these things. They are standing firm on 3% a year for four years and hiring 3000 teachers (there are 2000 public schools in Alberta). Where are these teachers even coming from? No one is banging down the door to teach in this province.
Agreed. And when teachers say the system is on the brink of collapse, it’s not an exaggeration.
Only 29 people applied to the principal cohort with the CBE last year. And it honestly doesn’t surprise me, trying to run a school that’s overcapacitated and falling apart with no supports seems pretty terrible.
__________________
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hockey Fan #751
The Oilers won't finish 14th in the West forever.
Eventually a couple of expansion teams will be added which will nestle the Oilers into 16th.
Last edited by Point Blank; 10-06-2025 at 05:30 PM.
The Following User Says Thank You to Point Blank For This Useful Post:
I don't see oil and gas workers holding parents and children hostage.
Try again.
There is nothing edgy about this. You don't like your job, find a new one. Don't expect taxpayers to foot the bill.
Are you talking to the teachers or the government?
It takes two sides to get a deal done. Right now the UCP could replace all of the teachers if they wanted to, but they can’t. Maybe that means their job is more important and valuable than you think.
Any raise you have gotten someone else has footed the bill for so unless you’ve worked for minimum wage your entire career because you’d hate to see someone pay more so you can make more spare us the hypocritical song and dance.
So, in light of the UCP looking like they want to escalate this situation instead of negotiate with the teachers... at what point do we get serious about recalling Demetrios Nicolaides?
Removing any member of the UCP would be a pretty serious message to the government but recalling the Education Minister during the teacher's strike would be poetic.
Government is pushing people towards charter schools where many members make huge profits witch is a major conflict of interest. Rob Anderson is the biggest culprit here...guys family runs mega daycare and charter school facilities.
Roads a lot less busy this morning. Have to figure part of it is due to more parents forced to work from home while they look after their kids. The O&G big wigs ain't going to like that!
I do wonder if there'll be any push from those big wigs for Smith/UCP to deal with this quicker.
Gotta get those people back downtown and working!
Last edited by Looch City; 10-07-2025 at 08:44 AM.
Roads a lot less busy this morning. Have to figure part of it is due to more parents forced to work from home while they look after their kids. The O&G big wigs ain't going to like that!
I do wonder if there'll be any push from those big wigs for Smith/UCP to deal with this quicker.
Roads a lot less busy this morning. Have to figure part of it is due to more parents forced to work from home while they look after their kids. The O&G big wigs ain't going to like that!
I do wonder if there'll be any push from those big wigs for Smith/UCP to deal with this quicker.
Gotta get those people back downtown and working!
Dafuq does any of that have to do with the teacher situation? Murray Edwards is gonna lobby the government because a handful of his production accountants have asked to stay home due to the strike. What planet are you on?
I think its the Mongolian amputee prostitutes that are the real problem causing this stalemate.
Government is pushing people towards charter schools where many members make huge profits witch is a major conflict of interest. Rob Anderson is the biggest culprit here...guys family runs mega daycare and charter school facilities.
I agree the government is generally pushing people in this direction, and it is not a universally good thing, but I view it more as a management failure of the school boards, in not opening enough spots in the alternative programs they do offer, and limiting flexibility for personal situations.
I think there are a lot of myths flying around. People are throwing out numbers on charter school investment. And now that UPC is make profits off charter schools. I wouldn't mind seeing citation for funding towards charter schools being higher on per student basis, or that people are actually taking large profits from the registered non profits that they are.
I think the fact that they are non unionized workers largely piggybacking union negotiations without dues or strike risk is upsetting the union, but really doesn't have a big impact on Albertans at large, and has caused a lot of what I would generously call half truths about what's happening.
Lockout is now official and will start on October 9 at 1:00pm.
Quote:
“The Teachers’ Employer Bargaining Association (TEBA) provided lockout notice to the Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA) on October 6.
“This is a routine process employers use in response to unions going on strike, which the ATA did on October 6. The lockout will begin October 9 at 1 p.m.
“We saw earlier this year with rotating strikes by educational assistants the tremendous uncertainty it created for school divisions, parents and students who were given very short notice about where strike activity would be taking place.
“The lockout will provide predictability and stability for students.
“If the ATA has no intention of doing the same, then the lockout does not impact their current strike actions of removing teachers from all classrooms across the province.
“TEBA remains dedicated to reaching a collective agreement and expects that the ATA will continue to bargain in good faith to reach a fair deal for teachers, school boards and our kids.
“TEBA has no further comment at this time.”
Wild statement that the lockout is good and the strike is bad was an interesting little nugget that made me chuckle.
I agree the government is generally pushing people in this direction, and it is not a universally good thing, but I view it more as a management failure of the school boards, in not opening enough spots in the alternative programs they do offer, and limiting flexibility for personal situations.
I think there are a lot of myths flying around. People are throwing out numbers on charter school investment. And now that UPC is make profits off charter schools. I wouldn't mind seeing citation for funding towards charter schools being higher on per student basis, or that people are actually taking large profits from the registered non profits that they are.
I think the fact that they are non unionized workers largely piggybacking union negotiations without dues or strike risk is upsetting the union, but really doesn't have a big impact on Albertans at large, and has caused a lot of what I would generously call half truths about what's happening.
When the public system is chronically underfunded, how exactly are they supposed to open up alternative programs within the system? Those are the kinds of luxuries that come with average or above average funding.
I have thrown around some numbers around charter schools, they came straight from the government of Alberta website that was linked to by Jason Scott. The government was gifting $123M to charter schools in the 2024 budget (while refusing to allocate any additional funding to the public system or allocate any budget to build any of the new schools that they promised) and more specifically, gift wrapped $43M to build a building for a charter school in Calgary (Foundations for the Future Charter Academy).
The drama of Jason's post is that he says the charter school then hired Rajan Sawhney's 20 something daughter a spot on their board of directors. For those that may recall the last UCP leadership race, Sawhney was one of the other people running against Smith. It was a nice little perk to give in exchange for Sawhney's loyalty.
So while the "per student" funding may be the same in the government budget, they are able to do other things, like gift the charter school a $43M building for free. Then at the same time, the charter school is able to accept private funds to allow their program to exceed what the public system can deliver.
The school itself is a non-profit but that just means that in their year end finances they cannot have a profit. So any money that might be viewed as a profit can be spent on *anything* to get it out of the profit column. That spending of money is typically where grifts occur.
Charter schools in Alberta started as an innovation incubator to develop new learning methods and then reintegrate back into the public system. The problem is that Charter schools never reintegrate and instead have morphed into quasi private schools that collect more public funding than regular private schools.
To get to the punchline, charter schools should be dumped as a failed program. The individual schools should be given a choice to either reintegrate into the public system or to convert to full private schools. This would fulfill your first comment to have more spots for specialized programs in the public system by having these schools inside the public system.
At the same time, private schools should be fully defunded or also be reintegrated into the public system.
Eliminating a tiered education system is an important step to building a world class education system.
__________________
The Following 16 Users Say Thank You to Wolven For This Useful Post:
While we're in search of positive changes to the education system in this province, can we please do away with Catholic and all religion based schools and just have public schools?
You have churches that sit empty for 6 days a week. THAT's where the religion classes should be held.
__________________
MOD EDIT: NO!!!
The Following 4 Users Say Thank You to Two Fivenagame For This Useful Post:
"I am actually more excited for the Oilers game tomorrow than the Flames game. I am praying for multiple jersey tosses. The Oilers are my new favourite team for all the wrong reasons. I hate them so much I love them."
The Following 5 Users Say Thank You to IliketoPuck For This Useful Post:
I saw the statement that Demetrios Nicolaides posted on his socials, it was wild going through the comments and seeing the scope of the support for the teachers, not that I'm surprised. The propaganda from the UCP is in full force with commercials being played on TV and popping up on my phone, it's really quite amazing how much they seem to be spending on other things rather than just making a good deal for the educators which seems to what the majority of their constituents are wanting. Seems completely tone deaf.
I was actually surprised to see Nicolaides had become a minister. I had the displeasure of meeting him a few years back when I live it Valley Ridge and he was my MLA. This was during COVID after the "Open for Summer" UCP blunder. I owned a business that had 5 locations across Alberta and was a fitness business, so was one of the harder hit sectors. As cases soared into September, we were getting numberous phone calls and emails from the vast majority of people who were vaccinated telling us they wouldn't feel safe unless their were some sort of vaccine program within our business. I was a part of some entrepreneur groups and quite a large subsection of business owners were feeling the same pressure. I wrote a letter to Demetrios as my MLA sharing the thoughts of myself and fellow business owners that the government needed to step in and make the decision, as it was unfair to businesses to be put in these positions to need to make these controversial decisions that was likely to spur backlash as a way of saving their business and livelihoods of their employees. He invited me to a meeting with him at his office up off west 85th in the SW.
This was on September 10th, and we talked back and forth for close to an hour and he kept expressing to me that their was no way the UCP was ever going to be introducing a vaccine mandate within businesses, it was just something that had been talked about and had been agreed upon that would never happen in any circumstance under this government, no matter how many cases of Covid the province was experiencing, despite the fact that other provinces had already instituted it. I went back to my business partner and we discussed the meeting and the communication that there was no way the government was ever going to do this, and so we made the decision to announce an implementation of our own mandate (not something we wanted to do, but something we felt was the only way we'd survive) with it taking effect on September 15th. As one of the first businesses do do this willingly over the next few days we received over 200 1 star google reviews, phone calls of death threats, etc... it wasn't much fun to be put in a position to make that decision.
Sure enough, within 5 days the government announced the vaccine mandate province wide. This government. and MLA in particular, had no foresight then, so I'm not surprised they don't have it now and seem just as out of touch.
The Following 16 Users Say Thank You to the-rasta-masta For This Useful Post:
When the public system is chronically underfunded, how exactly are they supposed to open up alternative programs within the system? Those are the kinds of luxuries that come with average or above average funding.
...
So while the "per student" funding may be the same in the government budget, they are able to do other things, like gift the charter school a $43M building for free. Then at the same time, the charter school is able to accept private funds to allow their program to exceed what the public system can deliver.
The school itself is a non-profit but that just means that in their year end finances they cannot have a profit. So any money that might be viewed as a profit can be spent on *anything* to get it out of the profit column. That spending of money is typically where grifts occur.
Charter schools in Alberta started as an innovation incubator to develop new learning methods and then reintegrate back into the public system. The problem is that Charter schools never reintegrate and instead have morphed into quasi private schools that collect more public funding than regular private schools.
To get to the punchline, charter schools should be dumped as a failed program. The individual schools should be given a choice to either reintegrate into the public system or to convert to full private schools. This would fulfill your first comment to have more spots for specialized programs in the public system by having these schools inside the public system.
At the same time, private schools should be fully defunded or also be reintegrated into the public system.
Eliminating a tiered education system is an important step to building a world class education system.
I'm not familiar, so is this just fundraising, or more like "tuition", or... ?
I seem to recall my elementary school being gifted a computer lab by one of the families... Do schools not fund raise any more? (recognizing that not all schools have a parent population with an equal capacity for donations)
I'm not familiar, so is this just fundraising, or more like "tuition", or... ?
I seem to recall my elementary school being gifted a computer lab by one of the families... Do schools not fund raise any more? (recognizing that not all schools have a parent population with an equal capacity for donations)
Charter schools can not charge tuition. The schools can raise funds and accept donations just the same as any public school.
Last edited by calgarygeologist; 10-07-2025 at 01:08 PM.
