Alberta Politics & Government Thread 3.0

[wireframe]

Albertans have voted PC/wild rose no matter who is in power federally. The election results are pretty clear. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...eral_elections

[Wolven]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

The point isn’t what the CPC will do for Alberta. As long as there’s a Liberal federal government, the UCP can draw on the support of a big portion of Albertans because they campaign as our protectors from the baddies in Ottawa. That’s just a reality of the political culture in this province.

The new CPC (Reform) is just as bad as the UCP (Wildrose). The last thing this country needs is for that kind of crazy at the federal level.

I think the biggest thing that needs to change is people's understanding of the parties.

1) The Conservatives are not the party of the people. They are the party of small interest groups. Specifically they like corporations, billionaires, and religious groups (but mainly just the white religious groups). They claim to like "small government" but what they really mean is that they want unchecked power.

2) The Liberals are also not the party of the people. They are more progressive than the Conservatives and will give the people some of what they want but they are also corporatists and try to sell us all on the ideas of trickle down economics.

3) The NDP is still the party of the people but after decades of being slagged on by the big two, most people do not understand that the NDP are the party that they want to elect. Also the failure of the party to find their footing is causing them to morph more and more into Liberal-lite instead of holding fast to the party we need them to be.

When you look at farmers who love the Conservatives, it really makes you wonder how they lost touch with the NDP. The CCF (Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (Farmer-Labour-Socialist)) that became the NDP was literally the party of the Farmers and the CCF was founded in Calgary!

With the the NDP origin story literally being "Alberta Farmers" you would think that most Albertans would think more highly of the NDP or feel some kind of connection to them in the federal political system.

[woob]

Anyone catch the Alberta Book Ban segment on The Current on CBC this AM?

John Hilton-O'Brien (Executive Director of Parents for Choice in Education) was one of the guests, and I so badly wanted to go through the radio and beat him with a book.

[GordonBlue]

Originally Posted by woob

Anyone catch the Alberta Book Ban segment on The Current on CBC this AM?

John Hilton-O'Brien (Executive Director of Parents for Choice in Education) was one of the guests, and I so badly wanted to go through the radio and beat him with a book.

summary?

[Robbob]

probably Derp

[stazzy33]

Originally Posted by GordonBlue

summary?

https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio...chool-book-ban

[Fuzz]

I'm not sure shooting yourself in the dick is any better than cutting your balls off. But hey, Albertans are an adventurous type.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by GordonBlue

summary?

#### Face went on CBC and spurted out a bunch of lame ass ####

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by undercoverbrother

Sadly he will become a martyr.

There's been a few try and defend him but even a bunch of RWers have admitted you can't hire PIs to stalk a judge hearing your case for blackmail material and try and waive it off.

And then he lied to the Law Society about it under oath.

[Mr.Coffee]

The gov needs to pay teachers and stop ####ing around.

From 2012-2025, comparing percentage pay gains:
6.3% teachers
25.9% average for Alberta workers
33.9% inflation

The 12 or 13% the province is offering is laughable and no question should be rejected.

Also why don’t they just agree to a fair wage and link it to inflation so we don’t have this silly bs every few years.

We don’t need to look far to see what poor education does. We need good teachers and you need to pay a decent wage to attract any kind of talent. How about stop ####ing funding private schools if things are so tight?

[Harry Lime]

Every CBA, everywhere... should have inflation matching as the starting point for negotiations. Anything less than that is literally asking the workers to take a pay cut.

[troutman]

Originally Posted by Mr.Coffee

The gov needs to pay teachers and stop ####ing around.

From 2012-2025, comparing percentage pay gains:
6.3% teachers
25.9% average for Alberta workers
33.9% inflation

The 12 or 13% the province is offering is laughable and no question should be rejected.

Also why don’t they just agree to a fair wage and link it to inflation so we don’t have this silly bs every few years.

We don’t need to look far to see what poor education does. We need good teachers and you need to pay a decent wage to attract any kind of talent. How about stop ####ing funding private schools if things are so tight?

UCP loves the poorly educated.

[WideReceiver]

Originally Posted by Point Blank

I’ll call you Bucket if it helps you learn math.

Even if it doesn’t. WTF cares?

[#-3]

Originally Posted by Harry Lime

Every CBA, everywhere... should have inflation matching as the starting point for negotiations. Anything less than that is literally asking the workers to take a pay cut.

Why would any employer ever agree to that?

GDP is an aggregate, and does not match any individual industry perfectly, it also pre-supposes that the salaries either started at the right level or were to low to begin with. Maybe the salaries were fair or more than fair in a particular negotiation for whatever reason, and a market adjustment downwards (relative to inflation) is needed to create what would be a fair deal for both sides. Maybe the governments/businesses ability to collect revenue relative to inflation does not keep pace, and they literally cannot afford to match (this is basically what happened when the NDP was in power, and the teachers did accept that). Maybe for whatever reason there are a plethora of qualified and willing people in the labour pool, and the market just doesn't value that particular workforce at the level it did before, letting the employer in the case of teachers offer a lower salary, hire more teachers, and offer a better more personalized product to the students.

I am not sure any of those are the case in this negotiation, but as the province or employer in general it would be insane to lock yourself into that type of agreement.

[Julio]

Originally Posted by woob

Anyone catch the Alberta Book Ban segment on The Current on CBC this AM?

John Hilton-O'Brien (Executive Director of Parents for Choice in Education) was one of the guests, and I so badly wanted to go through the radio and beat him with a book.

"John’s political experience includes being a founder and past President of Alberta’s Wildrose Party"
And it looks like he and an admin are the 'staff' for this organization.

[GordonBlue]

Originally Posted by #-3

Why would any employer ever agree to that?

GDP is an aggregate, and does not match any individual industry perfectly, it also pre-supposes that the salaries either started at the right level or were to low to begin with. Maybe the salaries were fair or more than fair in a particular negotiation for whatever reason, and a market adjustment downwards (relative to inflation) is needed to create what would be a fair deal for both sides. Maybe the governments/businesses ability to collect revenue relative to inflation does not keep pace, and they literally cannot afford to match (this is basically what happened when the NDP was in power, and the teachers did accept that). Maybe for whatever reason there are a plethora of qualified and willing people in the labour pool, and the market just doesn't value that particular workforce at the level it did before, letting the employer in the case of teachers offer a lower salary, hire more teachers, and offer a better more personalized product to the students.

I am not sure any of those are the case in this negotiation, but as the province or employer in general it would be insane to lock yourself into that type of agreement.

I also think people focus too much on the salary, which is an important but small factor of a collective agreement.
What good is a huge raise if the other items in the agreement suck?
You may not come out ahead with a larger raise over taking the 3% per year and factoring in the value of the other items in the agreement.

[puffnstuff]

Its like the private sector telling you 'yeah we'll pay you 20k less in salary but we have a ping pong table in the break room'

[IliketoPuck]

Originally Posted by #-3

Why would any employer ever agree to that?

GDP is an aggregate, and does not match any individual industry perfectly, it also pre-supposes that the salaries either started at the right level or were to low to begin with. Maybe the salaries were fair or more than fair in a particular negotiation for whatever reason, and a market adjustment downwards (relative to inflation) is needed to create what would be a fair deal for both sides. Maybe the governments/businesses ability to collect revenue relative to inflation does not keep pace, and they literally cannot afford to match (this is basically what happened when the NDP was in power, and the teachers did accept that). Maybe for whatever reason there are a plethora of qualified and willing people in the labour pool, and the market just doesn't value that particular workforce at the level it did before, letting the employer in the case of teachers offer a lower salary, hire more teachers, and offer a better more personalized product to the students.

I am not sure any of those are the case in this negotiation, but as the province or employer in general it would be insane to lock yourself into that type of agreement.

It's quite common for most trade unions to have annual CBA negotiations that account for inflation, amongst other things.

This isn't that hard.

The provincial government is simply playing hardball with the union because it is in their interest to do so, and generally speaking, gaslighting everyone into ignoring the real issue:

Alberta's public education system used to be considered one of, if not the best, in the world. And now due to systemic underfunding, and a focus on privatization, our education system has slipped substantially.

Public education is an investment in the future prosperity of the province. By choosing as a province to underfund it, we are choosing to risk those future prospects.

And to echo Troutman's earlier post - a less educated electorate is inherently more malleable and easily manipulated.

[Harry Lime]

When did GDP and inflation become synonymous? They are two different metrics.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by IliketoPuck

It's quite common for most trade unions to have annual CBA negotiations that account for inflation, amongst other things.

I personally have never seen this in a CBA. That isn’t to say it doesn’t happen or has never happened but to say that it’s “quite common” seems to lack foundation. Generally both the employer and the union want a little long term certainty of outcome and labour peace. Continually renegotiating every year doesn’t provide that and adds significant time and costs to the process.

This isn't that hard.

Getting both sides to agree to something isn’t always easy just because people on the outside looking in think it’s sensible.

You’re unlikely to get a Union to agree to tying wages to inflation because the expectation would likely be that the pendulum swings both ways in the event of deflation.

The provincial government is simply playing hardball with the union because it is in their interest to do so, and generally speaking, gaslighting everyone into ignoring the real issue:

I’d say it’s more likely that the government are doing it because they have been given a mandate to vilify unions and public sector workers at every opportunity by the people putting money behind their party.

Alberta's public education system used to be considered one of, if not the best, in the world. And now due to systemic underfunding, and a focus on privatization, our education system has slipped substantially.

Public education is an investment in the future prosperity of the province. By choosing as a province to underfund it, we are choosing to risk those future prospects.

And to echo Troutman's earlier post - a less educated electorate is inherently more malleable and easily manipulated.

The UCP don’t appear to be too interested in what is in the long term best interests of Albertans.