Alberta Politics & Government Thread 3.0

[Geraldsh]

Originally Posted by Sylvanfan

I personally think our Healthcare system is in worse shape than our schools are right now.

How can you train new healthcare workers without a viable education system? Both issues need to be addressed immediately.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Slava

The province has built 30 new schools and modernized more in the last decade. However, this isn't an overnight solution; you can't just build a school today to address the class size issue.

And yes, the systems could be consolidated and amalgamated from a resource perspective. Do you think the various unions would love that conversation? I have no doubt that an attempt to do this would face opposition.

Its the age-old debate, when Teachers are unhappy they point to class sizes.

"I have 30 kids in my class!!"

Yeah? Well classes have had 30 kids in them for over 30+ years, just be honest and just say you want more money.

There is almost no place to put new schools unless little Jimmy gets used to riding the ol' Cheesewagon whether mommy likes it or not. Get 'em on Public Transit! That'll really thin out the ol' class sizes!

What do they even need more schools for? Kids go to school something like 14 days a month between PD Days and Pandemics and thats shown us that they can do everything from home!

Jimmy can learn from home! Dont build new schools that are investment and maintenance sinks, build more homes and then other people pay for it!!

You dont want 30 kids in your class? How about 0 kids? Teachers can work from their basements while sipping Chardonnay out of that Starbucks mug...you're not fooling anyone with that by the way.

Then record the good teachers and mute the useless ones and fire them all when you're done!

"Sorry Ms. Thompson, your services are no longer required. We recorded all of your good lessons and are going to show them to the children from this wheelie TV that we can put in front of a webcam!"

- "Thats a Carnival Gypsy fortune telling game with an iPad duct-taped to her head..."

"Budget cuts. You know how it is."

Besides, this current crop of Pandemically Destroyed students are pretty well screwed anyways, better to write them off and hope the next group are better.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Slava

Isn’t the class size issue pretty complicated though? It’s not just “hire more teachers”, because you need somewhere to do that, and building schools takes time. In the past, one way the school boards were dealing with this was having kids bused to under-populated schools. There were complaints on that side of things because parents didn’t want their kids sitting on a school bus for 45 minutes. I’m not suggesting there is no solution there, but just that there’s not an easy, obvious one that is going to be quick and make people happy.

It’s certainly a 4 year problem not a tomorrow problem. But some combination of portables, Capital projects, and bussing are all things that’s needed. Also o. Short term it’s unfortunate but repurposing of libraries and music and drama spaces is currently occurring.

The other question now is are their teachers not currently working to fill these gaps given substitute shortages and increased rates of people leaving the industry. This should be able to be addressed with wages and working conditions.

But setting student teacher ratios as part of collective bargaining is part of the solution.

[WideReceiver]

We don’t need to train nurses and teachers. There must be many looking to flee the U.S. Recruit them.

[RandyHolt]

It seems to me a simple solution would be to add more buses and drivers rather than building more schools. This would presumably be a much cheaper option. Maybe someone knows why this doesn't happen?

It's great if young families want to live in the new suburbs that are being built each year, but that doesn't mean we need to spend money building schools in the neighborhood. Unfortunate that grade one kids will have to be on a bus for an hour, but people will know that when choosing where to live.

There are a lot of schools (North Haven, University, Cambrian, Capitol Hill) that are averaging 40-50 kids per grade, while further out schools like Edgemont, Hidden Valley or Evanston are averaging 90-120 kids per grade. Just picked the NW but I imagine the SW is very similar.

With kids in school I think aiming to get the class sizes down is a good thing given that the number of kids who need special attention is through the roof compared with 30 years ago. 30 kids now is probably the equivalent of having like 50 kids back in the 90s.

[Wolven]

Originally Posted by WideReceiver

We don’t need to train nurses and teachers. There must be many looking to flee the U.S. Recruit them.

But then Smith would have to cry even harder about all of the immigrants she needs to recruit to fill the jobs that we cannot fill locally because our education system is in shambles.

Fix the education system AND recruit people looking to flee from the US. Nurses are good but we should really be targeting the thousands of scientists that will be out of work in the US to bring them up to Alberta to start new industries and become a scientific powerhouse:

‘A disaster for all of us’: US scientists describe impact of Trump cuts
US Supreme Court allows NIH to cut $2 billion in research grants
Judge allows Trump to cut more than $1bn in National Science Foundation grants

There is a massive opportunity there. Alberta is probably too dumb to capitalize on it but hopefully Manitoba or BC swings hard at trying to capture those brilliant minds that will be looking for work.

Australia is already racing to get the scientists. Race on!

[indes]

Maybe we just need to invest in AI? I would send my kid to this school for sure.

https://youtu.be/enXA7xepu2U?si=M7NWFFSKU1d2bjkP

In all seriousness though it's mind boggling how we end up in these situations. Does the government not know how many kids are being born? Do they not forecast population growth?

My kid spends an hour on the bus each way in Sherwood Park because they refuse to build new schools. We actually built a new house in a community with a huge space zoned for a school! Know what they did with the huge space that was zoned for a school? Built a few hundred more houses instead. Our government sucks. And not just the UCP, all of it. From the bottom up they are a bunch of useless tits who are just there to collect pensions, its ridiculous how little we get from our tax dollars.

[Lubicon]

Originally Posted by RandyHolt

It seems to me a simple solution would be to add more buses and drivers rather than building more schools. This would presumably be a much cheaper option. Maybe someone knows why this doesn't happen?

It's great if young families want to live in the new suburbs that are being built each year, but that doesn't mean we need to spend money building schools in the neighborhood. Unfortunate that grade one kids will have to be on a bus for an hour, but people will know that when choosing where to live.

There are a lot of schools (North Haven, University, Cambrian, Capitol Hill) that are averaging 40-50 kids per grade, while further out schools like Edgemont, Hidden Valley or Evanston are averaging 90-120 kids per grade. Just picked the NW but I imagine the SW is very similar.

With kids in school I think aiming to get the class sizes down is a good thing given that the number of kids who need special attention is through the roof compared with 30 years ago. 30 kids now is probably the equivalent of having like 50 kids back in the 90s.

Not as easy as it sounds. Southland Transportation (and the other providers) are challenged to find enough drivers as it is. It's a part time gig, a couple of hours in the morning and a couple more in the afternoon with a big gap in the middle of the day. Hard to find people who want those hours.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Lubicon

Not as easy as it sounds. Southland Transportation (and the other providers) are challenged to find enough drivers as it is. It's a part time gig, a couple of hours in the morning and a couple more in the afternoon with a big gap in the middle of the day. Hard to find people who want those hours.

Dont forget "being treated like crap by entitled snot-nosed brats!"

[Johnny Makarov]

Originally Posted by puffnstuff

They definitely shouldnt be spending public money on building charter schools.

Whats wrong with Charter schools? My kids have been in one since Grade 4. Super high tech. Electives are all geared towards University and class sizes are reasonable.

[RandyHolt]

Maybe they need to go on a recruitment campaign to get senior citizens who are doing nothing all day to drive those buses.

They wouldn't be able to hear the kids so the abuse would be ignored, and they can't be any worse than the food delivery drivers who stop anywhere and pull random U-turns.

[WhiteTiger]

Originally Posted by Locke

Dont forget "being treated like crap by entitled snot-nosed brats!"

Exactly. My dad tried this after retiring from the Air Force. He figured it wouldn't be too rough, it'd eat up a few hours of his day and he could 'give back'.


He didn't even last a single school year. Said the main issue was having to deal with children you couldn't get any discipline for, and their parents.

[Leeman4Gilmour]

Someone earlier asked why the government wasn't better at forecasting future school requirements. It got me wondering so I had AI compare forecast population growth to actual growth (sorry if you're anti-AI);



The data uses the Government of Alberta's "medium-growth" scenario (their most likely projection at the time) and compares it against the official population counts from Statistics Canada (as of July 1st each year).

### **Phase 1: The Downturn – Forecasts Were Too High (2015-2019)**

This comparison uses the **2015-2041 forecast**, which was published in July 2015, just as the oil price crash began to take full effect. The projections were based on previous boom-year trends and did not anticipate the severity of the downturn.

| Year (as of July 1) | 2015 Forecast (Projected Population) | Actual Population (Statistics Canada) | Difference (Forecast vs. Actual) |
| :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- |
| **2016** | 4,249,761 | 4,221,977 | **+27,784** (Overestimated) |
| **2017** | 4,321,939 | 4,271,496 | **+50,443** (Overestimated) |
| **2018** | 4,392,308 | 4,316,974 | **+75,334** (Overestimated) |
| **2019** | 4,461,847 | 4,363,246 | **+98,601** (Overestimated) |

As you can see, within four years the forecast was nearly **100,000 people** higher than the reality. The model expected continued strong migration, but the economic downturn led to a net outflow of people to other provinces, causing growth to slow significantly.

---

### **Phase 2: The Pandemic & Recovery – Forecasts Were Too Low (2020-2025)**

This comparison uses the **2021-2046 forecast**, which was published in mid-2021. Created during a period of economic uncertainty and slow growth, its assumptions were very conservative. It failed to predict the massive, record-breaking surge in migration that would begin the very next year.

| Year (as of July 1) | 2021 Forecast (Projected Population) | Actual Population (Statistics Canada) | Difference (Forecast vs. Actual) |
| :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- |
| **2022** | 4,463,027 | 4,548,223 | **-85,196** (Underestimated) |
| **2023** | 4,500,707 | 4,733,556 | **-232,849** (Underestimated) |
| **2024** | 4,541,720 | 4,842,523 | **-300,803** (Underestimated) |
| **2025 (Projected)**| 4,584,295 | ~5,000,000+ | **~ -415,000+** (Underestimated)|

The reversal is stunning. The 2021 forecast expected it would take until the 2030s for Alberta's population to get near 5 million. In reality, the province blew past that milestone in early 2025. By mid-2024, the actual population was already more than **300,000 people** ahead of what was projected just three years prior.

This massive underestimation was driven by a post-pandemic economic rebound, high federal immigration targets, and an unprecedented wave of interprovincial migration fueled by a search for housing affordability.

### **Summary of Actual Population (July 1st)**

For reference, here are the official Statistics Canada population figures for Alberta over the period:

* **2015:** 4,183,534
* **2016:** 4,221,977
* **2017:** 4,271,496
* **2018:** 4,316,974
* **2019:** 4,363,246
* **2020:** 4,420,457
* **2021:** 4,444,277
* **2022:** 4,548,223
* **2023:** 4,733,556
* **2024:** 4,842,523

The last three years was a pretty big miss.

From this article Q1 2025 growth was broken down as such;

Natural - 3118
Interprovincial migration - 7,176
Immigration (permanent) - 11,630
Temporarty International residents - −1,362

I don't know if that ratio is consistent quarter over quarter.

I found the numbers interesting so thought I'd share. And, that kind of 'unexpected' population surge is likely a huge factor in a lot of the concerns in both education and health care we see today. Is it reasonable to be so far off on forecasting? I don't know. I feel interprovincial migration would be tricky, but the rest of the categories should be easier to dial in.

[Wolven]

Originally Posted by Johnny Makarov

Whats wrong with Charter schools? My kids have been in one since Grade 4. Super high tech. Electives are all geared towards University and class sizes are reasonable.

Charter schools make profit off of public dollars.
They drain the public system of funding.
They pay better wages and draw teachers away from the public system.

What you are experiencing at a Charter school is at the expense of the public school system.

Charter (and private) schools should be cut off from public funding and should NEVER receive a building that is built with public dollars.

[TorqueDog]

That would be a pretty kick-ass modification to the forum if it could support Markdown for formatting, tables, etc.

[Wolven]

Originally Posted by Leeman4Gilmour

Someone earlier asked why the government wasn't better at forecasting future school requirements. It got me wondering so I had AI compare forecast population growth to actual growth (sorry if you're anti-AI);

...

I think that is really interesting data but I think you are missing the point.

They are not forecasting at all because they do not care. The UCP want the education and health systems to crater so they can privatize both industries and grift off of their friends who will profit from it.

Health care = MHCare grift
Education = Foundations for the Future Charter Academy North High School grift

Smith had a charter school pay off her leadership rival to buy Rajan's loyalty and then gave the charter school money as a thank you for paying off Rajan.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by WhiteTiger

Exactly. My dad tried this after retiring from the Air Force. He figured it wouldn't be too rough, it'd eat up a few hours of his day and he could 'give back'.

He didn't even last a single school year. Said the main issue was having to deal with children you couldn't get any discipline for, and their parents.

I know it sounds cliché, but I've had numerous clients do something similar and all I can say is that nobody has come to me with any wonderful stories.

One guy did his entire career as a Calgary Transit Driver, full-bag retirement, the works and decided since his wife passed and kids were grown it'd be a decent way to earn a few bucks and pass some time.

Same story. Didn't last a year.

Something really needs to be done about it. It doesn't pay particularly well, there are no benefits, these people are mostly doing it, as you said, to 'give back' and they get treated like absolute ass.

This is one of those things where it comes down to parental responsibility.

Teach your kids how to treat people with respect or start giving Bus Drivers tasers or something.

"Hey! You tazed my kid!"

- "He was being a bratty little bitch."

"Fair enough. Can I borrow that?"

[Johnny Makarov]

Originally Posted by Wolven

Charter schools make profit off of public dollars.
They drain the public system of funding.
They pay better wages and draw teachers away from the public system.

What you are experiencing at a Charter school is at the expense of the public school system.

Charter (and private) schools should be cut off from public funding and should NEVER receive a building that is built with public dollars.

They do not make a profit! And for the amount of emails i get throughout the year with the amount of fundraisers and how much I "donate", I highly doubt they are making any extra money.

I have no idea if teachers make more money but they have a full day of classes on Fridays unlike regular CBE schools, so they are working more.

Alberta charter schools are publicly-funded institutions that must be incorporated as either non-profit societies or as not-for-profit companies.[3] According to Alberta's Education Act, Charter schools cannot be affiliated with a religious faith or denomination,[4] cannot charge tuition for any Alberta resident students,[5][6] and cannot operate on a for-profit basis.

Others have argued that charter schools have historically been underfunded relative to other public schools, potentially diminishing the quality of education received by their pupils and establishing a precedent that schools should "do more with less

[Wolven]

Originally Posted by Locke

I know it sounds cliché, but I've had numerous clients do something similar and all I can say is that nobody has come to me with any wonderful stories.

One guy did his entire career as a Calgary Transit Driver, full-bag retirement, the works and decided since his wife passed and kids were grown it'd be a decent way to earn a few bucks and pass some time.

Same story. Didn't last a year.

Something really needs to be done about it. It doesn't pay particularly well, there are no benefits, these people are mostly doing it, as you said, to 'give back' and they get treated like absolute ass.

This is one of those things where it comes down to parental responsibility.

Teach your kids how to treat people with respect or start giving Bus Drivers tasers or something.

"Hey! You tazed my kid!"

- "He was being a bratty little bitch."

"Fair enough. Can I borrow that?"

Put the parents on the bus. Make it a rotation so that you have two parents on the bus at all times and each parent has to do a week or something.

That way you have two adults who are not driving and can deal with the kids and they can report bad behavior to the other parents.

[Wolven]

Originally Posted by Johnny Makarov

They do not make a profit! And for the amount of emails i get throughout the year with the amount of fundraisers and how much I "donate", I highly doubt they are making any extra money.

I have no idea if teachers make more money but they have a full day of classes on Fridays unlike regular CBE schools, so they are working more.

Even when an organization is a non-profit there is a lot of money moving around and *personal* profits to be made.

Just look at the story about Rajan Sawhney's daughter getting a board position paying $120K. The public funding they get, along with your donations, are grifted out to their friends so that they never report a profit.