Alberta Politics & Government Thread 3.0

[Cowboy89]

Originally Posted by kermitology

Because there's a HUGE swath of Albertans are sheep who will vote conservative regardless. Sean Chu being completely incompetent should have been disqualifying for Calgary voters before his sexual misconduct came to light, and he's been elected three times.

Voters are complete idiots.

Sean Chu's election and re-election has as much to do with diaspora politics as conservative voters being sheep.

[D as in David]

Originally Posted by Dion

I hate attack ads like. So many lies in this short video and that sad reality is the uninformed voters will accept this as truth.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1603079997966602240

Nicely styled hair, though.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by D as in David

She doesn't smile enough? Women love been told they should smile more often.

Off topic, but I purposefully say that to my wife at times because it drives her insane. I have to say that I don't even really get what makes her so upset by that comment, but it's hilarious.

[b1crunch]

I live and work in rural Alberta as a teacher. The UCP has huge amounts of support in my community and the current UCP MLA in my riding will win his seat again no doubt. But the UCP has been especially terrible for rural Alberta in an educational sense. This isn't stuff that I necessarily see in the news, so I thought I'd share.

The UCP and Lagrange (and Kenney when he was still in power) love to comment how they maintained educational funding during their tenure. This is a half-truth. They maintained the funding that schools receive for the kids, but cut funding in all other sorts of ways. For example:

-The UCP reduced bus budgets, which really hurt rural Alberta schools who depend so heavily on bus service to farms and acreages.
-The UCP reduced funding for CTS (Mechanics, Woodworking, Art, Foods) which rural kids (and all of Alberta) often love. The Mechanics and Welding programs in my school are incredibly popular, but we had to start charging large fees for these programs to make up for the loss in funding.
-The UCP cut ADLC (Alberta Distance Learning). This was a program run out of a rural area (Pembina) and greatly benefitted rural schools and rural students. Kids in my school love to get jobs in town as welders, mechanics, etc and do their course work through modules through ADLC. Well, the UCP cut this altogether. ADLC was literally created so small rural schools could offer a wide range of programs that are often offered in big city schools. But the UCP cut it? This is terrible for rural Alberta and now our schools are scrambling to find fixes, which cost tons of money, for which the UCP aren't offering any. By the way, they cut the distance learning program in 2020, literally in the middle of the pandemic. lol
-The UCP reduced funding for special needs students. My cousin who lives in a small town in northern Alberta, has a daughter that was born with a chromosome missing. It impacts her muscle mass, coordination and ability to reason. She basically needs 1 on 1 support all the time because she's too weak to walk most days and struggles with basic tasks. Pre-UCP her school provided 1 on on 1 support. But when the UCP did the cuts her school cut the 1 on 1 support, and it's a major problem. The same is true in my school, but my school took a different approach. We kept the EA supports and let go of a few teachers, and our class sizes ballooned to 40-50 kids in some classes. The province's own recommendations for class-sizes (which came from the previous PC's) was a max of 27 in a high school classroom. My schools currently has classes with students in the high 40's. It's ridiculous.

Big city schools are more easily able to overcome these issues because they have large student populations and get lots of funding for their kids, which they can move around. But the smaller rural schools cannot do the same. For us in rural Alberta it's meant, cuts to services, cuts to programs, large increases in class sizes and more costs to parents.

Yet, most of the people in my community know nothing of these issues because they don't make the news, and generally blame the issues at the school as evidence that teachers, and government, in general, are lazy and need to be privatized. This is the general consensus view I hear from those around me. It's disappointing because the very people who will vote UCP are being harmed in so many small ways by them.

[Fuzz]

The NDP needs to really start pointing these sorts of things out.

[BlackArcher101]

Originally Posted by b1crunch

-The UCP reduced funding for CTS (Mechanics, Woodworking, Art, Foods) which rural kids (and all of Alberta) often love. The Mechanics and Welding programs in my school are incredibly popular, but we had to start charging large fees for these programs to make up for the loss in funding.

This actually shocks me. Of all school programs, I would have expected conservatives to embrace ones like these and dump on sciences and languages instead. They truly are horrible for everyone aren't they.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by b1crunch

-The UCP cut ADLC (Alberta Distance Learning). This was a program run out of a rural area (Pembina) and greatly benefitted rural schools and rural students. Kids in my school love to get jobs in town as welders, mechanics, etc and do their course work through modules through ADLC. Well, the UCP cut this altogether. ADLC was literally created so small rural schools could offer a wide range of programs that are often offered in big city schools. But the UCP cut it? This is terrible for rural Alberta and now our schools are scrambling to find fixes, which cost tons of money, for which the UCP aren't offering any. By the way, they cut the distance learning program in 2020, literally in the middle of the pandemic.

I went to a large urban school and I took classes through ADLC that I did not have time in my regular schedule for.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by BlackArcher101

This actually shocks me. Of all school programs, I would have expected conservatives to embrace ones like these and dump on sciences and languages instead. They truly are horrible for everyone aren't they.

The thing is, they only care about cutting taxes and cutting programs. They don't actually care about what is better for people. Any "program" is seen as waste, unless it gets them re-elected or funnels cash to cronies. Everything else is lip service, unfortunately so many people fall for it, over and over. How many more decades of letting them do this to us before people clue in?

[Flames0910]

That UCP video is infuriating.

Not only is it incredibly negative and childish (Tim Allen grunt, comparing Rachel Notley to Michael Scott), but they spend all of their time and energy campaigning against the federal government. Like, sovereign or not, they do know they're a provincial party right?

It's appalling how they just refuse to listen to Albertans (guess that makes sense from the ear plug party - insert Tim Allen grunt here) and instead, they've created the Trudeau-Notley-Singh bogeyman because they can't beat the NDP otherwise.

#### off Rebecca, can't believe how quickly you abandoned your values to carry water for Danielle Smith.

[Torture]

The UCP and Lagrange (and Kenney when he was still in power) love to comment how they maintained educational funding during their tenure. This is a half-truth. They maintained the funding that schools receive for the kids, but cut funding in all other sorts of ways. For example:

Also, while they "maintained" funding they didn't increase it to match inflation or a growing population. So even maintaining funding is effectively a cut.

[TheIronMaiden]

I still think the NDP winning is a long shot. Their best hope is a strong opposition, even then it will take more than half of Calgary.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by TheIronMaiden

I still think the NDP winning is a long shot. Their best hope is a strong opposition, even then it will take more than half of Calgary.

Sadly you might be right.

####ing sad and pathetic.

[Torture]

RE: video
Rebecca Shultz would know a lot about middle management having to do what they're told I guess.

[Torture]

Look, they actually got something right!

https://twitter.com/user/status/1603448772578906112

Of course, now we get to pin all of inflation on Alberta for increasing the carbon tax, right?

[TheIronMaiden]

Originally Posted by undercoverbrother

Sadly you might be right.

####ing sad and pathetic.

It blows my mind that conservatives in this province act like victims when they've held strong majority governments for something like 48 of 52 years.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by TheIronMaiden

It blows my mind that conservatives in this province act like victims when they're held strong majority governments for something like 48 of 52 years.

If only they could be re-elected so they have a chance to fix it.

I don't know how people are so dumb, but they are.

[Yikes]

Originally Posted by TheIronMaiden

I still think the NDP winning is a long shot. Their best hope is a strong opposition, even then it will take more than half of Calgary.

The rural vote for Alexa Jones is not as strong as you think.

[TheIronMaiden]

Originally Posted by Yikes

The rural vote for Alexa Jones is not as strong as you think.

I live on a farm, I get the sense that the rural folks who refuse to vote for Smith are looking for another conservative option, but not the NDP.

[Fuzz]

Alberta takes back constitutional jurisdiction

The attorney general has directed that jurisdiction over the handling of charges under the federal Firearms Act be taken over by Alberta’s Crown prosecutors.

https://www.alberta.ca/release.cfm?x...BE70A28756D871

I'm curious on the "takes back". Is there any validity to that? Can they just decide they are now writing the laws on Federal jurisdiction, or was it never Federal? Or is this just them making stuff up becuase #### everything?

[Yikes]

Originally Posted by TheIronMaiden

I live on a farm, I get the sense that the rural folks who refuse to vote for Smith are looking for another conservative option, but not the NDP.

I have farmers in my family (west of Innisfail) and you are exactly correct but until that time it looks like my rural family/friends will vote NDP to keep Smith out of power. Farmers like straight talk, not bull####. The Smith is the solution following is not so much in the farming communities but the towns.