Suppose I am a healthcare worker ( I did work 3 summers of university doing light housekeeping and serving meals on ward kitchens of a hospital, so I can imagine). The UCP lays me off my job and I am rehired by the new private contractor for $5/hr less and no benefits. 1/1
They also hired fewer people to do the same work. Now I work harder, but make $200/wk less and also have to budget for prescription medication, dental work or other expenses. So my spending power is reduced. $200 a week is the equivalent of my grocery budget. I still need 2/2
groceries, so what else can I cut? Eating out? Gone. A new vehicle I wanted? Not this year. Some renos for my home? Will have to wait. Tickets to an event? Too extravagant. Some new clothes my kids want but don’t exactly need? I’ll find them for cheaper or buy less. 3/3
Christmas gift budget? Will have to be cut by at least 25%. And so on. So, for the sake of getting back at the public sector, now the private sector retail, restaurant, and car dealership owners, tradespeople, etc. will make less too. 4/4
Do they think their only customers are others who work in the private sector? Will all of these people without money to spend make the price of oil go back up? Or other countries want to buy our oil? 5/5
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My great grandfather moved to Edmonton as a teen in 1878, when his father, who had been an Arctic explorer, then chief factor for the Hudson Bay Co. , settled here. My great grandfather earned his own living for many years driving a stagecoach, delivering mail and passengers 1/8
to and from the Edmonton area, going from Fort Saskatchewan down to Calgary and back. He also kept a livery stable and people paid to keep their horses there. One of his brothers also drove a stagecoach and another was a prospector, looking for gold and silver in Alaska. 2/8
My grandfather didn’t drive a stagecoach like his father because that was no longer a career choice by the early 1920s. Instead, he became a journeyman tinsmith with his own sheet metal shop in Jasper Place. My dad apprenticed with him and worked there too. 3/8
Seeing comments/memes belittling the fatigue, stress and anxiety teachers and school staff are feeling. Many comments like, ‘quit if you don’t like it’ or ‘grocery store workers kept working while you were at home being paid to do nothing’ or ‘good thing they aren’t nurses’ 1/
First of all, kudos and endless gratitude to everyone who worked during the lockdown, for being ‘out there’ and providing essential services. Thank you! 2/
Even though teachers worked from home for the last 3 months of last school year, they were working too. They had to turn on a dime to figure out an entirely new way of doing their job, which many teachers found exhausting and taking up all day and every evening. 3/
I’m sure this has been discussed before, but seeing the choices UCP have been making just lately makes me think about their poisonous and toxic worldview. To them:
-if you are poor, that is your own fault. If you were a better quality person, you would not be poor. Therefore
the government bears no responsibility for doing anything about your poverty.
-related to this, if you can only earn a minimum wage at your job, UCP thinks that is because there is something defective in your character. Nothing to do with them allowing employers to exploit you.
-if your poverty affects your children, that, again, is your problem and not anyone else’s, according to UCP. You should have thought of that before you had children. Even if the circumstances that reduced you to poverty happened after they were born.
I totally understand wanting to keep kids at home this fall! I’m worried about my son in a school with 3000+ people! But PLEASE remember that next year’s funding is based on how many kids are officially part of the count THIS fall. This is probably part of UCP’s plan. #ableg
UCP is counting on parents homeschooling in the fall.
On Global yesterday, in response to a question about parents concerns with their plan, Kenney said, “We also have the most generous rules to support homeschoolers—people who decide to educate their kids at home... #ableg 2/8
There is funding available for that, for costs related to it, as part of our approach to school choice. So those are options that exist.” 3/8 #ableg#abed