Essentially, the #UCP govt is going to liquidate our parks, watersheds, forests, and other public goods and transfer the proceeds to private interests. Then they'll all leave town. 1/n #abpoli#ableg
Those who are opposing this looting and pillaging of our province--which will leave future generations impoverished in every sense--are labelled "extremist agitators and malcontents" by #UCP flacks 2/n
like the MLA who roused well enough to read a speech in the #ableg today. Mr. "there is no climate crisis" calls for expanding the use of fossil fuels and petrochemicals. Oddly, he stopped short of demanding that #Alberta schools 3/n
replace evolutionary biology in their curriculum with creationism. Some sharp issues manager must have caught that one. Good thing there's so many of them, because they also have to staff the FB and Twitter pages the #UCP created 4/n
to spread misinformation and conspiracy theories and make up phoney grassroots groups to make it look like there is support in #Alberta for the govt's privatization of health care. 5/n
So really, you know, no reason to be all malcontenty, eh, Albertans? It's not like we should expect to have a gov't that tells the truth, protects our environment, or cares about our well-being and that of future generations, is it? 6/6
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This government's abuses of power accumulate by the day. Did they get a mandate from Albertans to eliminate 1000s of jobs, privatise health care, and defund post-secondary education? 1/n #abpolinationalobserver.com/2020/07/10/opi…
Did the #UCP get a mandate from Albertans to privatise our parks and open the eastern slopes of the Rockies to expanded coal mining? 2/n
Did they consult Albertans before rejecting provincial participation in a national pharmacare program? 3/n
The MacKinnon Report of 2019, commissioned by the UCP govt to provide a veneer of academic credibility to the policies it already planned to implement, takes the view that it is the govt's job to decide what the priorities of post-secondary education should be. 1/n #abpoli
The report recommends (p. 42) that "the future [PSEI] funding model ensure a link between provincial macro goals and outcomes to be achieved by post-secondary institutions." 2/n @cafaab@TheAASUA#UAlberta
It is certainly not unreasonable to expect our PSEIs to serve the public interest--a goal that is to be found in their existing mission statements (which the report's authors to not appear to have read). 3/n @UAlberta@ArtsSquared@davidkahane#ableg
Note that there was no routine monitoring by Env Canada for oil sands tailings ponds seepage or leakage for a five-year period. We know from past experience that this job must not be left to the AB govt or industry associations.
Failing to exercise close oversight of this industry's pollution amounts to deciding that the health and lives of the Indigenous communities downstream and the ecosystems they depend on are just the price to be paid for bitumen revenue.
He says: “A very competitive business model means that businesses can come in and invest and work hard, […] and ultimately receive rewards from that effort and taking those risks. And that’s why we really need to create the most competitive business environment possible.”
He's talking about creating an attractive environment for investment, not a competitive one, and the way govts do that is by reducing risks for investors. For example: allowing them not to pay royalties until their investment costs have been covered;
The new Umbridge (oops, LaGrange) Ministerial Order on Student Learning dissected by Education Professor Carla Peck. This is a must-read for people concerned about what the UCP is doing to our public education system. #abpoli#ableg@CBCNews@SOSAlbertadocs.google.com/document/d/1r3…
" Mr. MacBeath’s comments are antiquated and do not reflect current scholarship in K-12 history education."
"If you want to kill students’ interest in history, force them to memorize a long list of facts, to which they’ve attached no meaning, and then give them a test."