For some reasons, for the first time since taking over the Alberta government, Diversity Magazine was invited to a UCP organized multicultural media round table in Edmonton with Finance and Treasury Board Minister, Travis Toews. In a round table on “Alberta’s austerity invoking” MacKinnon Report on September 11, 2019, at the Alberta Legislature, seven Edmonton multicultural media outlets where in attendance. Diversity Magazine took the opportunity to ask two questions of interest to you:
Question: Do you feel that ordinary Albertans should feel a sense of dis-service for being asked to single-handedly pay the province’s debt at the expense of social services like healthcare and affordable education?
The Alberta Finance Minister said they are committed to maintaining high quality education and healthcare without cuts.
Although the MacKinnon Report stated that Alberta’s major revenue sources from oil and natural gas are unstable, Minister Toews however maintained that Alberta does not have a “revenue problem but a spending problem”. He added that they will take the recommendations of the MacKinnon Report seriously in their upcoming budget. That brought us to our follow up question…
Will a freeze in tuition not negatively impact Alberta students as universities and colleges will increase tuition to meetup with funding cuts?
On this one, the Honorable Minister said they are not compelled to take all the recommendations of the MacKinnon Report. “…We are still to decide. We haven’t made any decisions around that…,” he concluded.
On this same September 11, 2019, at the gymnasium at Escuela Mill Creek School in Edmonton, the NDP launched the first in a series of budget town halls across Alberta to engage communities across Alberta to gather input for NDP’s solution to Alberta’s deficit problem. “Premier Kenney has not only ignored the opposition’s call to reconvene the Legislature to introduce his budget, but he’s also downloading the cost of his $4.5 corporate tax gift to the rich – which hasn’t created a single job – on to Albertans through deep cuts to vital public services,” Rachel Notley, Leader of the NDP Alberta Opposition.
“Our NDP government maintained our schools and our hospitals and diversified our the economy while staying on the path to a balanced budget. We set a clear path to balance that the financial reports coming from this UCP government have validated was accurate.” – Chris Nielsen, MLA for Edmonton-Decore
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