What has Alberta’s government come to?
We are now congratulating politicians for living up to their promises. Sadly, it was considered news when the Province finally made good on its commitment to pay the 2.92 per cent increase in teachers’ salaries – salaries negotiated by the government itself.
Does Education Minister Dave Hancock really think we will forget that he caused already cash strapped Alberta school boards to scrape the bottom of the barrel and take services away from our children because he couldn’t come up with the funds to honour his commitment?
Last fall, Hancock raided school board reserves for $44 million and then told them they would have to cover teacher raises totalling $66 million across the province.
Schools boards scrimped and saved to make their budgets work and now they have to start all over again because Hancock has flip-flopped like a fish out of water.
Rocky View Schools was able to keep most of the cuts out of the classrooms, but other school boards were facing huge teacher and support staff cuts before the government “came in to save the day.”
Praising the Province for doing what it said it was going to do is a joke.
If we re-elect this government, we are certainly setting ourselves up for more of the same inconsistency and dishonesty.
