Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Analyzing Alberta's 2025 budget with Dr. Wing Li and Chris Gallaway
0 Plays2 seconds ago
Dr. Wing Li from Support our Students and Chris Gallaway from Friends of Medicare join us to analyze Alberta's weird, complicated, anti-worker 2025 budget.
Full show notes at https://www.theprogressreport.ca/pod-analyzing-the-2025-budget
We are grateful for any support you would like to provide to this independent media project. To become a Progress Report patron, head to https://www.theprogressreport.ca/patrons
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast Discussion
00:00:12
Speaker
Friends and enemies, welcome to another episode of The Progress Report. I'm your co-host, Jeremy Appel, speaking to you from Amiskwazi, Waskigin, also known as Edmonton.
00:00:27
Speaker
I'm joined as usual by my co-host, Jim Story. How's it going, Jimbo? Hey, buddy, how you doing? Back for a little chill time with the homies. Yes, that's right. the the The band is back together, as they say.
00:00:44
Speaker
We've got Chris Galloway and Chris Galloway today from Friends of Medicare, as well as Wing Lee.
Budget Overview: Education and Health Funding
00:00:51
Speaker
And we're going to be talking about the 2025 budget, particularly education and health.
00:00:58
Speaker
Which, as always, can make up more than half of the provincial budget. And ah while the budget included modest funding increases in both of these areas, neither matched the rate of inflation plus population growth, which the government pegged at about 7%.
00:01:23
Speaker
So that's important context to keep in mind um when we're talking about funding increases. Another important seven from that that set of budget documents too, to keep in mind as we talk about this, is that unemployment is projected to remain quite high, also around 7% for at least the next couple of years in Alberta.
00:01:47
Speaker
So access to public services is going to be very important. People are going to need help.
Is Alberta's Education Funding Misleading?
00:01:53
Speaker
right, well, ah let's get started. ah Wing, um welcome to the show.
00:02:02
Speaker
Thanks for having me. I'd say happy to be here, but the content makes me sad. Yeah, well, we'll get to that in a moment. um i wanted to ask you, ah Finance Minister Nate Horner boasted ah that this budget represents the most funding for K-12 education ever in Alberta's history.
00:02:23
Speaker
And I was hoping ah you could outline for me, beyond what um Jim and i ah just said, why that claim is misleading.
00:02:37
Speaker
Well, that claim is misleading. on paper, the number is what it is, nominally. But we're also paying the most ever in our lives for things like groceries um and insurance.
00:02:55
Speaker
So that is always their talking point every year until you just dig one step deeper Like you say, inflation, they capped at 7% or used 7% in their fiscal plan.
00:03:11
Speaker
But we also know that Alberta is sitting near the bottom or at the bottom, depending on who you talk to. At least Stats Canada has has given us some data.
00:03:24
Speaker
It's not looking good for Alberta in our standings. to be near the bottom of the per student funding instructional rate across the nation, being the lowest.
00:03:36
Speaker
And this budget keeps us near the bottom. and Being the lowest is not something to boast about. So having said that, once you see just how many kids have come into our education system this year, Edmonton's growing by you know, estimated estimated at like one modular classroom a day or more, that's 20 to 25 kids.
00:04:02
Speaker
So at this rate of growth, ah yeah, spending the most is the minimal that they should be doing because we also have the most students and the most people and everything has is costing the most right now in our life.
Challenges in School Infrastructure
00:04:20
Speaker
ah So, yeah, in that context, that government is just pushing through an austerity budget once you parse out those numbers at a per capita rate You know what this talk of modular classrooms really reminds me of is my experience going to school here in the Klein years.
00:04:40
Speaker
Even if you were in one of the fancy classes, you spent a lot of your instructional time in a portable because there just were not enough room, enough rooms. There was not there was not enough space. There were too many kids.
00:04:51
Speaker
Are we just back to that again? We are right back to that. I also attended school here in the Klein years in many portables ah and in sort of these Frankenstein schools, right? Like they had the main structure that is already at capacity and we're still building new schools at capacity.
00:05:10
Speaker
Then we have to, you know, jam on these these modular portables that are supposed to be, don't know, know there's there's some of them are temporary or some of them are are just, um You know, they're not well insulated or they don't have like great heating in the winter months.
00:05:31
Speaker
But but that becomes the standard. We become really normalized to just, oh, we're at capacity and we're just going to throw on these extra branches to the school.
00:05:44
Speaker
um That actually seems like the best case scenario, because then that neighborhood has a school. right? When we start talking about these growing neighborhoods, especially in the metro areas, they don't actually have buildings to start with for education. So they're driving ah an hour, 90 minutes one way to the closest quote unquote school.
00:06:08
Speaker
So I say we are back there, but in many ways it's worse because we have you know, we have better technology and and we know that, you know, schools need to be updated to reach certain standards. And yeah, to be back there 30 to four years later, but in many ways worse is what I said, sad. and your Ventilation. our time there ah Ventilation is a standard that comes to mind that we didn't really think about in the Klein years.
00:06:37
Speaker
No, and we had these old boilers. We had those old boilers. Waverly School had one explode a couple weeks ago. So yeah, when we're still using the infrastructure from the Klein years, that makes it that much worse, right? None of that was updated in the past few decades.
Healthcare Budget Transparency Issues
00:06:54
Speaker
um I want to ask Chris, um this year's healthcare budget is, of course, complicated by the fact that AHS, Salber Health Services, is in the process of being dismantled into four separate entities.
00:07:10
Speaker
You've got primary care, acute care, continuing care, and addictions and mental health. Chris, um how is this transition reflected in last week's budget?
00:07:25
Speaker
Well, I would say what's reflected in the budget is offering the least transparency and clarity they possibly could in terms of what's happening and how that transition is going to look. What we know and what you've touched on already is, you know, in terms of population growth and inflation, we're not keeping up in healthcare care spending.
00:07:42
Speaker
But in terms of what it's actually going to cost us for this transition, know, the government had previously estimated $85 million. dollars i don't know if we'll ever know what they've actually spent on blowing up the healthcare care system and severances and new signage and new CEOs and all these different pieces.
00:07:58
Speaker
But it's also just not totally clear what is moving where, how they're accounting for different pieces of the system, because they haven't told us all of those details yet and it's still underway. I had a lot of trouble parsing the budget documents for our write-up with the AHS being cracked into these four separate organizations, plus a whole bunch of the the capital infrastructure stuff has been moved over to be handled by Alberta Infrastructure, another agency.
00:08:28
Speaker
So it's it's just really difficult to find all of the numbers to add up. Really like basic top line metrics that you would expect to have, like is total health care spending up or down?
00:08:41
Speaker
i imagine the total is is probably up in so in some way, but is per capita spending, like ah is more being spent or less being spent per person on health care this year?
00:08:52
Speaker
You're not going to be able to really easily tease that number out of the budget. You're a subject matter on this though subject matter expert on this stuff. You you probably know a little better than I do. Were there any ah big highlights that you were able to tease out on numbers side?
00:09:06
Speaker
Well, a couple of things. One, we know that they're not keeping up with the population and inflation, ah no matter how you add the numbers for health care. You know, and the government loves to brag about the population growth, but then not actually fund the services the population would need. You know, we know that we're thousands of beds short across the province and the population continues to boom, right?
00:09:30
Speaker
um But the other thing in the budget is, you know, they're presenting it in a way that's purposely, I would say, not transparent, that makes it hard to do direct comparisons year to year. But the other piece of that is because they focus so much of our public health care dollars on funding for profit contracts, we actually lose transparency there, too, because we don't really know what we're paying for. And, you know, that's something that's in the news a lot right now. And allegations around the surgical centers, but it's not just the surgical centers. They've been, you know, private recovery centers, private ambulance services, food, laundry, the Dynalife gong show that we've still never got a total for, know, as they do more and more of these private contracts, we lose transparency in terms of what we're paying for, what it's really costing us in the budget.
00:10:14
Speaker
Nursing agencies being another one that I know the progress report has followed closely. We don't get clear reporting in our fiscal documents anymore. So it's very hard to compare year to year what's happening, whether it's good, whether we're providing more services. We don't really know.
00:10:31
Speaker
Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that, Chris. um Of course, i was you know I was planning on bringing up ah agency nursing, but you have done that.
00:10:44
Speaker
um And of course, I know from speaking to you about this topic multiple times that it's the result of Alberta being in the midst of healthcare professional retention crisis.
00:11:00
Speaker
um What, if anything,
Privatization and Workforce Planning in Healthcare
00:11:03
Speaker
does Budget 2025 do to address this reality?
00:11:10
Speaker
I would say if you're a frontline healthcare worker looking at the budget, there's nothing there for you to really give you hope or to see a plan. You know, heading into the budget, we were talking a lot about access to healthcare because that's what we hear from Albertans, they're worried about accessing the care they need when they need it.
00:11:26
Speaker
And we were calling for a plan for capacity and workforce, something we've been calling for for years. And there's nothing in the budget about workforce planning. There's nothing in the budget about retention, let alone looking to a strategy of recruitment, training spaces.
00:11:40
Speaker
you There's nothing there really to give healthcare care workers some hope that there's going to be an end in sight to the staffing crisis that they find themselves in. That wasn't a priority in the budget. It wasn't even really mentioned throughout the budget or the budget speech that this is even an issue in healthcare. care And it is the issue in healthcare. So the government's not even acknowledging the problem in front of them.
00:12:00
Speaker
Something that I saw in the health section that I think characterizes this whole thing pretty well is when they talk about the issue of access to ambulances and access to emergency response services.
00:12:14
Speaker
I mean, there is a section in the strategic plan talking about this stuff, and it does...
00:12:23
Speaker
stress that the government is following recommendations that they got from the Alberta Emergency Medical Services Provincial Advisory Committee final report.
00:12:33
Speaker
So ah saw that in there. And so I looked that report up and I went and I looked at what the the recommendations of that report were. That report broadly recommended fixing salary and working conditions for ah the workers who work in an emergency response, that that that was the main thing that the province needed to take care of to fix the staffing issue.
00:12:57
Speaker
ah That is not what the budget commits to. The budget commits to $60 million dollars more in upgrading the fleet, which is to say like purchasing ambulances.
00:13:11
Speaker
And the province may have been short ambulances, but that was not what the the advisory committee report actually recommended.
00:13:21
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And that's been the pattern with this government. You know, an ambulance is just a vehicle unless you actually have people to to work in it and provide the service. And they often ignore the recommendations about the workforce in reports and instead focus on capital and on private contracts.
00:13:37
Speaker
The same is true for the Auditor General reports on long-term care, where they've very clearly and thoroughly stated that the real issue of long-term care is staffing and that if the government doesn't address the workforce issues, they won't be able to fix the issues in the system.
00:13:51
Speaker
But we see no action on that. We actually saw them roll back regulations on minimum hours of care. So it's always about creating a market for private entities to make more profit, ignoring the actual issues in terms of the workforce and the service that's being provided.
00:14:06
Speaker
And that's happened over and over. Another example is the Calgary Cancer Centre. We built this nice, giant new building that could be world-class cancer centre helping with our cancer wait times, but there's no funding to put more workers in it to actually provide the cancer care. So we've built a giant building that's not fully operational because the government isn't funding the staff and the skilled healthcare care professionals. We would need to actually provide care inside the building.
Controversy in Healthcare Funding
00:14:32
Speaker
Yeah, that's my read too. Looking at the capital stuff, it didn't really look like the province going super austere on the capital side, on the building stuff side.
00:14:43
Speaker
I don't have maybe as much context for for the numbers as you do. you know when i When I see 6 million versus 60 million versus 600 million on a capital project, don't Those numbers kind of don't mean anything to me. I have no context.
00:14:58
Speaker
So maybe you could tell us if capital spending is is actually getting improved or or or not. But it it does seem, yeah, that the Smith administration is very open to buying buildings.
00:15:12
Speaker
It is just not very open to hiring people to work in them. Yeah, and they're they're also not open to the buildings the way we need. You know, the Alberta Health's own memos, internal memos that got leaked a couple years ago, showed that we were over 500 beds short in Edmonton and thousands across the province, and that it was getting worse as the population boomed.
00:15:32
Speaker
And then the response to that was to cancel the South Edmonton Hospital, you know, a facility that we already needed. years ago, just to keep up with where we should be with beds. You know, we haven't built a hospital in Edmonton since 1988, and the population has doubled.
00:15:46
Speaker
ah So we're not keeping up in that way. A lot of the things in the capital budget that we saw are small, you know, a few million dollars for a specific unit or project in a building. The only major capital project in the public health care system is the Red Deer Hospital, where the health minister's riding is, is still moving ahead.
00:16:03
Speaker
But a lot of the big numbers in the capital budget are looking at the you know, 200 million or so dollars for those compulsory treatment centers, whatever they call them, but the forced treatment facilities that they're talking about building prisons, the prisons, the prisons that they're going to put Albertans in.
00:16:23
Speaker
Exactly. And, you know, lock people up and call it treatment. That's $200 million. dollars There's other recovery things that are getting funding and hundreds of millions of dollars for private surgical centers. So they're willing to spend money on both capital and on, you know,
00:16:37
Speaker
services if it's in a private for-profit center, but we're not seeing that investment in the hospitals or the beds or the workforce that we need in the public system. Well, we're going to be talking about these big sums of money going out the door, and especially if we're going to be talking about the Alberta surgical group, then we have to ask about the scandal stuff. Jeremy, I know you wanted to talk about this. I see it in the script.
00:17:00
Speaker
Yes, for sure. And then I promise, Wing, i will have some questions for you. um But ah Chris, um as I'm sure all of our listeners are aware, we've got a scandal...
Impact of Increased Private School Funding
00:17:15
Speaker
brewing right now based around allegations of political interference in providing exorbitant funding for chartered surgical facilities in Edmonton, Lethbridge, and Red Deer.
00:17:29
Speaker
ah What does this budget tell us about whether the scandal has dampened the government's support for chartered surgical facilities? It hasn't dampened their support at all. They're all in on that strategy. They're funding it with hundreds of millions of more dollars over the next couple of years. And when you listen to the premier and others talk about it, they still insist that it's all about reducing wait times for surgeries.
00:17:56
Speaker
It's their strategy. They're proud of it. And they're not going to be stopped from doing it, even though their own data shows it's actually hurting our surgical capacity. And it hasn't reduced wait times, because the real priority is just doing more and more of these contracts.
00:18:10
Speaker
ah But in the budget, that it's a huge budget item that's been growing year over year. And we know that in those facilities, we're paying you know two to three times as much, potentially more if these allegations are true, ah for the same surgeries as if we actually had our public hospitals operating. And we've seen that same story play out in Ontario and other jurisdictions that use these private surgical facilities.
00:18:33
Speaker
It costs us way more for procedures, and they're doing the simplest procedures in those facilities. so You know, if you're a fiscal conservative, this is the worst possible approach to tackling surgeries.
00:18:44
Speaker
If your priority is creating profits for certain individuals using public healthcare care dollars to do it, then this is a great strategy. I'm conflicted where I stand on the whole, the so-called corrupt care scandal issue. Because as as you say, Chris, a lot of these problems are just built in to privatizing things, right? You don't need to have some sort of mustache twirling villain at the center of it doing anything particularly wacky for the system to be just like scooping a lot of money out of out of the public system and for the private system to be scooping all of the the easy patients out of the private system.
00:19:24
Speaker
Yeah, either way, it's a bad deal for taxpayers. It's a bad deal for our public health care system. It's a bad way to use our public dollars on these kind of contracts. And we know that from experience jurisdiction to jurisdiction, including here.
00:19:38
Speaker
And we know that it's an ideological choice. It's not actually about wait times because you look at the Royal Alex Hospital here in Edmonton that hasn't been doing elective knee and hip surgery since the summer.
00:19:48
Speaker
There was a plan offered to the government to get those operating rooms going again, and they turned it down. They could have funded that plan. They chose not to because they would rather give money to these private surgical centers.
00:19:59
Speaker
Well, the public facility is full of unions, Chris. Exactly. Wing, um as I mentioned earlier, the education funding increase was less than the rate of inflation and population growth.
00:20:13
Speaker
But you know what was more than that rate? Funding for private schools and private daycares. Alberta provides up to 70% of operational funding for tuition charging private schools.
00:20:28
Speaker
So why then is it outpacing funding for the public system or the system writ large, rather, including the public system?
Consequences of Privatizing Education
00:20:40
Speaker
here So again, in terms of ah going along with this theme of keeping things unclear, they do put in the early childhood educator funding in the same line as private schools, which, you know, just keeps going up.
00:20:58
Speaker
So if you even take out the private daycare portion, the accredited private schools in Alberta charge a lot of tuition.
00:21:09
Speaker
So to answer your question, we're seeing the same theme, the disproportionate increase, and we calculated to be about 10 to 13%, depending on if you're looking at the budgeted from last year, or the forecast of how much will be spent in 2024 on private school subsidies.
00:21:29
Speaker
That's, that's way higher than what we're seeing in the 4.5 bump for public charter and Francophone schools. And That is keeping in line with this ideology of choice, ah quote unquote choice in education. And since Jason Kenney, which you you are an expert in ah that ideology of of diverting money, government money to private institutions, which can pick and choose their students. They don't serve a community. They don't serve a neighborhood catchment.
00:22:05
Speaker
ah Private and charter schools are are legally allowed to select who gets to go. Some of the charter schools even have IQ tests. So to us, that's discrimination, right? You are taking, and charter schools actually receive the full allotment, the 100% of the per student instructional rate and still charge other fees. They just don't call it tuition. They call it membership fees or, i don't know, uniform fees or go auto supportive fees.
00:22:37
Speaker
Access to the equestrian facility fees. ah Yeah, yeah. Any type of fee still can be levied against families, so they're not truly publicly accessible. Yeah,
00:22:49
Speaker
yeah so we just say, you know, that money should be more efficiently used for the 93% of students, over of them, go to public schools.
00:23:04
Speaker
um either in a public, separate, or Francophone school. And again, if you're fiscal conservative, why would you support topping up wealthy private schools and, you know, exclusive charter schools too, with dollars that are actually well spent and more monitored and more efficient in the public system?
00:23:28
Speaker
It just, it doesn't make sense fiscally, but ideologically, it makes great sense if you are painting the public system as less than, right? Or it's not catering to your niche interests. And it is market creation, right? The erosion that we're seeing through austerity budgets, such as this one and the previous ones, is clearly to create this need or or ah a manufacturer, um a need for alternatives, right?
00:23:58
Speaker
Because when you have complex needs kids not having their needs met in the public system because we don't have EAs that are paid well, we don't have enough therapists in the public system, we can't even get their testing um paid for. It's all out of pocket for parents of of children with complex needs.
00:24:16
Speaker
That's a market. you know What parent wouldn't remortgage their house to go to some some place that that can offer what should be offered as an essential service in our public system?
Labor Unrest in Education Sector
00:24:28
Speaker
So the market creation is alive and well in our education system through what we're seeing as this erosion, but it's coming to a head. um We are in a crisis right now of not just space, but of individual attention um within the classrooms. And of course, we have to mention labor.
00:24:47
Speaker
We are seeing in this province, you know, thousands and thousands of education support workers, the lowest paid in the education sector, who are you know,
00:24:58
Speaker
taking up their worker rights and saying no more, like they're not going to live on poverty wages and be martyrs anymore, um having three or four jobs because they see that, you know, most of the budget goes to salary, right? 80 to 90% of any school board funding envelope goes to hiring staff, just like in healthcare. If you don't have people working with the students, a school is just walls and windows and maybe ventilation if they have it.
00:25:27
Speaker
So we are seeing labor stripe right labor strife in this ah education sector right now for good reason. They are standing up and resisting the these cuts that are translating into poverty wages for frontline workers who need to be in schools with those students, like those complex needs students. And in Calgary, it's janitors.
00:25:48
Speaker
um So the schools don't function without them, and they need to be paid according to their value and their essential service. A source with the union told me, I don't know if it would if I should call it a source with the union, but someone who is striking anyway, told me that up in Fort Mac, they were sneaking custodial staff scabs in like under the cover of night to do to do the janitorial work.
00:26:15
Speaker
But when you talk about, you know, why are they engaging in these these privatization schemes? And when you talk about labor, I read something recently that kind of gave the game away. I don't know if this one crossed your desk wing, but it was ah an op-ed from a spokesperson for Cardis. Are you familiar with Cardis, the little nonprofit or charity, technically, that supports religious private schools primarily?
00:26:45
Speaker
and They saw say they're nonpartisan. hey they They say they're nonpartisan, but know hand hand in glove with the UCP, obviously. ah Catherine Cavanaugh with Cardis writes,
00:26:56
Speaker
A significant reason a strike leaves so many at Alberta students in limbo is that nearly 93% of them attend public schools. Consequently, when the single sector experiences a strike, the majority of students are affected.
00:27:09
Speaker
However, Alberta parents could regain control if they had access to a greater number of affordable learning options. Kind of given the way, the the whole game right there, you know, this this entire thing is is an effort to undercut the workers and the unions.
00:27:26
Speaker
And how long it's gone for, right? The fact that basically these the students who rely on these EAs are being ignored. um There were, you know, the ministerial orders that were requested saying the complex needs students can just stay home this whole time. And then there was that injunction.
00:27:45
Speaker
The court said that was discrimination. Just sacrifice them. They don't need education. Oh, and that's very much the lens. The lens of the actual playbook, which predicates on only those with privileges can access these private and charter facilities, or they have you know two parents that are very involved.
00:28:07
Speaker
Right. and And that's tied very much to the socioeconomic status. When you have parents that can drive you to some corner of Calgary every day to access, you know, the charter hub.
00:28:19
Speaker
ah That is really, for me, this is about class warfare, right? This is about stratifying students along the lines of finance. And it is tied to race, you know, it's tied to um ability,
00:28:34
Speaker
right? You have students who are neurodivergent that do need more resources to be educated. They do need attention and they deserve through, you know, their, their human rights to have all the accommodations, but because the system publicly, the public system is so underfunded, it's just dividing students based on who has and who doesn't have, right? And it's creating winners and losers out of kids and, and,
00:29:02
Speaker
i I don't like the line that's like, budgets are just investments for the future. Yeah, the economic approach is important, but students are struggling today, right? There are students right now, presently, as we speak, that are having so many different angles of of hardship and obstacles.
00:29:23
Speaker
And it's really ah about government just pretending they don't exist, right?
Retention Issues in Public Services
00:29:28
Speaker
Or these struggles can be can be glossed over even when we are seeing labor action being taken up by thousands of workers that see what's happening to these kids in these classrooms, um not getting what they need from a public system by design to to create more need, like Carter says, or alternatives, but not everyone can access those.
00:29:52
Speaker
so I wanted to ask you, Wing, because an argument charter school proponents make in defense of charter schools is that, well, yeah, charter schools can turn away students, but so can some public schools, right? like so like Especially the collegiate schools, for example, and other academies that are specifically focused on a particular area, um art schools, for example.
00:30:24
Speaker
And I was wondering how you respond to that. Yeah, the alternative schooling or the alternative programs of choice in Edmonton really birthed out of competition with these private and charter schools. And ah that is also one form of streaming, right? That is one form of exclusion within the public system.
00:30:49
Speaker
And the difference, though, is that within the system, that child that's turned away from the program still has a spot. ah the public system, the division is still ah beholden to find them a place, which, you know, maybe not in that certain program, but they can still have access to education, say in another program or in another school within that division.
00:31:16
Speaker
But each charter authority is their own quote unquote division, right? They can operate several campuses um and they are they are privately governed. And so, That argument of, yeah, sure, public schools in their alternative programming can mimic that same, you know, the exclusionary, and that is also a problem. But that's burst out of the bigger ideology of competition because the public system is trying to retain students ah for funding purposes as well.
00:31:49
Speaker
So I think the open boundaries in Edmonton were created as a result of, you know, back in the 80s and 90s when it was all about, you know, the voucher system or like testing our kids to to fix our public schools.
00:32:05
Speaker
it It is deepening within the system too, right? The privatization agenda is not just outside. it's It's in the public system through the programs of choice, but also through like private delivery within public schools, like third party contractors coming and doing in-school field trips,
00:32:26
Speaker
ah to offload some of the work from the teachers, you know, but also fundraising and volunteering. That is all, in our view, forms of of these privatization, i guess, um branching into our public system ah in situ.
00:32:45
Speaker
And it's all part of that playbook, right? Of, well, the need from austerity, the need is created because of scarcity. And so let's bring in more private actors or let's bring in like a corporate sponsor to pay for these Chromebooks, um right? Like Apple schools or whatnot in the States or Amazon wait wishlists.
00:33:05
Speaker
That's where we're at in sort of this super individualistic point in time, right? Our our moment right now is it's not just getting students out of the system and taking that money with them, but it's also within our system trying to compete and have some sort of edge, right? That market edge of education being appealing ah to to certain niche markets.
00:33:32
Speaker
Right. And I wanted to ask um now, going back to the public system, um of course, while the budget was ah being delivered in the legislative assembly, there was a protest outside of striking educational assistance.
Privatization of Charter Schools
00:33:52
Speaker
Now, the government has a set aside a certain amount of money in the budget that isn't strictly the higher EAs, but could go towards EAs.
00:34:03
Speaker
So you tell me a bit about um that funding that's being offered to EAs and maybe some unanswered questions that you have about it? What I read from that plot that you mentioned, ah the finance minister said it's not for workers asking for exceptional raises.
00:34:24
Speaker
It's for personnel at large. So that can be interpreted as ah anything really, because we are so short in so many ah staffing areas.
00:34:37
Speaker
But particularly you can see how it's not in the sphere, it's not being offered in the spirit of support. It's not being offered to say, we see the struggles that are being highlighted by the striking education workers And that pot can be spread over many school boards, right? So I don't think that offering was a particular olive branch in any in any case.
00:35:06
Speaker
um They also say that they're not part of the bargaining process. And I need to say that's not true. What we're hearing is they there is a government official or representation representative at the bargaining tables And again, we know there's wage caps being enforced by the province.
00:35:26
Speaker
So what we're going to see is, you know, how are the school boards going to be able to use, first of all, the budget envelopes in the next few weeks as school boards look at what's being given to them.
00:35:40
Speaker
Just like last year, we saw a lot of layoffs, right? That's what it comes down to is like the nominal number is one thing, but once it becomes ah divided with between the 61 to 63,
00:35:51
Speaker
ah public school boards, it will translate into more layoffs ah just through the rising cost of of everything, right? It's not going to cover what we need in terms of hiring.
00:36:05
Speaker
So they had an opportunity, the government did have an opportunity to use the growing sentiment and support, I believe, for the striking workers to encapsulate a much more targeted ah funding line for you know, the support workers, but that's not what it was. It was a, just a grand ah ah blanket statement of we're going to do something about personnel, but ah many questions remain.
00:36:32
Speaker
What is their plan, right? How are you going to retain recruit and how are you going to end these strikes? Yeah. I mean, the the way you put it, um you know, it really does mirror, I think the crisis facing healthcare workers too.
00:36:49
Speaker
Right. Yeah. In terms of that, there's a problem retaining in recruiting um employees um who want to work in existing work environments for the pay that they're being offered to do so.
00:37:06
Speaker
And um of course, also in both cases, you have this offloading um of a public service increasingly on to private actors.
00:37:20
Speaker
um um one One last thing ah to ask you, Wing, and then we'll bring Chris back into the conversation, who's been waiting very patiently,
00:37:32
Speaker
um is wanted to ask about, um we were talking about charter schools before, and traditionally, since they were introduced in 1994, I believe it was, um they've received Equal operational funding per student as public Francophone in separate schools, but not capital funding.
00:37:56
Speaker
ah Premier Smith changed that after coming to power. And this year's budget includes $66 million dollars in capital funding specifically ah for charter as well as specialized collegiate schools, which can be charter schools.
00:38:13
Speaker
They can also be public Francophone and separate. um Wing, what what does this tell us about this encroachment of private interests on the public education system?
00:38:31
Speaker
Well, it indicates to me that the charter schools have a pretty powerful lobby if they are seeing, for the first time, outright infrastructure funding. Now, remember, charter schools are governed and managed by private enterprise.
00:38:49
Speaker
So who's going to own those buildings? That's the big question. At the end of the day, that's public money going to build, you know, the brick and mortar of a charter school, citing that it's a public, I guess, institution, but only because they don't charge specifically named tuition.
00:39:12
Speaker
But everything else about a charter school is private. Even, you know, there's no trustees that are elected. It's like a board of directors, can be parents, can be, you know, someone from the foundation that has opened this charter school.
00:39:27
Speaker
So really it comes down to ownership and also accountability for this money. it's Is it going to pad some real estate holding fund or for corporations?
00:39:41
Speaker
Or how how does the public win back that value or get back that value that's being invested in the infrastructure of charter schools? Again, there's no transparency.
00:39:52
Speaker
you know there's no There's no open even discussion of of what needs to be reported back as the return on the investment for a charter authority to be not only getting full instructional funding,
00:40:11
Speaker
grants, but now they're buildings. And at the end of the day, i think you and I both know the money is always in the land, right? Like that's how people become rich is when you own land and growing and developing areas.
00:40:27
Speaker
And or up till now, many charter authorities rented from the public system for ah dollar. And then they some charter schools have got a hub bought for them in Calgary.
00:40:40
Speaker
ah from the U of C, but funded by the government. So it's just this continuing siphoning and bleeding of public dollars that are not going into the system that needs it, but it's going into private hands and probably being invested ah for private profit and private gain.
Government Control and Privatization Concerns
00:41:00
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like the only way the province or society at large is going to get value out of those investments is if we expropriate it all and and turn it into Arby's or something.
00:41:11
Speaker
Agreed.
00:41:14
Speaker
Chris, I've got a couple of specific questions about health, if you still have a little time. I know we're we're running a little long. Sure And can I comment on the capital thing or is that one of your questions? Oh, I'll allow it.
00:41:25
Speaker
Go ahead. Oh, great. um Well, one of the things we saw in the provincial budget on page 13 is the reference to the government taking over the title to all of the hospitals and land under Alberta Health Services will now be held under Alberta Infrastructure, which is part of why we're seeing those new capital projects listed under Alberta Infrastructure instead of where they used to be listed.
00:41:48
Speaker
And the Premier said very explicit things about this when asked about it being like if public dollars are paying for it, the public should own it through the government, not through agency.
00:41:58
Speaker
So we're taking the titles. And we're very worried that it's going to lead to escalation of privatization of hospital services. She talked about by owning the facilities, they could choose the operator and choose what the infrastructure used for more easily.
00:42:15
Speaker
you know, a lot of talk of choice. And while talking about that, she also mentioned that all of the new schools that they build for school boards they're going to retain the title and rent them back to the school boards for a dollar so they can control what happens in that building. So it's the same strategy, but they want to control the infrastructure so they can decide who gets to use it for what instead of having school boards or agencies control it.
00:42:40
Speaker
I'm really a little skeptical that those titles are going to remain in the government's hands long term, you know? Oh, yeah, they can sell them off. seems like it's going to be a lot easier for them to transfer ownership if they hold it directly.
00:42:52
Speaker
yeah yeah Yeah, there's no barriers to them selling things off to whoever they want for whatever amount they want. Well, folks, if you found that discussion of capital budgets a little dry, get ready, because now we're going to talk about registered nurse scope expansion.
00:43:08
Speaker
Chris, there's um there's a big section in the ah health strategy section of the the budget documents that talks about the government's plan to ease the pressure on family doctors, general practitioners, you know walk-in clinics, that sort of thing, by expanding scope of practice for registered nurses so that registered nurses can take on more of those tasks.
00:43:34
Speaker
But at the same time, the budget document notes that we're like super short on registered nurses. So what's going on here? Is is this good or bad? is this robbing Peter to pay Paul? What do you what do you think of this scope expansion stuff?
00:43:49
Speaker
And this is a classic example of the government not actually doing the work of workforce planning. mapping out who we have, where they are, and then what we need to provide services, and instead making one-off announcements where they don't think through the consequences. And we saw the same thing with the announcement on nurse practitioners being able to open their own clinic separate from a family doctor to provide primary care. And Of course, we should be using nurse practitioners to their full scope, but there was no associated plan to train them to more of them. There was no plan for recruitment.
00:44:21
Speaker
So what's happening is we're pulling nurse practitioners out of their current jobs to open clinics to provide primary care. So, you know, impacting hospital services and elsewhere, because we didn't actually have a plan for more nurse practitioners.
00:44:34
Speaker
We're just allowing them to do different duties under their scope. we We do have a plan for more nurse practitioners though, Chris. We just hire more temps through the agencies. Yes, the nursing agencies, which is also the plan for registered nurses.
00:44:47
Speaker
um So it's all, you know, not thinking this through. In terms of primary care, we should be looking at team-based clinics and care that would help rather than carving each practice like pharmacists and nurses off to be a separate thing.
00:45:00
Speaker
um But it really, this feels like them trying to figure out what to do about emergency room closures. you know, that are happening all over the province, mostly in rural communities, mostly in their UCP held ridings that, you know, if we tweak the scope of practice and we have some virtual care doctor option, maybe we can keep those things open.
00:45:19
Speaker
But it's not actually looking at the workforce problem, the retention problem, you know, and the fact that people do need training. you know You can have a scope of practice, but you need experience and training and and those things as well. So you know it's a one-off thing that they're kind of pitching as a solution, which is often how they frame things. We're going to do this one thing and it'll fix all of the issues rather than having a real plan for things.
00:45:41
Speaker
They've said the same about nurse practitioner clinics. They said the same about allowing pharmacists to do more work that It was going to free up all this room and suddenly everyone would have access to primary care and and the doctors they need. And that's not going to happen.
00:45:54
Speaker
What we actually need is a strategy to retain folks and then have a plan for the workforce.
Calls for Health Minister's Resignation
00:46:00
Speaker
mean, that sounds correct to me. Yeah. Okay. Chris, i I've got one last health question for you and it's, I suppose it's kind of one of the big ones. I know you're more of a policy guy than a, uh,
00:46:14
Speaker
power in politics guy. But how cooked is Adriana Lagrange? how How much longer is this person going to be our health minister? Well, they seem determined to protect her through all of this.
00:46:26
Speaker
You know, we've called for her to resign and for a full public inquiry over the very serious allegations from the former CEO, the former CEO that they appointed to the role and then fired a year into her term.
00:46:38
Speaker
You know, it's all very serious. And if you were a government that feels like you've done nothing wrong, and you want to show that you're serious about transparency and accountability and ensuring public dollars are well spent, you would see the minister step aside and you would see a full public inquiry.
00:46:55
Speaker
That's not what we're seeing. And the calls for her to resign, I think, are going to keep coming and coming. And at some point, the government will have to decide if they're going to keep the health minister in her position or if they're going to try to make this go away by moving her out of the position. But I don't think this scandal is going to go away and people are going to keep demanding answers. So we'll see if the minister continues to wear that or if someone else gets put in her place.
Conclusion and Call to Action
00:47:17
Speaker
Thank you so much for joining us, Wing and Chris. It's always good to hear your insight in your own specific fields of expertise on the erosion of Alberta's ah public systems.
00:47:36
Speaker
And we'll have to catch up with you soon to as um privatization and scandal accelerates. And folks, ah for those of you listening at home, if you want to hear more from these two these two groups, Friends of Medicare and Support Our Students, Alberta, I recommend that you follow them both on their social media and possibly even get on their mailing lists.
00:48:03
Speaker
These two organizations are prolific, prolific, very active and good actors. We think pretty highly of them around these parts. If you like the work we do here at the progress report, ah please feel free to sign up as a paid subscriber on our website.
00:48:22
Speaker
And if you don't want to provide your credit card info to us, just shoot us an email. And we'd love to have you as a paid subscriber until next time. ah Stay safe out there, folks.
00:48:40
Speaker
Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Good to chat with you.