Canadá: Alberta parents, teachers protest potential education cuts

Canadá: Alberta parents, teachers protest potential education cuts

Parents, teachers, students and their allies marched to MLA offices in Spruce Grove and Stony Plain Saturday to protest potential cuts to education funding next year.

The protests were part of the Stop the Cuts campaign organized by Alberta teachers, school boards and the school councils.

The campaign, which included TV, radio and print ads, urges the government not to cut $300 million from the education budget.

“We want the government to know we won’t be happy if they do this,” said Brenda Canfield, who came to the Spruce Grove rally with her nine-year-old daughter Donna.

Canfield, like other parents and educators at the rallies, said she worries about larger class sizes, cuts to special education programs and fewer teachers.

In total more than 85 people, including kids, marched in the two communities.

Education Minister Dave Hancock has so far received around 10,000 e-mails through the campaign’s website. Hancock isn’t happy with the $500,000 campaign, whose ads show teachers and computers being erased from the classroom.

Earlier this week, Hancock told the Alberta School Boards Association that it amounts to fearmongering and adds little to the debate over how best to educate Alberta schoolchildren.

After years of surpluses, the provincial government is projecting a $4.4 billion deficit this year and potentially a much larger one next year.

Hancock said rallies and e-mails won’t change that reality.

“No amount of debate, argument, fearmongering or name calling is going to change the fiscal challenges we face in the province because of a global recession and a collapse of energy prices,” he said. “We can finger-point and blame, we can hark back to previous decades, but none of those things will put another nickel into the provincial coffers.”

Hancock hasn’t said what next year’s school budget will look like, but suggested the $300 million figure used by the ATA and others is greatly exaggerated.

Kerry Hardy, a parent who attended the Stony Plain rally with his three boys, said he appreciates the financial situation the government is in. But that doesn’t mean the answer is massive cuts.

“I don’t want to see the floodgates open,” Hardy said.

Carol Henderson, the president of the Alberta Teachers’ Federation said the government’s resource roller-coaster finances aren’t an excuse for cuts.

“You don’t just invest in education when the price of oil and gas is high,” Henderson said. “It’s not that kind of investment.”

The government is currently finalizing its budget for next year. They have pledged to pass it in the legislature by the end of March.

Edmonton Journal, 29/11/09