Hey! Never mind defunding the police. What about defunding public education? Complaining about a call by Public Interest Alberta to phase out funding for independent schools, Danielle Smith once asked: “How about we go the other way? Candidate Daniel Smith not so long ago during the time she worked as
Continue readingTag: Alberta Teachers Association
Alberta Politics: Motion to debate mediator’s recommended contract sets stage for confrontation at Alberta Teachers Association meeting today
Delegates to the Alberta Teachers Association annual meeting in Calgary who agree with three former ATA presidents that a mediator’s recommended contract would be “wholly inadequate” hope to get a motion on the agenda this morning to have the assembly consider and debate the recommended settlement. ATA President Jason Schilling
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Three former Alberta Teachers Association presidents urge teachers to reject mediator’s recommended contract
Three former presidents of the Alberta Teachers Association have written a strongly worded open letter to Alberta public, Catholic and francophone schoolteachers throughout the province urging them to reject an “unacceptable” recommended settlement by a mediator in their current round of contract negotiations. Former ATA president Frank Bruseker, at right,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Will students learn ‘financial literacy’ or corporate propaganda from Alberta’s $5M curriculum ‘investment’?
There’s nothing wrong with a little financial education, but is that what Alberta students will be getting from the grade school “financial literacy” program Alberta Education Minister Adriana LaGrange announced at a news conference yesterday? Alberta Teachers Association President Jason Schilling (Photo: David J. Climenhaga). Ms. LaGrange said the United
Continue readingAlberta Politics: ATA calls UCP bill to strip it of disciplinary role ‘vindictive attack’ and ‘sad effort’ to distract from premier’s failures
The Alberta Teachers Association yesterday accused the Kenney Government of planning “a massive power grab” with Bill 15, legislation to strip the association of its power to discipline members and replace it with a politicized process run by a government-appointed commissioner. The bill isn’t what’s best for students or education,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Kenney Government backs off plan to immediately implement widely condemned K-6 curriculum draft
Alberta Education Minister Adriana LaGrange yesterday executed a reluctant partial climbdown from Alberta’s controversial draft kindergarten-to-Grade-6 curriculum, announcing the Kenney Government will delay implementation of changes to how four subjects are taught in elementary schools. Educators mostly cautiously praised the announcement as a step in the right direction. Alberta Teachers
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Teachers overwhelmingly reject Alberta’s draft K-6 curriculum, but that’s unlikely to change Jason Kenney’s mind
It won’t come as a shock to anyone in Alberta that the Kenney Government’s draft Kindergarten-to-Grade-6 curriculum is a dangerous and ideologically motivated dud, or that most professional teachers despise it. Still, kudos to the Alberta Teachers Association for actually going to the trouble of commissioning an exhaustive professional review
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Kenney Government suddenly backs away from long-brewing big battles with nurses and teachers
Alberta’s United Conservative Party Government has suddenly retreated from controversial battles with nurses and teachers that were a priority for Premier Jason Kenney and his inner circle almost since their election in the spring on 2019. Over the Labour Day weekend, a representative of the Alberta Health Services bargaining committee
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Teachers give Education Minister Adriana LaGrange a 99% non-confidence vote – but it’s Jason Kenney who’s driving the school bus
Ninety-nine per cent of the delegates to the Alberta Teachers Association’s virtual annual representative assembly voted Sunday to affirm a motion of non-confidence in Education Minister Adriana LaGrange. There’s no question that as education minister Ms. LaGrange has possessed a sort of reverse Midas touch – virtually every policy the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Jason Kenney edges closer to blaming Albertans for the province’s COVID-19 predicament
Considering his performance at yesterday’s COVID-19 briefing, it seems Alberta Premier Jason Kenney is working himself up to a look-in-the-mirror moment. In Canadian politics, that’s not something that involves looking in the mirror and contemplating the mistakes you’ve made to get yourself into a mess. The late Jim Prentice, Progressive
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Recall bill’s bar is so high, no MLA needs to lose sleep, but municipal provisions of Bill 52 have potential for mischief
Laws that let voters recall representatives with whom they’ve grown dissatisfied have an undeniable appeal, even as they threaten to unleash constitutional mayhem and make some jurisdictions all but ungovernable. So it was one thing for Jason Kenney to promise to implement this hardy perennial of Alberta’s aspirational politics when
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The world takes aim at fossil fuels while Alberta, Canada, takes aim at Bigfoot cartoon*
History repeats itself, Karl Marx famously observed, first as tragedy, second as farce. Well, not always. Alberta’s notorious Energy War Room, fortunately, seems to have skipped the tragedy phase and moved directly to farce. A screengrab of the Alberta Energy War Room’s Netflix attack site (Image: Canadian Energy Centre Ltd.).
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Teachers are bound to be furious about UCP’s Christmas coup to consolidate control over their pensions
If the Kenney Government’s Christmas Eve coup to consolidate control over $18 billion in Alberta Teachers Retirement Fund assets shows anything, it’s that the United Conservative Party’s investment strategy is as good as its political strategy! Or maybe we should put that the other way: that the government’s political strategy
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Handpicked UCP advisors call for mention of residential schools to be erased from primary grades’ social studies curriculum
A recommendation by Alberta Premier Jason Kenney’s handpicked curriculum advisors to strip all mention of residential schools from the province’s Kindergarten-to-Grade 4 curriculum “will perpetuate systemic racism through whitewashing,” says Melissa Purcell, the Alberta Teachers Association’s staff officer for Indigenous education. “The Indian Residential School system was created to erase
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Order saying Alberta schools won’t have to enforce social distancing lands like a sucker punch
Whoever it was in the Alberta Government that decided it would be a good idea to risk springing the news on the public that COVID-19 social distancing rules won’t apply to classrooms just hours before schools reopen was seriously mistaken. The United Conservative Party government’s “near-normal” back-to-school scheme was already
Continue readingThe Daveberta Podcast: Episode 59: The Fiscal Reckoning and Alberta’s 70-year old Revenue Problems
After a very eventful summer in Alberta politics, Dave and Adam tackle big questions about Alberta’s fiscal challenges (and revenue problems) and Premier Jason Kenney’s promised ” fiscal reckoning,” the mini-cabinet shuffle, Erin O’Toole’s win in the Conservative Party of Canada leadership race, what a return to school during a
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Alberta Teachers Need to Consider Strike Action
In Alberta our current government is off the rails. They are enacting austerity programs that are targeting the public sectors of our society during a pandemic. The quarrel with Alberta doctors over their working conditions during this exceptional time exemplifies the negligence of this UCP government. This same radical right
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Auguries aren’t auspicious for September amid UCP’s rush to reopen Alberta schools
Alberta has been relatively lucky up to now with the impact of the global coronavirus epidemic on its population. Premier Jason Kenney and his United Conservative Party Government are ready to bet your life that good luck will continue. Alberta Premier Jason Kenney (Photo: David J. Climenhaga). Desperate to relaunch
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Already reeling from bad news, Alberta learns its Crown investment corporation just lost $4 billion on a bad bet
Albertans reeling from the shock of a week that’s included oil prices so low you have to pay people to haul the stuff away and a mishandled COVID-19 outbreak at a slaughterhouse south of Calgary that sent infection rates soaring were rattled again yesterday by news the province’s Crown-owned money-management
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Kenney to Edmonton: Drop dead!
When the New York Daily News published its famous FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD headline on Oct. 30, 1975, all president Gerald Ford had done was deny a federal bailout to Gotham, which was nearly bankrupt. It shows the power of a great headline that Oct. 29, the day President
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