Last week, Environics Research published a survey they’d done for the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE).
The results show that most people, including conservative Albertans, think there needs to be a change in education funding.
Only a quarter of UCP voters thought that education workers are paid enough. Sixty seven percent of UCP voters agreed that if education workers’ salaries stay where they are, the system won’t have enough staff and students will suffer.
Fifty three percent of UCP voters said that if education workers in their area went on strike, they’d take the strikers’ side over that of the government.
“Premier Smith and her ministers should pay attention,” said CUPE Alberta President Rory Gill in a press release. “Their own supporters are worried about the state of education, and the lack of resources being put into classrooms.”
Education workers have been on strike for six weeks now. All they’re asking for is that their salaries be higher than the current average of $34,500 per year.
For now, it seems the only movement being made is backward. On February 7, the CBC reported that Mandy Lamoureux, who is negotiating on behalf of strikers in Edmonton, walked away from the negotiation table because the offer was so bad.
When did things get so bad?
At the start of the strike, Finance Minister Nate Horner claimed that education workers only work part-time, so they shouldn’t complain about their pay.
Since the start of the strike, education workers and people who support their cause have written letters to their MLAs. They’ve made calls. They’ve gone on the news to voice their troubles. They’ve been ignored.
The past six weeks have brought the government’s poor treatment of education workers into the public eye.
But this story doesn’t start six weeks ago.
According to Lou Arab, Communications Representative with the CUPE, the story starts as early as 2014.
In 2013, Alberta actually spent a bit more than most provinces on students’ education – $13,146 per student per year. At that time, the only provinces who spent more were Saskatchewan and New Brunswick.
But then, the funding stalled. For years.
All in all, when you adjust for inflation, Alberta actually lowered education spending by 11.6 percent between 2013 and 2021.
“The government was in deficit and was bleeding poverty,” Arab told TheRockies.Life. It claimed there simply wasn’t enough money to raise education workers’ salaries.
Still, the government put very little effort into finding money to balance the budget and increase education workers’ wages.
In the past twenty years, they lowered the amount that big businesses have to pay into the pool of public funds. In 2000, corporate income tax was 20 percent. As of 2020, that number has gone down to 8 percent.
Do rich people like Daryl Katz and big businesses like Superstore really need all that money?
With taxes as they are, the super rich stay super rich.
Our educational support workers, who are helping to raise our children, stay poor.
Writing on the Wall
The stats show just how few people support the government’s choices. It’s not just the striking workers that want the government to put more money into education. It’s not just leftist wingnuts. It’s well over half the province.
It makes sense. People love their kids. People want their kids to have a good education. They want their kids to be safe at school, and for their kids to have the support they need to learn properly.
Perhaps when the UCP realizes just how much the public is against their actions, they’ll change their stance and take the negotiations more seriously.
