Phendrana Drifts

Thanks to a friend, I got an invite to the Alberta Teachers’ Association’s political engagement forum, and wow, does the ATA know how to make politics relatively fun (well, fun for people only hip deep in politics, instead of well past the deep end like this author who finds even bad politics still pretty good). Good engaging speakers, a healthy mix of policy, gossip and networking, and of course, politicians looking to talk to teachers. Some notes:

Frank Bruesker, Liberal MLA and now President of the ATA, has joined the PC party but he wanted in on the most democratic leadership process available – the fact that the PC party is electing a Premier also helps. It is further shocking because as far as Liberal MLA’s go, Frank is one of the least liked by the current leadership of the PC party for his attacks on the Premier. But beyond that, let me assure you Frank is a good guy.
Robert “Bob” Cantwell is crazy. Dr. Morton is a nanny-state loving socialist in comparison. My favourite quote: “Our schools today are nothing more than houses of debauchery and drugs.”
Everybody wants to do something about the unfunded liability in teachers’ pensions. As Mark Norris said, it is a complex issue and I can’t do the issue justice here. The short end of it is that during the belt-tightening of the 1990's Alberta's teachers assumed responsibility for a third of their pension liability (the future cost of providing pensions to retired teachers). Now that liability is $6.7 billion, the teacher's portion being $2.2 billion. That's a lot of cash - both for the government and 35,000 teachers. The difficult position is that upon becoming an Alberta teacher you instantly become responsible for your own portion, or $62,857. And it's growing. Oberg will pay it, but only if teachers agree to only a 6% per year pay increase for 10 years, and no strikes. Stelmach wants to negotiate, and Hancock wants to assume responsibility for it. Dinning will reopen the discussion and Norris, well as I said he called it a complex issue.
All of the candidates present (Dr. Morton, Vic Doerksen and Gary McPherson were MIA) except Cantwell agreed to some degree that education funding was too low. I agree.
Mark Norris was on the front of the Edmonton Sun on Saturday kissing Phil Klein on the forehead. That same day he announced to the ATA that he had a cold. I hope Phil is ok, and doesn't catch Mark's cold.
Hancock takes the medal for best dig, telling Dinning "You weren't there for the heavy lifting but you had time to cut and run" - a reference to Dinning's departure from government when he cut our spending and then left for the private sector. Runner-up was Oberg with his comment that "Everybody on this panel, well almost everybody [pointing at Cantwell] wants the best public education system in the world here in Alberta."
Teachers still don't like Dr. Oberg.

Good times. I thought it was interesting how engaged all of the candidates (minus Cantwell) were on education. All nodded when Hancock suggested education was the key to the important decisions we have to make as a province. Hopefully this means the candidate with the best education policy wins.

Also, don't forget Frank Bruseker's advice - get involved. With a one member, one vote system the PC party is the best vehicle to have your voice heard this year. Test drive a Premier.

1 Comments:

At 8:31 PM, Kevin Pizzey said…

It was good to see you there Duncan. You probably noticed that the Hancock booth outside was the only one busy sellling memberships at break time. Just one correction. Dr. Oberg was talking about tieing any wage increase to the Average wage Index which for this year is above 5 %.

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