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ATA President Carol Henderson speaks to ARA delegates.
Recent battles and challenges highlighted in speech to ARA
Raymond Gariépy
ATA News Staff
Don’t let Carol Henderson’s elementary-school-teacher demeanour fool you. Behind her poised exterior resides a wicked and disarming sense of humour and a focused commitment to do whatever it takes for public education and teachers.
The neophyte president’s speech to ARA delegates was marked by humorous anecdotes told at the expense of her ATA colleagues and by her unwavering commitment to lead teachers and their Association through the year ahead—a year that will likely test the resolve of teachers.
Henderson recapped the events of the past 12 months, citing Bill 44, H1N1 and the Average Alberta Weekly Earnings (AAWE) as issues attracting teachers’ attention. “In late August, the [education] minister announced that he would not honour the Average Alberta Weekly Earnings of 5.99 per cent. ... We had to grieve this to maintain the integrity of the collective agreement. ... We make no apologies for this increase; it merely reflects the annual increase in AAWE and tracks the increase in earnings previously received by Albertans. What could be more fair or reasonable than that?” Henderson said.
She acknowledged that the province has encountered financial difficulties as fallout from the worldwide financial crisis and declining natural gas prices. “All these developments have had a profound impact on the revenues of the province, and have brought to the forefront structural problems in the way the government has chosen to manage its finances over the last two decades.”
She lambasted the government for making political choices that have only exacerbated the current fiscal situation. “This government chose to keep income and corporate tax rates at unsustainably low levels throughout the boom period. It chose to reduce education tax rates. It chose to forego $180 million in revenues when the increase in liquor taxes was cancelled,” she said. As well, the government’s move to reduce the province’s share of revenue from the sale of non-renewable natural resources and its adoption of a flat tax have contributed to a revenue problem that is of the government’s own making.
“I’m not the premier of Alberta and I don’t intend to devote my time here critiquing the provincial government’s fiscal policy. But the impact of that policy has been felt in our schools and affects students and teachers, and that is our business,” she said.
Henderson acknowledged the Stop the Cuts campaign undertaken by the Alberta School Boards Association, the Alberta School Councils’ Association and the ATA to “form a united front to oppose any cuts to education.” The campaign “helped bring about a budget in February that avoided the destructive cuts that had been threatened only six months before.”
Just as the school year winds down, new challenges are manifesting themselves. Henderson primed the Assembly regarding two resolutions at ARA, what she characterized as “a double-barrelled shotgun approach”: calling on school boards to “use their full financial capacity to preserve and protect teaching and learning conditions” and calling on the government, as the sole funder of public education in Alberta, “to meet its moral obligation to provide sustainable funding to cover the cost of the agreement that Premier Stelmach put his signature to.”
Financial concerns aside, the Association has been consulting with Education Minister Dave Hancock regarding the future of public education in Alberta. “We are ensuring that the voice of the profession is being clearly heard in the Inspiring Education dialogue, in Setting the Direction for Special Education and in planning for the renewal of the School Act,” she said.
Social justice, diversity, equity, human rights, the well-being of children and youth, and student mental health are areas the ATA continues to support. As well, the Association has worked with other public sector unions and organizations to advocate for “public services, spaces and institutions that contribute so much to the quality of life of Albertans,” she said.
Renovations to the ATA’s website, research projects undertaken by the ATA, and upcoming challenges related to fiscal restraints and Bill 44 were touched on during her speech.
Henderson concluded by saying that she is “acutely aware of the challenges, opportunities and dangers” teachers will face in coming years. “But,” she said, “I remain confident and even optimistic ... because I know we have faced even greater challenges in the past, and despite these we have survived and prospered. We will stand firm for our beginning teachers, and we will stand firm for teaching and learning conditions. As we have before, we will do whatever it takes.”
The full text of ATA President Carol Henderson’s speech to ARA is posted online at www.teachers.ab.ca.
