The Alberta Teachers’ Association

Shelley Svidal

The best way to change the world is by practising the power of one.

That’s what Catherine Ford, a former national columnist for the CanWest newspaper chain and the author of Against the Grain: An Irreverent View of Alberta, told participants assembled for the Alberta Teachers’ Association’s Political Engagement Seminar March 17.

Ford, who spent 40 years in journalism before retiring last year, began her keynote address by decrying the arrogance of a provincial government that believes it knows better than the experts how to run a public education system. She contrasted the government’s complaints about the nanny state, in which decisions are made for rather than by the people, with its 1999 decision to disband what it characterized as a "dysfunctional" Calgary Board of Education.

Tracing the government’s approach to public education from its decision to eliminate kindergarten to its current inaction on crumbling school infrastructure, she pointed out that the Calgary Board of Education had closed Marlborough School March 15 because the roof was about to collapse. "There are 500 million dollars worth of repairs that have not been made to Calgary public schools," she said. "Guess what we’re getting this year? One new school."

Ford suggested that representation by population does not exist in Alberta. If it did, she said, Edmonton and Calgary would wield considerably more clout than they do. "Why should the schools in Edmonton and Calgary not have the funds and resources that a million-plus population should buy?" she asked. "Because the cities are not 100 per cent friendly to the monolithic nature of the provincial government."

What the government does not understand is that with success comes responsibility. "It’s a responsibility to remember that the real success is not built on the fast buck but on dreams, pride of place and a sense of community," she said. Much of what Albertans are witnessing is no more than they asked for when they returned majority governments to the legislature, governments who thought that Albertans’ money and some of its people were theirs to waste. She pointed out that Klein has disparagingly called those who question the government’s decisions victims of the week. "There is no Alberta Advantage if it does not include every Albertan," she said.

Ford pointed out that all is not bleak—there is always another election. If Klein thinks that a $400 prosperity cheque will keep Albertans quiet, he is sadly mistaken, she said, adding that everyone has a responsibility to hold to account whatever government is in power. "The only true measure of a man or a woman is the difference he or she makes in the community."

She suggested that the $1.4 billion the government spent on prosperity cheques could have been better spent addressing social issues, such as homelessness. "Why do I complain?" she asked? "I’ll tell you why—because the money he has put in my pocket is burning a hole in my hand, because that money doesn’t come from my own work or my own resources [but] has been taken from other people who can least afford it."

Ford lamented that along with re-engineering has come a redefinition of the role of government and the rights of the people. Yet an attitude of decency and civility in one’s life and toward all persons is the hallmark of a moral democracy, she said. "People need to hear that it makes sense to behave decently or to help others, to place common interests above their own, to respect the elementary rules of human coexistence." She stressed that all Albertans must find a way to combat the growing spirit of meanness and revenge, myths and lies that are being promulgated in Alberta, a spirit epitomized by Klein’s recent action is tossing the Liberals’ health care plan at a teenaged page.

Quoting Anna Quinlan of the New York Times on the "power of one," Ford suggested that the power of one means personal involvement. "We change our world by believing that one vote, one person’s actions, actually make a difference," she said. She exhorted participants to practise the power of one. If all Albertans accept their responsibility to effect change, then change there will be.