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Shelley Svidal
While opposition MLAs continued to hammer the government on royalty revenues during the second week of the Alberta legislature’s fall sitting, the litany of questions eased somewhat at the beginning of the third week following Premier Ed Stelmach’s November 15 announcement regarding the unfunded liability of the Teachers’ Pension Plan.
Stelmach outlined the terms of the memorandum of agreement between the government and the Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA) in a ministerial statement to the legislative assembly. "I’m confident that Alberta teachers will see the advantage in an agreement that will allow the education community to focus on providing the best possible learning environment for Alberta’s children," he said November 19. "This government made it a priority to find a lasting solution to this problem, one that balances the interests of teachers, students, and taxpayers. This agreement in principle does that, providing the predictability and stability that our education system needs."
Speaking on behalf of the Liberal opposition, Calgary-Currie MLA Dave Taylor credited colleagues Jack Flaherty, MLA for St. Albert, and Rick Miller, MLA for Edmonton-Rutherford, for bringing the issue to the floor of the house. At the same time, he expressed concern that school boards were not involved in the negotiations. "Alberta school boards, locally elected representatives of local people, local parents with a stake in this matter, were shut out of the process and had no voices as this deal was made," he said. "This follows a troubling pattern of disrespect from this government for our school boards."
Flaherty echoed Taylor’s comments later that day in question period, employing diction almost identical to that contained in an Alberta School Boards Association (ASBA) staff analysis of the memorandum. "For years this government has managed to systematically erode the powers vested in publicly elected school boards across the province. Their exclusion from unfunded pension liability negotiation is simply another example of this," Flaherty said. He picked up the refrain two days later in a member’s statement on ASBA’s centennial. "With this latest agreement over teachers’ pensions reached without the participation of boards, school boards are yet again faced with new challenges," he said.
Minister of Education Ron Liepert responded to the allegations by pointing out that the government had wanted to take politics out of the negotiations, and I think the results that we announced last Thursday show that we succeeded in taking politics out."
New Democrat Leader Brian Mason was a little more generous than Taylor or Flaherty. "[T]aking this $2.1 billion government-imposed burden off teachers is certainly the right thing to do," Mason said. "The government certainly messed up on housing and royalties, but I think they did the right thing here, and I’m prepared to congratulate them for it."
Meanwhile, Liberal Leader Kevin Taft put Stelmach on the defensive November 20, the 18th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, by questioning the lack of government-funded school nutrition programs. After acknowledging some students arrive at school without breakfast, Stelmach resorted to highlighting government programs for low-income families, such as the Child Health Benefit and child care subsidies for postsecondary students.
The government’s antibullying initiative came under the microscope of a government MLA November 22, the day after Liepert and Minister of Children’s Services Janis Tarchuk announced its third phase, "Reverse it. Be better than bullying," which was launched in Cineplex Odeon theatres late last month. Red Deer-North MLA Mary Anne Jablonski asked the education minister for proof the first two phases were working. Liepert responded by citing the number of hits recorded on bullyfreealberta.ca and b-free.ca and the number of calls to the government’s bullying prevention hotline. He concluded by suggesting that bullies model adults, not children. "I don’t believe that children learn to be bullies in schoolyards," he said. "I think they learn from watching adults, whether it’s how adults perform at hockey games or how we speak to one another."
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