At issue was the return to deficit budgets in Alberta in 2009 and 2010 for the first time since the mid-1990s. Under Premier Ralph Klein deficits had been made illegal. While it was simple enough to undo that law (they simply passed another to make deficits legal again), for the Tories it was more difficult to live with being in the red.
While virtually every economist advised that stimulus spending, funded by temporary deficits if necessary, was the appropriate way to minimize the impacts of the worldwide recession, the Alberta government stood almost alone in pushing draconian cuts to public-sector spending.
Hoping to decrease the size of the coming 2010 deficit, the government suggested that it would need to find $2 billion in "savings." In this context, the minister called labour and civil society leaders and asked them where they would suggest the cuts be made.
What Snelgrove heard was a resounding: "Nowhere!"
Experience told the leaders that it was likely that their message would not be heeded by a government that never saw a program it didn't want to privatize, so they were spurred into action. What resulted was something that had never been seen before - a coalition of unions, including the Alberta Federation of Labour, community groups and social-services agencies. Plans for what is now known as the Join Together Alberta campaign began to be formed.
At the same time that our province was facing the largest economic downturn since the Great Depression, the Progressive Conservatives began to feel increasing pressure from the Wildrose Alliance Party, galvanized by the election of a new and dynamic leader. The overwhelming mantra of this group was that the government had lost its conservative direction.
The Wildrose party called for more spending cuts to the public service and lower royalty rates for resource developers. While the press was filled with reports of organizations calling for more fiscal restraint, the partners of the Join Together Alberta coalition were hearing from people across the province who were already hurting from cuts to public services. They decided to organize a series of town-hall meetings in 22 communities across the province to give ordinary Albertans an opportunity talk about how public services including health, education, support for people with developmental disabilities and seniors, to name only a few, were the fabric that tied their communities together.
The hope was to hold all the town-hall meetings before the budget was brought down, which usually happens in late February or March. When the government announced that this year they would be bringing the budget down earlier than usual - on February 9 - plans for the town-hall meetings had to be fast-tracked.
Two teams were formed to do concurrent tours in the first two weeks of the campaign with a third week of meetings planned for the week of the budget. Two final stops in Calgary and Edmonton were scheduled for the final week.
We were concerned about how to get the word out about the town-hall meetings, so we decided to use an interactive voice broadcast to almost every home in Alberta to let them know about the meeting closest to them and/or to express their concern about our province's public services. It also drove them to our website (www.JoinTogetherAlberta.ca) where there is a full discussion of the issues and an opportunity to take action
through writing letters, signing a petition, joining our Facebook group or following us on Twitter.
The response to the phone calls was remarkable, but we were still not confident about what turnout would be like at the town halls, especially in rural Alberta, where support for the Tories has been historic and strong. However, beginning with the first night, the rooms we booked were packed with people who were receptive to our message and who had plenty to say.
We heard heart-breaking stories along the way of how our government isn't doing what Albertans expect from the richest province in Canada.
We heard how a hospital in Pincher Creek was using the same IV pumps that it received when it first opened - 25 years ago.
We hear that the hospital in Brooks no longer offers maternity services and that nurses have heard of babies being delivered in the car on the way to Calgary.
In Hinton, we heard about a man suffering from MS who was left hanging in a lift over his bed at a local assisted-living facility for an hour because of a staff shortage.
In Edson, we heard how some high schools had class sizes of up to 45 students.
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Provincial Budget 2010 Overview
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We heard about one Registered Nurse (RN) who works alone in a hospital emergency room in Grimshaw, near Peace River, and has to dial 9-1-1 when there is a heart attack so that an Emergency Medical Team will come in to treat the heart attack, while the RN takes care of the rest of the patients.
We heard from a parent of an autistic child who is about to turn 18 and, in spite of the remarkable progress he is making, will likely lose most of his services because funding for adults with developmental disabilities has been cut.
We continue to hear about seniors who are at their wits' end because they do not have the financial resources to deal with rising drug and care costs as they age.
People were sometimes unaware of how deep the problems had become in their own communities and were shocked at the stories they heard. For example, one gentleman who had not been to the hospital since the 1980s was shocked to learn about how stretched the staff had become.
Others knew about the problems that exist in their community and are becoming increasingly angry at a government that ignores the needs or continues to break promise after promise. Grande Prairie, where the promise of a new hospital has been the substance of more than one election campaign, has once again had the project delayed. Fort McMurray, a city of over 100,000 Albertans, still is without a single long-term care facility and the Conservative government kicked the local MLA out of the caucus when he dared to speak out publicly on the matter.
There was a growing sense that every issue affects each of us, even if we aren't faced with it on a daily basis. Everyone suffers when schools don't get the resources they need and the entire community is worse off when people with developmental disabilities are left to fend for themselves.
Many of the people who came to the meetings admitted voting for the Conservatives in the past and continued to support their local representatives. But their anger and frustration with the policy of cutbacks was evident.
They were eager to send a clear message that they wanted to the government to change course - and quickly - but they were unsure about how to get the government to listen.
Join Together Alberta gave them the means to take action and to be heard. As well as taking action through the website, the coalition encouraged people to act in their own communities.
In each meeting, we took time to break into small working groups to discuss what could be done locally to raise awareness about the issues and to bring pressure on the government to stop cutting funds for the services that matter.
On budget day, a number of people held events at their MLA's office or in their community that received media attention and gave a local perspective what was unfolding in the legislature in Edmonton.
The pressure brought to bear from all over the province, by Join Together Alberta and other organizations, had an effect.
To everyone's surprise, the government did invest much more
heavily in health care than was anticipated and held the line on education spending. While we are nowhere near what is needed to ensure our public health and education systems become as robust as they once were, most in those sectors had been bracing for far worse. We believe that our efforts focusing attention on these issues were at least partially responsible for the government's budget turnaround.
But, while health care and education may have received a bit of a reprieve, many other sectors experienced significant cuts. In particular, advanced education, children and youth services, culture and community spirit and employment and immigration have received cuts that will hurt Albertans - and the most vulnerable will be hurt the most. The Parkland Institute, a research group based at the University of Alberta, pointed out that the government had robbed Peter to pay for Paul - while attempting to quiet its critics in health and education, it hacked away at other sectors.
For this reason, the partners of the Join Together Alberta coalition overwhelmingly have decided to continue the campaign. There is much left to do and we recognize that the process will be slow as we hope to create an atmosphere of willingness in Alberta to invest in our public services.
We have begun Phase 2 of the campaign where we will once again meet, this time with smaller groups, in every community in which we had a town-hall meeting. We will be forming Community Action Teams that will decide on local actions to address the issues that are of greatest local concern. These teams will bring together neighbours to act as catalysts within their community for the things that matter to them.
Join Together Alberta will continue to support these teams however we can, including by providing some structure, resources and training. The hope is that as these teams become active, they will have an impact on government policy and that Albertans can finally get on the path to a sustainable future in which all citizens and all communities get the services they need.
(Jerry Toews was hired by the AFL and seconded full-time to the Join Together Campaign to act as its Co-ordinator. He can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it )
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