Health and Education ignored in face of massive, sustained, surpluses

EDMONTON – Today’s Alberta budget failed to undo UCP damage to the health care system and public services, according to Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL) president Gil McGowan.

“Workers are demanding better from the government and today’s budget didn’t deliver.“ said McGowan. “We have a crippling staffing shortage in health care and public services and this budget did very little to fix it.”

As an example, McGowan cited that AFL research indicates Alberta will be short 9,300 nursing professionals within seven years. Furthermore, he noted that their pay is lagging behind inflation.

“Our kids’ education is underfunded as well,” said McGowan. “We have the worst teacher-to-student ratio in the country. We spend the least per-pupil than any other province.”

“Alberta has growing surpluses for years to come from post-payout oil royalties,” noted McGowan. “Refusing to fix these problems when you have these funds is offensive. This was a missed opportunity.”

The Alberta Federation of Labour represents 170,000 unionized workers across Alberta.

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MEDIA CONTACT:
John Ashton
Director of Communications, AFL
jashton@afl.org