Editor:
The UCP government’s recent fiscal update contained an unprecedented jab at public sector workers, falsely claiming they are a drain on the economy.
I would challenge Premier Jason Kenney to look a nurse in their eyes after a 12-hour shift and say that. Or to explain to a local business owner why the money public sector workers spend adds nothing to their bottom line.
A wide variety of public sector employees call the Bow Valley home and deliver important services to locals and tourists alike. Whether they work in health care, education, or for Alberta Environment and Parks, Parks Canada, municipalities or the Banff Centre, they are our friends and neighbours and deserve our respect.
Unlike the $4.7 billion in UCP tax breaks for profitable foreign-owned corporations, their money circulates through the local economy and supports jobs in retail, hospitality, tourism and other sectors.
Who does Jason Kenney think will help keep businesses afloat and recover from the coronavirus recession that's causing massive private sector unemployment?
At best, it’s naive for the UCP to devalue the public sector’s positive economic impact. At worst it’s a cynical ploy to pit private sector workers against public sector workers in a race to the bottom where we all lose. Neither are acceptable.
Their offensive assertion also clashes with a statement they made just five months ago. In an infrastructure announcement, the Kenney government assured us accelerated government spending would “create immediate jobs in ways that build communities for a bigger, brighter future and support long-term private sector job creation."
The UCP can’t have it both ways. The premier and our MLA — who are public sector workers themselves — should retract the insulting comments in their fiscal update and apologize to all Albertans.
Our communities would be worse off without the economic activity that public sector workers generate, the services they deliver and the many private sector jobs they support.
Albertans deserve a government that recognizes this simple truth and works to unite us, while valuing the contributions of its own employees.
Cam Westhead,
Bragg Creek
