Are Iris Eyes Smiling on Budget Day?

Minister Evans,

Since the mid 1990’s ‘severely normal Albertans’ have watched your government talk tough about everyone doing their part to get rid of the debt. Albertans bought in and took their lumps with massive cuts to social programs that hit the most vulnerable populations hard. Your government has squeezed every last drop of economic blood out of seniors, single parents, unskilled workers and the mentally ill, people with developmental disabilities and their families and every other demographic that has not been able to benefit from the so-called “Alberta Advantage.”

You sat at the Cabinet Table when doctors, teachers and nurses were made out to be the enemies; your government vilified each group at your own time in order to convince ‘severely normal Albertans’ believed that each group, in your time, was “the bad guy” and force wage cuts, and cuts to seats at Universities and colleges that directly lead to today’s shortage of health care professionals. You also sat at the cabinet table when the decisions were made to rip apart every segment of public policy that actually provided direct benefits to Albertans, like electricity deregulation, the sale of valuable Albertan owned assets like the Holy Cross, A.G.T. and the natural gas company that Albertans owned, and that now provide fat cheques to their owners.

Minister Evans, will this budget finally acknowledge that all Albertans do not have the same advantage and finally walk the talk about Alberta being a caring and inclusive society? Will your budget allow AISH and Alberta Works recipients to live with some sense of dignity? Will your budget allow seniors in care to spend their final years living in dignity? Will your budget make a real attempt to undo the damage that you, as Health Minister caused by using Calgary as a Petri dish for private health care (or as Ralph and you called it then…the “THIRD WAY”?

Minister Evans, will this, your first budget, offer Albertans complete transparency about who are the winners and losers? Will it tell Albertans (your employers) whether all Albertans will benefit from all of the various grants, loans, and graft that we all know is right there in the billions that might never be properly accounted for since your government refused the Auditor General a $20,000? budget increase to publish biannual reports, rather than annual reports?

These are but a few of the questions that I have for Minister Evans.

As Health Minister she globe-trotted on a pretty regular basis, yet Albertans have yet to see any benefit from the thousand upon thousands of public dollars she spent seeing New Zealand, Australia, France and the U.K. (at a cost of over $20,000 – and that’s just for France and the U.K.), Switzerland, Sweden, Washington (and don’t fool yourself that this would be an inexpensive trip – it came in at just under $12,000. – a relatively CHEAP outing for Minister Evans). As employment Minister Iris had some lovely adventures, spending your $32K plus to visit the Philippines, Japan and China October 5 – 19 2007, just shy of $36K to see Paris, France. London, England. Berlin, Germany. Amsterdam, Holland from April 19-29 in 2007, and a mere $14,419.72 in Dallas from March 21, 2007 to March 27, 2007.