Dear editor,
I have been reading and listening, with avid interest, to the comments regarding Jason Kenny’s efforts to reign in the spending and debt in this province and to return this province to a fiscally responsible state. However, the dyed in the wool socialist and the social justice warriors among us are bound and determined to criticize and derail his every effort. I am absolutely fascinated by comments like “Alberta’s education is being kicked in the teeth”. This is patently untrue. I find it hard to believe that people simply refuse to grasp the reality that if the Premier of this province refuses to be fiscally responsible and to curtail the debt that it would only be a matter of time before all the programs we value the most – health care, education, safe communities etc. would simply implode under the load of debt.
I grew up in a Third World country and I know what a school or community that has been kicked in the teeth looks like and believe me it does not look like the Public and Catholic schools in Wetaskiwin. School used to be a place where we sent our children to be taught reading, writing and arithmetic. Now it has become a place where all kinds of social agendas are being incorporated, and this leaves the teachers and school administrators hardly any time to carry out the mission of imparting knowledge to our children. Where I went to school if the school needed some books for the library the parents raised the money through bake sales or raffles, the government simply did not have the funds to give. The class size ranged between 40 to 60 children, there was no fancy class rooms with attractive visual aids on the walls, the only teaching aid in the classroom was a blackboard. Along with the basic education I received, I was taught to be respectful to my teachers and other members of the faculty. I was expected to be considerate and kind to the people who cleaned the school and took care of the school grounds and there were consequences when I ignored or disobeyed the rules. I grew up to be an educated, responsible, contributing member of society.
Somewhere along the line, with the help of the social justice warriors and the big powerful teacher’s union this has all gone by the wayside. Ask yourself this question: Where does the government get its money from? They get it through taxation – in other words they get it from the citizens of this province. In order to grant all the wishes of every child and family program, along with the public service union demand for an 8 per cent raise, the tax burden would become unbearable. One reality of the situation is this - how much money would the government have to give to ensure that parents get up in the morning and give their children breakfast before they left for school and sent them to school with lunch? Growing up I did not have any fancy breakfasts or lunches it was just basic stuff but I never went to school hungry. People can afford the latest, most expensive I-Phones and other electronic gadgets but they refuse to get up in the morning and give their children a chance to learn by feeding them. The Premier of this province is not responsible for this.
We have to lose the entitlement mentality. Every individual has to look in the mirror and ask ourselves what each of us can do to contribute to the well-being of our neighbours and other members of society and then go ahead and do it. Stop expecting the taxpayers of this province to pick up the tab.
Marcia Stymiest, Wetaskiwin