Media releases | February 01, 2012

EDMONTON—The Alberta Government’s announcement today raises many crucial questions. The government release said that a new bill would introduce “Results-Based Budgeting.”So Public Interest Alberta asks the question - what results are they trying to get:1. What results do we want for our Post-Secondary Education system? Should Alberta have the lowest post-secondary education participation rates in the country, high tuition and students with high debt loads, or should our results be a high quality, affordable post-secondary education system that will help to diversify the economy and help us live a better quality of life?2. What results do we want for support for children and adults with disabilities? Should we cut and offload our social services on agencies who can’t pay a living wage to support our most vulnerable, or should we invest in high quality services with well trained professionals that will actually save our economy and our society money in the long run?3. What results do they want in seniors care? Do we want to pour millions of dollars into private corporations to run our seniors care system only to find that many seniors are not able to get the level of care they need? Or do we want our results to be an investment in building a quality public seniors care system that provides the appropriate level of seniors care in the home or in properly staffed facilities?4. What results do we want for our childcare system? Do we want long waiting lists for expensive corporate childcare provided by staff who are not earning living wages? Or do we want to not have the lowest funding for childcare in Canada and to make sure that all families have access to quality early childhood education and care at a price that families can afford and that allows them to go back to school or work?-30-Media Contact: Bill Moore-Kilgannon, Executive Director, (780) 993-3736