The whistle stop cabinet tour stopped in Taber last Tuesday Tuesday as Minister of Finance Ron Liepert, and Minister of Culture and Community Services Heather Klimchuk listened to many concerns of the 30 people on hand among municipal, education, irrigation district representatives and members at large.
While questions were diverse from the gallery that featured representatives as far away as Milk River, Cardston, and Raymond, the cabinet tour theme of Health Care, Human Services, Education and Finance seemed to have education as one of the main topics that dominated discussion.

“Boards across the province see a significant deficit regarding school replacement and maintenance. There are many schools that are nearing the end of their life cycle,” said John Rakai, associate superintendent of finance and operations for Horizon School Division, highlighting Barnwell and Warner as two examples within the division.
“The province needs to tend to school buildings so students can learn, and teachers can teach in safe and healthy environments.”
Liepert responded one of the positive legacies former Premier Ed Stelmach left behind was his intention to catch up in infrastructure, but work still needs to be done.
“With school modernization, what has to be part of that discussion is when we move into surplus (budget) positions, we need a plan whether it’s a three year, five year, 10 year, or 20 year plan, how do we address sustainable municipal funding and how do we address maintenance and repair issues schools have,” said Liepert.
“It all has to fit into our priorities going forward.”
Whatever plan the current provincial government may have when it comes to infrastructure in education with its upcoming budget, the census among education officials at the table was funding needed to be earmarked more at the grass-roots levels.
“It almost seems like we are going the wrong way. This new round of infrastructure which Westwind was fortunate enough to get a project in Cardston with an elementary school, all the contracts are now with the government. And to be honest and frank, some of the bureaucrats there have never built a school,” said Dexter Durfey, associate superintendent of business services/secretary treasurer of Westwind School Division. “If we had an annual allocation to school boards, let school boards plan with an allocation even if they have to borrow and use that allocation to pay on a debenture so that we can plan. We are paying hundreds of millions of dollars annually provincially to put roofs on schools that need to be modernized instead of patched and that money could be much better spent I believe, by allowing boards to plan themselves in the capital planning process.”
John Waterhouse, assistant superintendent of Westwind School Division, applauded the transformation agenda the province is currently undertaking to help steer the direction of education in examining if it is good for kids. But Waterhouse is worried, with the tripartite discussions going on now, if rumours of putting further limits on instructional time as a bargaining chip is really best for kids.
“Are we going to be limiting time to 1,200 hours in a year? If we are going to transform, we have to look at teaching standards. The old adage that as an individual teacher, I can stay in my classroom and I can work at home and claim 10 hours a day is not good for kids,” said Waterhouse. “We have to be able to stay together and collaborate, and a 30 hour limit in a week says you don’t have to collaborate and you don’t have to stay within those professional standards. The limitation stops transformation. The hope is, in these discussions, is that time is not used as a proxy for money because, in the end, it will stop transformation and not allow students to be served.”
In sitting in caucus for seven-and-a-half years, Liepert confirmed to Waterhouse that his view is the majority view in caucus in easing his concerns with future contract negotiations.
“If that is the key sticking point to any type of tripartite agreement, it is going to be a tough one to get by caucus. The ASBA (Alberta School Board Association, ATA (Alberta Teacher’s Association), everybody is trying to work towards something that works for all Albertans, but at the same time each of those parties have their own interests in mind,” said Liepert. “I know caucus has made it very clear that we have to ensure that when we arrive at an agreement, we don’t give away something we will have difficulty getting back.”
As Alberta education looks to the transformation agenda, officials and some of the general citizenry alike pushed the notion that education is far more than just the world of academia as streaming options need to be more prevalent for kids who prefer working with their hands rather than hitting the books.
“Kids need ot see pathways starting in Grade 8, 9 or 10.  I think we do a disservice in education and I say that as an educator in that we believe everyone should be going to university,” said Christopher Smeaton, superintendent of Holy Spirit Roman Catholic School Division. “But that is also because every parent thinks their child should go to university. Part of our difficulty from a society standpoint is we have believed for too long that blue-collar work is second class and we have to change that. I believe one of those ways we can change that is to start having opportunities for kids in Grade 8, in Grade 9 where they can start to see pathways and start taking courses in high school to work towards trade certification.”
Part of that problem Smeaton added is while the province is catching up on its infrastructure in building modernized schools, those schools have less and less vocational spaces to devoted to them.
“You can outsource a lot of technology, but it would be damn hard to outsource a plumber,” said Smeaton. “We need those trades. We need to get back to putting more focus on more jobs that can’t be outsourced to China or India that we need in Alberta.”