Today is a day that I get to exercise my right as a citizen and vote. It’s something that I take for granted, but a right that I honor. Here in Alberta, it is important to note that I have grown up in a era where there has only been one governing party. There has only been one status quo, there has only been one political perspective that has shaped this province.
I have only a few years behind my belt as a voter, but there are a few things that I know. I know that I need to express an opinion, and that I get my chance today. I have taken my Ralph bucks and laughed, I have seen the howling byways of my city get worse, I have seen a province and a city expand without thought of the consequences of that growth.
Earlier this week, I experienced those consequences. Our household experienced an emergency of a medical nature, and as I result, I rushed to the hospital with my roommate in my car, and worry in my heart. We checked him in, and waited. And waited.
And waited.
We left without seeing a doctor. We arrived at the stroke of 10 at night, we left at 4:33am in the morning. The next day, my roommate was able to go to a clinic, and his troubles taken care of. But, for me it was an object lesson in some of the gaping holes in our province.
There are other ways I have experienced them. As a student, my university increases tuition every year, simply to keep up with their expenses. This is the result of the load shifting onto the back of the student, and a lack of support and direction from a government that has been in power for over 35 years. A few years ago, the university cut faculty funding by 15% in order to meet the black. My classes are bursting at the seams, there hasn’t been a class this year that I’ve taken under 200 people, and I’m in senior level courses. There haven’t been substantive improvements in the lot of my university or government support in my lot as a student.
As a youth worker, it was only in the last year that there was a wage increase, after a long period, years of drought. As it is, I make less on an overnight shift than a janitor does doing overnights at a nearby grocery store chain. As a part time worker, my company is unable to pay me overtime, even when I work 16 hour shifts. This is due to the contractual nature of the private not-for-profit business model that the government uses to take care of its most vulnerable: the children of the state. Social funding has seen the scalpel knife many times, and the only people that get hurt, truly hurt, in the end are the unfortunates who are in the system in the first place. I can always find another job than youth work if I chose to.
There is a philosophy of the status quo at work in the province, and I wonder if we will ever see political change that instead of fulfilling cliché phrases like “forward looking,” and “value added,” and “sustainability,” actually looks at the problems of the province and substantively moves on them. A change that sees public transit as a real and valid option to the long commute in the car. A change that sees the sick at the very first opportunity, their cares looked after immediately. A change that supports the next generation of workers, the students, the shapers of our society. A change that protects and ensures the future of our most vulnerable. A change that supports the people that protect and care for them. A change that doesn’t serve the interest of the few that have shares in oil and gas, but the people that own that oil and gas. We, the people of Alberta. A change that protects people from the vultures of landlords eager to make a profit. A change that sees that no person should be homeless. A change that sees an environment as worthy of protection in its own right. A change that looks less to the padding of the coffers, and more to the blood and sweat of the people that generated that money.
We have wealth. We have a hard working ethic. We have bright minded people in our province that struggle to get by. We deserve better, we deserve more than a government that is the mouthpiece of corporate interests. We are more than the oil and gas beneath the ground we live on. And it’s time we see that.
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