JustinTrudeau

He was hoping you wouldn’t notice...

Between the long weekend and getting ready for back-to-school, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tried to slip two Senate appointments by you.

In theory, federal politics should have nothing to do with education policy, given that's provincial jurisdiction.

So, we normally wouldn’t have anything to say about appointments to the Senate.

Kristopher Wells being appointed to the Red Chamber, though, is not something we can overlook.

For one thing, Wells does not agree that federal politics should have nothing to do with education policy.

He proudly lists that he is an “expert scientific consultant” to the Canadian Teachers’ Federation.

The Alberta Parents’ Union has, to the best of our knowledge, stood alone in raising the alarm for the last two years about how the Canadian Teachers’ Federation exists solely to demand unconstitutional federal overreach into the purely provincial jurisdiction of education.

And, to be clear, Wells has been focused on education policy first and foremost, as a quick scan of his biography would make clear.

So why would he agree to be appointed to the Senate, unless it was to continue that advocacy - on a federal level, where it does not belong?

Moreover, why would Justin Trudeau appoint someone with such a focus to the Senate, unless it was to continue his ambition to bring education under some form of federal jurisdiction?

And since Senate appointments are until age 75, Wells could conceivably continue Trudeau’s influence on this file well beyond the time Canadian voters reject Trudeau’s own ambitions.

The best place for decisions to be made about children’s education is at their own kitchen tables, not in the Legislature in Edmonton, and certainly not in the Red Chamber in Ottawa.

Parents and those who support us have another reason to be particularly concerned about this appointment, though.

On August 24, 2023, Wells said:

"Don’t be fooled. So called “parental rights” are a dog whistle for an explicit anti-2SLGBTQI+ agenda, which is focused on banning books, restricting access to inclusive curriculum, and targeting trans and nonbinary youth in schools. This is an organized hate movement."

There are plenty of other things Wells has said and done - some much more inflammatory, in fact - that we are confident this represents the views for which he was appointed to the Senate.

Obviously, anyone who supports parental rights should be concerned by the appointment of someone who dismisses and defames us as a hate movement.

Statements like these also reveal that Wells’ ignorance of the constitution is not limited to his visions of federal mandates of all his favourite things and federal bans of all his least favourite things in education.

Parental rights are explicitly invoked in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and are a constitutional value that Canadian courts have found relevant to a host of cases.

That’s why “parental rights”, or an equivalent phrase, are mentioned in over 2,500 Canadian court cases.

There are, at last count, 90 duly passed Canadian laws that enshrine parental rights.

You would think someone appointed to a law-making body should know that.

Finally, you know his charges are a misrepresentation of our movement, but just for fun, let’s take the “book banning” charge.

Wells supports students as young as five having access to sexually explicit material and calls attempts to limit that access “book banning”.

To avoid being censored ourselves by your email provider, we’ll have to leave you to search out those examples yourselves … carefully, without kids around.

But we could find no condemnation from him at all of Peel District School Board requiring a “cull” of books - not because they contained sexually explicit material, but because they supposedly lacked cultural relevance when viewed through an “equity lens”.

With just one librarian saying she sent over 2,000 of her school library’s nearly 6,500 to be buried, this is by far the most significant instance of book banning in Canada.

Wells does not limit himself from speaking on Peel District School Board’s decisions, though, as he praised their 2015 decision to not allow families to opt their children out of certain classes on sexual orientation and gender identity.

He crowed, “If you don’t like it, don’t use public education.”

The teacher unions he avidly supports, of course, seek to make sure families who “don’t like it” are trapped in the public education options they still have to pay for in taxes.

We may not be able to do anything about Kristopher Wells now getting to call himself a Senator, but we can call on the Government of Alberta to stop the funding of his unconstitutional ideological project via the Alberta Teachers’ Association sending off our tax dollars to the Canadian Teachers’ Federation.

Forcing Alberta taxpayers to fund an organization premised exclusively on asking Trudeau to tell us how to run our own education system is just wrong.

We think it’s well past time for the Alberta government to put a stop to this.

They should use their power - whether in legislation or their ongoing negotiations with the Alberta Teachers’ Association - to stop forcing Albertans to fund this blatant advocacy against our interests.

IT COULD COST YOU YOUR TEETH

Western alienation has been a theme present in the political landscape of Alberta since before the province was established in 1905.

In fact, quarrels with the federal government were the staple ingredients of long political careers for two of the most prominent figures in the history of Alberta - Senator James Alexander Lougheed and Prime Minister R.B. Bennett.

Even then, the concept that Alberta was a colony of the federal government - a province not considered on equal footing to the more senior members of confederation in Ontario, Quebec or the maritimes - was common amongst frontier settlers.

Not much has changed since then.

So, to say that Alberta has a tenuous relationship with the federal government is an understatement.

We have been mistreated by Ottawa for generations.

The breakdown in federal-provincial relations often stems from fiscal imbalances littered throughout federal-provincial agreements that - in almost every case - take more money from Alberta taxpayers to fund said program than are actually spent on the program in the province.

Not only that, the programs are often bureaucratic nightmares.

In Alberta, hearing the phrase “we’re from Ottawa and we’re here to help” evokes memories of nightmarish federal programs - like equalization - that just take from Alberta and leave us with nothing - sometimes even flat broke.

Take childcare.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the federal Liberal-NDP alliance decided that Ottawa was in the best position to provide childcare services for the entire country at $10 per day.

In order to reach the $10 per day price tag, the federal government - according to Trudeau and his minions - had to nationalize the program.

That has turned out to be a disaster - both for the woes of a failing government and for those in need of childcare services.

Families are being turned away.

Operators are frustrated with the lack of information coming from government sources.

They are speaking out.

“It’s heartbreaking to turn families away, ” said New Brighton Child Care operator Fiona Pursell.

“If we think we can do it for $10 a day when you can’t get a coffee and a muffin for $10 a day, we’re delusional,” said Krystal Churcher, chair of a child-care providers group.

The Alberta government has been forced to step in, offering an additional grant to childcare operators - up to $6,000 per space.

Yes - in spite of the fact that the federal government is taxing us for nationalized childcare, the provincial government is having to fill in funding gaps.

Now, Ottawa has decided the next area of provincial jurisdiction they want to wander into is dental care.

Ottawa is coming for our teeth now.

This one is just as ambitious as the child care plan, so buckle in if you want to get your teeth whitened anytime soon.

The Canadian Dental Care Plan (CDCP), introduced earlier this year, is another expensive federal initiative aiming to provide dental care subsidies to Canadians without dental benefits - with an adjusted household income of less than $90,000 annually.

Nationalized dental care is a key component of the Liberal-NDP supply-and-confidence agreement which keeps Trudeau in power.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, who has been aggressively blocking federal intrusions into provincial jurisdiction, wrote a letter to Trudeau seeking to negotiate an unconditional agreement for Alberta’s share of federal dental funding.

She aims to use this funding to expand coverage to a greater number of low-income Albertans.

She pointed out - rightly - that health care is provincial jurisdiction and Ottawa - once again - is infringing on that jurisdiction.

She also pointed out that the program was not developed in collaboration with the provincial and territorial governments.

She says the province will opt out of nationalized dental care.

Meanwhile, newly installed Alberta NDP leader Naheed Nenshi seems keen on signing up to any and all federal agreements that come along:

“I will very happily make a deal with anybody if that deal helps Albertans,” said the former Mayor.

“I will make deals on clean electricity regulations that make sense for Alberta. I’ll make deals on federal transfers and on social programs.”

Whether the deal “makes sense for Alberta” would presumably be determined by Trudeau and Nenshi though, rather than by Albertans themselves.

Instead of distancing himself from the extremely unpopular Justin Trudeau, Nenshi appears to be prepared to embrace him.

Nenshi’s close relationship with Trudeau was a common theme in his Mayoralty - even earning him the moniker “Trudeau’s Mayor.”

But, Trudeau’s unpopularity is far higher now than it was when Nenshi was Mayor.

Last Monday’s by-election loss in Toronto-St. Paul’s, in the heart of “Fortress Toronto,” a long-time Liberal seat fell to a Conservative challenger.

It is entirely possible that in sixteen months there will be a change in government.

It’s even starting to look possible that Trudeau won’t even last that long, as the Liberal patronage machine begins to panic.

That means that the Alberta government needs to be prepared to negotiate with a federal government that may be more respectful of provincial jurisdiction than the current government.

All federal-provincial agreements will need to be looked at with a fine tooth comb - especially when it comes to finances.

That also presents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to finally negotiate our way to fairness.

We might never get this chance again, before it’s too late to fix it.

We have questions.

How much are Albertans paying in taxes for each national program?

How much is that national program spending in Alberta?

How much is the Alberta government paying to cover shortfalls in federal funding in those programs?

The Alberta government can’t be blindly walking into unbalanced funding agreements that violate provincial jurisdiction - even if Nenshi says we should.

We must be prepared to stand our ground.

We must be prepared to defend our provinces’ interests.