Amidst drops in oil prices, spikes in layoffs and an ever-deepening deficit, health care, education and human services were top of mind for St. Albertans when it comes to the next budget.
St. Albert MLA Marie Renaud hosted a budget input meeting on Thursday night, inviting constituents to share their thoughts on a variety of subjects – from revenue generation to capital spending to minimum wage.
More than two-thirds of participants made a bee-line towards the health care, education and human services discussion groups and came back with a resounding message: the system is broken.
Renaud said she was a bit taken aback by the level of interest in the human service side of things.
“I was thinking they’re really going to want to talk about economic diversity, they’re really going to want to talk about infrastructure. Of course, minimum wage is going to come up. It’s not a budget topic, but we just thought let’s discuss this elephant in the room.”
Minimum wage has been a hot topic of casual conversation between Renaud and her constituents, and Monday saw Minister of Finance Joe Ceci painting a grim picture when it came to dealing with Alberta’s deficit – set to fall anywhere between $5.9 billion and $6.5 billion come year end.
Instead, what she heard were “real stories about real challenges” faced by families in the riding, especially when it came to accessing adequate health-care services – in hospitals, hospices, acute care units, clinics or at home.
Hearing examples of these struggles was “key” said Renaud, but even more important were the solutions brought forward to address the perceived lack of efficiencies.
“They want to look at efficiencies, but they had ideas about how to do that and they wanted to help,” said Renaud.
Other suggestions floated at the meeting included integrating primary health-care services into schools, where many mental and health issues are identified; investing in preventative health care, such as walkable communities, youth centres and better foster care monitoring; and relying less on doctors and more on nurses, physician assistants and midwives.
On the economic development side, it was pointed out that Alberta’s economy is heavily reliant on the primary industries, such as oil and gas extraction. It was suggested that related secondary industries should be explored – meaning oil refineries and plastic producers.
Federal independent candidate and incumbent Brent Rathgeber shared his opinions on stimulating the economy through infrastructure investments, given the province’s excellent credit rating, current low interest rates and the number of unemployed construction workers who recently lost their jobs in the oil patch.
The input was collected and will be submitted to Ceci for consideration in the upcoming 2015-16 budget, which is expected to be presented in late fall.
