#edmonton-manning

Ms Sweet: The parents of the children that this bill is supposedly going to protect did exactly what parents do. They said: “This does not protect my child. This takes away my child’s rights, and I’m going to stand up and protect my child. I’m going to go to court, and I’m going to make sure that these three pieces of legislation that are removing my child’s rights are struck down.” The government just couldn’t have it. They are so fascinated with this, so fascinated with parents seeking medical advice on behalf of their children to make sure that they grow up to be healthy adults that they just can’t stand it.

Yet they all stand up and say: “I’m a libertarian. I’m libertarian. I’m a conservative. I’m a libertarian.” The whole definition of a libertarian is an advocate or supporter of a political party that advocates only minimal state intervention in the free market and the private lives of citizens, private lives of citizens. Hello, friends over there. Want to remember your definition of who you’re supposed to be?

The Speaker: Hon. member, respectfully, through the chair, please.

Ms Sweet: It’s okay. They’re not here anyway.

The Speaker: Pardon me?

Ms Sweet: What we saw was the rest of the government sector – and a couple of members, I believe, in our caucus were probably there at that time. It created a wildcat strike. Hospitals shut down. Teachers didn’t show up. Like, everybody just decided that at that point they’d had enough and they weren’t going to put up with it anymore. What I would say is that when that strike happened, the Klein government . . .

An Hon. Member: They broke the law.

Ms Sweet: What this government is very good at is blaming someone else. “It’s always the federal government’s fault. It’s always the municipality’s fault. It’s always someone else’s fault.” It’s never the province of Alberta’s fault; they’re perfect. [interjections] I love how everybody on the government side is like: yup, that’s true; it is everybody else’s fault.

Mr. Yao: Come on over, Heather.

The Speaker: Order. Order. Order. The hon. Member for Fort McMurray-Wood Buffalo will refrain from using proper names in the Assembly. [interjections]

Ms Sweet: At some point do you not go, “Wait a minute; maybe this is too much”? A balanced budget is good on one hand, but we also need to make sure that the services that Albertans expect from their municipalities are going to happen. Like, is that not part of the role?

Mr. McIver: Yeah, it’s part of it. It’s part of the role of mine, it’s part of the role of municipalities, it’s part of the role of all of government to make hard decisions about what we can afford to do and what’s most important to do. We spend lots of time making these very tough choices and these very tough decisions for the benefit of Albertans and the benefit of Alberta municipalities, and quite frankly I’m very proud of the budget that that’s resulted in, which I’m defending my piece of here today.

Ms Sweet: You’re proud of the fact that some municipalities are raising their property taxes by between 6 to 9 per cent on their citizens because of the fact that there’s been so much cut out of their budgets?

Mr. McIver: Well, see . . .

Ms Sweet: That’s downloading it onto Alberta.

Ms Sweet: So I would encourage the government to go back, to really rethink what the future of Alberta is going to be post COVID. What is the economy going to look like? Where will you diversify and invest? How are you going to encourage Albertans to look at, you know, different things and stay in the province, really? I mean, let’s start there.

Mr. Jeremy Nixon: Think more windmills.

Ms Sweet: Mr. Speaker, on April 18 the Minister of Agriculture and Forestry held a town hall with workers from Cargill who were concerned about the safety of their workplace where the minister reassured the workers that their work site was safe. Only it wasn’t. Shortly before that telephone town hall the minister was briefed by officials that two workers with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency had contracted COVID-19 from the Cargill plant. Two days after this town hall the plant was idled and went on to become the largest outbreak in North America. To the minister: why did you withhold this vital, life-saving information from the workers at Cargill?