NDP hosts local town hall on upcoming Alberta budget

By Lethbridge Herald on February 5, 2025.

NDP leader Naheed Nenshi, alongside Court Ellingson, Shadow Minister for Finance, and Rob Miyashiro, MLA for Lethbridge West, speaks to a crowd at a town hall Tuesday night at the Southern Alberta Ethnic Association on the upcoming provincial budget. Herald photo by Al Beeber

Al Beeber – LETHBRIDGE HERALD – abeeber@lethbridgeherald.com

Nearly 150 people braved bone-chilling temperatures to have their voices heard on the upcoming Alberta budget Tuesday night.

Rob Miyashiro, the newly-minted Lethbridge West MLA, and his NDP colleague Court Ellingson of Calgary Foothills, who is the party’s shadow minister of finance, hosted the town hall at the Southern Alberta Ethnic Association. NDP leader Naheed Nenshi was also on hand before he left for prayers in honour of the late Aga Khan IV, the 49th Imam of Isma’ilism who died  on Tuesday at the age of 88.

The town hall was one of three being conducted across the province to hear residents’ concerns before the UCP government delivers its  budget on Feb. 25.

Similar town halls on previous topics such as health have been staged  here in the past.

“What we want to do is get a sense from people in southern Alberta, including Calgary and  Lethbridge and then in north central Alberta and Edmonton, to find out  what people in those communities think should be priorities in the budget,” said Miyashiro.

More conversations are planned here after the budget is tabled, he said.

The NDP wants to hear those priorities “so then when the budget does come out, we can either say ‘hey, maybe you were listening to people’ or ‘you weren’t listening to people.’”

Nenshi briefly addressed the audience, saying “the goal of this is to really hear from you, your thoughts and priorities, your worries about the things that keep you up at night” and the things people expect.”

The leader has tasked Ellingson with creating a budget submission which reflects what the NDP is hearing from residents across the province. He said he continues to hear the same concerns from Albertans, which include jobs, the cost of living and the potential impact of American tariffs, public health care, education and coal mining in the Eastern Slopes.

As an example on the cost of living, he said the Calgary Food Bank two years ago provided 400 hampers a day, with clients receiving a maximum of seven per year. Two weeks ago, he was at the bank and learned it now provides 750-800 hampers a day and people are allowed to take one three times a month. That means many are using food banks as their main source of food.

Nenshi also said he thought the government was done with coal mining, but the proposed Grassy Mountain Mine development shows it obviously isn’t.

“This is something that impacts every Albertan,” he said, including farmers, ranchers, outdoor enthusiasts, the entire southern watershed and every living being that drinks water.

“It’s quite shocking” that the issue is even up for debate. “We’ve got to fight that, we’ve got to fight that hard,”

Before leaving to attend prayers in honour of the late Aga Khan IV, Nenshi said “for too long and particularly the last  decade, we’ve allowed our politics to become politics that I call  fear, division, hatred, animization and what we’ve forgotten about is  that we come, we live in a place that ….is based entirely on  community, entirely on looking after one another, lifting one another  up so that we all succeed.

“We are bigger than our politics.”

A range of topics were discussed by the audience. Among them were Shannon Frank, executive director of the Oldman Watershed Council, who talked about that organization’s budget priority being to boost investment in natural assets.

“We know we’ve lost a lot of our wetlands, our grasslands” which  purify water and offer protection from drought. She added existing environmental programs are already over-subscribed. One of those is the watershed restoration resiliency program that has a budget of $3.5  million and annual requests of $9 million to $17 million.

“So there’s this huge appetite to restore our wetlands and our grasslands and the green zones around our river systems, said Frank. “But there’s just not enough funding there to get it done.”

One speaker said the UCP only cares about oil, not southern Alberta, and accused the government of wage suppression.

Another speaker, retired biologist Lorne Fitch, said thought needs to  be put into how some natural resources are harvested.

Timber harvest in the Eastern Slopes at its current rate allowed by the UCP “is threatening the ability of those forests to hold, store and provide water which are drought and flood control mechanism.” He added it’s important to not sell off all natural capital and to assess the costs of such actions.

Dr. Esther Tailfeathers talked about equity and accountability towards Indigenous people. She said the life expectancy of Indigenous people in Alberta is 18 years less than that of non-Indigenous people. Tailfeathers, a physician and former lead of the Indigenous Wellness Core for Alberta Health Services, said that life expectancy was 12 years less before she resigned in 2023. The closure of the supervised consumption site in Lethbridge impacted that expectancy, she said.

In the transfer agreement Ottawa has with Alberta, Indigenous people are counted with the general population but the dollars aren’t put toward Indigenous projects and increasing the life expectancy of Indigenous peoples.

Bruce McKay, president of the board of directors of Inclusion Lethbridge, told the MLAs his organization is hearing from families with young children with disabilities who are having to wait as long as three years for certain funding.

McKay also stated “educational assistants are crucial for the  development of all children,” especially those with intellectual  disabilities. While the AISH program is available for people who are unable to work, “it appears that that is due to be changed in the next year or so” and Inclusion Lethbridge is still trying to find out what that will mean.

The province on Tuesday announced it is creating a new Alberta Disability Assistance Program (ADAP) to launch in July of 2026. People on ADAP “will be able to earn more from working while  continuing to receive their financial benefits, with higher earning  exemptions than any other program,” said the province adding that “starting in July 2026, disability income assistance applicants will  be assessed for both the new program and AISH, ensuring eligible applicants are placed in the program best suited to their unique  situation.”

Craig Burrows-Johnson talked about the money Alberta has lost, citing the impact of the cancellation of a wind and solar project near Cardston and other projects in the province.

He received loud applause when he said he wants the UCP “to stop wasting money on dumb things.”

McKay was among a number of speakers who addressed the need for supports for those with disabilities. Alternative energy projects also came up. Craig Burrows-Johnson talked about the money Alberta has lost, citing the impact of the cancellation of a wind and solar project near Cardston and other projects in the province.

He received loud applause when he said he wants the UCP “to stop  wasting money on dumb things.”