Protesters say ‘no thanks’ to UCP COVID response

By Lethbridge Herald on October 11, 2021.

Herald photo by Dale Woodard Krysty Thomas, president of the Lethbridge and District Labour Council and Stephen Luu write on the No Thanksgiven wall Saturday afternoon outside MLA East Nathan Neudorf's office. The No Thanks Given to the UCP event was a province-wide initiative.

Dale Woodard
Lethbridge Herald
Over the Thanksgiving long weekend, people expressed gratitude for what they have.
Across Alberta, however, an initiative took place to say ‘No thanks’ to the United Conservative Party as well.
Angry over hospitals being over capacity, health care workers being pushed to their breaking point, surgeries being cancelled and schools facing COVID outbreaks, a province-wide demonstration was held outside 14 UCP MLA offices to post messages of ‘No Thanks’ as well as sharing messages on social media with the hashtag #NoThanksGivenUCP.
That included Lethbridge as a small group gathered out front of Lethbridge-East MLA Nathan Neudorf’s office to post some ‘No Thanks’ messages they plan to hand deliver to the MLA today.
“We’re standing outside our UCP MLA’s office just letting them know that we’re angry, we’re frustrated and we’re disappointed with the COVID response,” said Krysty Thomas, president of the Lethbridge District and Labour Council Saturday afternoon. “Our hospitals are overrun and our front-line health care workers are overworked, surgeries are being cancelled and COVID is rampant throughout the schools. It didn’t have to be like this. The UCP could have done better.”
Thomas said the messages will be given to Neudorf today.
“We’ll be rolling this up and hand delivering it to Nathan on Tuesday morning just to let him know that we’re still mad and angry. He’s our elected official. It’s time he starts putting Albertans first and starts working for us.”
Saturday’s demonstrations also took place at MLA’s offices in Calgary-Currie, St. Albert-Morinville, Edmonton-Southwest, Spruce Grove-Stony Plain, Airdrie, Sherwood Park and Strathcona County, Lesser Slave Lake, Fort Saskatchewan, Calgary Varsity, Calgary Klein, Leduc-Beaumont, Red Deer North, Red Deer South.
Earlier this year, a Have A Heart initiative took place over Valentine’s Day.
“We were trying to tell them the services that we loved that we didn’t want to see cut. So we had a really great response to that as well. It was also a province-wide action,” said Thomas, adding she hopes Saturday’s demonstration makes the group of posters heard.
“We’re frustrated and I think they think we’re not paying attention, and we are paying attention. We want to give folks a safe space so they can express this frustration. We don’t really have that opportunity to gather in large places or large groups and this is giving a good and easy action to relay our message.”
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