Education and environment themes of Lethbridge-West forum

By Lethbridge Herald on May 9, 2023.

Liberal candidate Pat Chizek, alongside NDP candidate Shannon Phillips and UCP candidate Cheryl Seaborn, take part in a Lethbridge-West forum hosted Tuesday evening by the Lethbridge Public Library. Herald photo by Ian Martens

Alejandra Pulido-Guzman – LETHBRIDGE HERALD – apulido@lethbridgeherald.com

Even though healthcare and addictions continue to be a point of concern for Lethbridge residents, questions regarding education and the environment emerged during the Public Library’s Lethbridge-West forum. 

Alberta Liberal candidate Pat Chizek,  NDP candidate Shannon Phillips and UCP candidate Cheryl Seaborn took part in the forum Tuesday night and had the opportunity to answer questions from a media panel, as well as members of the public. 

Alberta Party candidate Braham Luddu was absent. 

When asked what they will do to ensure the protection of the environment in Alberta, Phillips recalled the way the 1976 coal policy was rescinded on a Friday afternoon before a long weekend and said they will make sure that does not happen again. 

“We will pass legislation to ensure that no more metallurgical coal leases are issued in the headwaters of our Eastern slopes of the rockies. You can count on us to do that,” said Phillips. 

Chizek said her party is committed to listen, she has questions and she will be willing to listen. 

“I basically say that we have to listen to the experts, and I don’t think that the government that the government do enough listening they come in with pre-plans and that is basically the question, are we listening to the experts in the environment?” said Chizek. 

Seaborn said she appreciated Chizek’s comments as she has had the opportunity to talk to someone who works at the oilfields and said what people see and hear about the area, is not what is actually happening there, as they are not asking the experts and those who do the work. 

She said she was able to meet somebody at the non-for-profit forum the other day, who was telling her about some of the work that they do in our waterways, and it is spectacular the things that they accomplish, the things that they do to keep things clean, keep animals being able to survive, to be there and to thrive. 

“And so it is important for this United Conservative government that we continue to act in an ethical way for our environment, it is important for us to be able to follow the advice, as Pat said of those who know what’s best, of those who live  the experience and these are things that we need to continue to do and there’s always room for improvement for any government, but these is the direction we are going and that is what’s important for us in Alberta,” said Seaborn. 

A member of the public asked if it is appropriate to continue to give public dollars to private schools and charter schools, such a $180 million to the Charter school in Calgary, while we have public school classrooms seating at 34 to 35 students, with some who have special needs and it is very difficult for teachers and assistants to meet those needs as they are. 

The question was originally directed to Seaborn, she said she thinks there are many tings that can be done for educations, no questions about it. She said public schools actually get more funding than private and charter schools. And she mentioned some statistics about who sends their children to private and charter schools. 

“Families who send their kids to independent schools, are families that are making less than those who send their kids to public schools… about 40 of the 163 private schools are catering to visible minorities. So, these are mostly immigrants that come here, and they want their children to continue to learn their culture and their language, or their religious beliefs,” said Seaborn. 

She added that she believes it is important for parents to know they have the right to choose where to send their children to school, so they can learn what they want them to learn, where they want them to learn it and the UCP government will support them on that. 

Chizek who is a former educator from the public school system, said she loves the system because regardless of ability, everyone is welcomed. 

“I think it would be nice if all students, even in charter schools, could get the help they need, so that means it’s going to cost more. We need more assistants, we need more specialists. I was talking with teachers last week and they are now in classrooms by themselves, and they have to deal with students who have visual problems, hearing problems, speech problems, behavior problems, and they are doing it all on their own.  so basically, our public education system is not meeting the needs of 90 per cent of the kids,” said Chizek. 

Phillips said students are the future of this province and they deserve better than what they have gotten on public education or any form of education in the province.

“Schools are almost 2000 teachers short of what they should be, had we simply kept pace with the increased enrollment. Over 30,000 new kids are in the system now than what they were in 2019. That’s counting the ones that left and the ones that entered in, 30,000 new students. How many more teachers were hired for those 30,000 students? the answer is 0. That is not a sustainable station, which is why we need to make sure that we catch up to the enrollment and we have the teachers in the classroom and the resource in the public, Catholic and francophone systems and we stabilized the funding in the charter and private system too, but we will focus our capital investments on building new schools right here in Lethbridge and across the province,” said Phillips. 

Follow @APulidoHerald on Twitter