Premier Smith hosts town hall event in Grande Prairie

Residents brought their concerns directly to Premier Danielle Smith on Friday at a town hall event hosted by the United Conservative Party.

Separation, disability funding, education, utility bills and homelessness were key issues.

“What practical reason exists to stay within Canada?” was one of the first questions asked of Smith.

She spoke about changing the number of signatures needed on a petition — from 566,000 to 177,000 — noting that the petition’s number previously was “unachievable” and not suitable for democracy.

“I personally believe that my job is to try to make the case for Canada, and try to make the case for us to stay in and try to fix the problems that we have,” she said.

“If I’m unsuccessful, then I’m sure Albertans are going to weigh in, but I feel like this prime minister understands the existential threat to the country.”

The crowd began to boo after a mention of the prime minister.

Smith said she is giving PM Mark Carney about six months to see if he will fix what she calls nine bad policies.

“There are two different Mark Carneys; one of them is the pragmatic banker who worked for both the conservative government here and a conservative government in Britain and then there’s the net zero financing guy who was going around the world trying to find a way to defund our industry, so I don’t know which guy he is.”

She admitted, “I’ve never seen separatist intention be higher than it is right now.”

Disability funding

Inclusion Grande Prairie president Keith Moore asked the premier why the federal Canada Disability Benefit (CBD) is being deducted from Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped (AISH).

He said the CBD payment, which provides up to $200 a month, will be deducted from clients’ AISH payments instead of being added to them.

“Recipients receive $1,900 per month, which leaves them all at the poverty level in Alberta,” he reminded the premier.

Smith says the issue is that Alberta has higher benefits than other provinces, which attracts people to the province for the better benefits.

She said CBD is making other provinces closer in line with Alberta for disability payments and creating less incentive for people to come to Alberta.

Smith alluded to the Alberta Disability Assistance Program (ADAP), which she says will allow people currently on AISH to work more and still receive benefits.

She said the province is also working on a program to cover pharmacare for residents who cannot afford the benefits.

Classrooms

The premier was questioned about how funding is coming to rural schools and what is being done to help students.

“We actually do have more dollars flowing through the rural school boards than urban,” said Smith.

She said urban school boards receive about $11,000 per student while rural boards receive about $14,000 per student.

“What we’re hearing from the front lines is that those dollars aren’t necessarily flowing down to the classroom.

“I fear that a lot of dollars are being somehow caught up in administration or other positions and not getting down to the kind of support that is needed at the school.”

She said work is beginning on finding why more educational assistants are not being used in the classroom.

“We have 29,000 severely disabled individuals who are in our schools, and if those kids don’t have an education assistant attached to them, then it’s the teacher who’s going to have to get pulled to help with medical feeding, toileting, aggression, and that’s then creating a classroom environment which is just not conducive to learning for the other kids.”

Smith says consultations will be held with teachers to determine the best approach for students who cannot be integrated into regular classrooms, and wants to explore the possibility of creating specialized classrooms for students with higher needs.

She said there are currently 29,000 individuals with severe disabilities in classrooms, and school boards are not assigning enough educational assistants. Smith also noted that there are currently only 11,000 educational assistants in the province.

Additionally, there are 95,000 students with English as their second language, as well as students who require mild to moderate support.

“We are talking about maybe moving to a model where the province has more direct control over assigning the education assistance, especially to those high-needs kids, because those are kids who probably will need support for life.

“They probably needed support before they got to school; they’re probably going to need support after they leave school, so maybe there is a bit more of a role for our social services department.”

Utility bills

Smith said that Grande Prairie MLA Nolan Dyck and Grande Prairie-Wapiti MLA Ron Wiebe are committed to lowering utility distribution rates in the north.

Wiebe said not only is the high cost of electricity affecting residents, but it is also affecting investment in the area. He said he carries his electricity bills with him to Edmonton to demonstrate the disparity in cost to other MLAs.

“It’s causing us investment losses here because people don’t want to invest here, because the cost of utilities is high,” said Wiebe.

Smith is hopeful for a resolution before winter when costs will rise.

“We had one proposal that came forward that was not quite the right one, that didn’t succeed, but we have my affordability and utilities minister working on another one,” said Smith. “We know that there’s a very unique problem in this particular service area on distribution fees, and we are really wanting to solve it before the end of the year.”

Homelessness

A resident referred to a Town & Country News article on Wapiti House and noted that with the closure of the Peace River shelter, its homeless population is coming to Grande Prairie.

“I’ve heard Peace River closed down, and so they’re pretty happy because they’ve solved their problem there,” said Smith, “I didn’t realize that it migrated over here, but that’s one of the issues, you build those kinds of facilities, you end up sometimes creating more problems.”

Dyck noted the work of non-government organizations, such as Rising Above, and the treatment services it provides in the area, as well as the provincial treatment centre being built in Clairmont.

He also noted the work the city is doing with transitional housing.

Maskwa Medical Center

Though Smith noted she is aware of Maskwa Medical Center — a community-driven Mayo-style clinic in Grande Prairie — she did not announce any financial commitments to it, as has been requested by organizers and municipalities.

Smith confirmed that the $4-million CT scanner, which the community funded, is now approved for installation at Fairview Hospital.

Critics of the town hall event, including some speakers, said the 3 p.m. Friday time — when many people were unavailable or working — as well as the short notice given to the public as being problematic.

UCP members were notified by email on Monday; MLAs made no social media posts about the event.

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