EDMONTON – Spending restraint shown in Tuesday’s budget needs to be tempered by recognition of the province’s growing population, says the president of the union that represents Alberta government employees.

"When the population is growing quickly, no increase in government services is a cut in government services," Alberta Union of Provincial Employees President Dan MacLennan said after the budget speech was read in the Legislature.

"Many of our members are finding it increasingly difficult to do their jobs when Alberta’s surging population leads to understaffing and heavy caseloads as the same services have to be delivered by the same number of government employees to larger numbers of Albertans," MacLennan said.

"The recent controversies over probation officer and children’s services worker caseloads are cases in point," he observed.

MacLennan said AUPE is particularly concerned that some of the approximately 300 jobs eliminated by the budget will be in children’s services. "We know that the caseloads of our members in children’s services are already too big. They should be adding to children’s services."
MacLennan also said he worried about the effects of adding $120 a year to individual health insurance premiums, and $240 per year to family premiums.

"This will be a cost item both for many families and many employers who pay premiums for employees," he explained.

"Business tax cuts and the flat tax have taken money out of government coffers over the past two years," MacLennan added. "With worries about declining revenues, this doesn’t seem an appropriate time to continue reducing corporate taxes, as this budget does."

MacLennan said he believes the province’s economy is sound, and growing. "If energy revenues and economic growth are higher than forecast in this budget, as I expect they will be, we hope the government will recognize these developments as it fine-tunes its spending plans over the months ahead."

As for population growth, new population statistics published last week by Statistics Canada showed dramatic population increases in Alberta – especially in Calgary, Edmonton and the corridor between them.

Since the last Canadian census in 1996, Alberta’s population grew 10.3 per cent to 2.89 million people. Population in the Calgary-Edmonton was up 12.6 per cent to 2.1 million, in Edmonton 8.7 per cent to 937,845, and in Calgary 15.8 per cent to 951-395 – the fast growth rate among Canadian cities.

"With a population growing this fast, there is a need for increases in all sorts of services, including government services," MacLennan said.

"The government needs to recognize this growth when it plans its budgets, because a budget that doesn’t grow is a budget that is shrinking on a per-capita basis."

For more information, contact:
David Climenhaga, Communications Director, AUPE, 780-930-3311 or 780-717-2943 (cellular phone)

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