The Problem of Thomas

The eviscerating cuts to Alberta’s post-secondary education system anger me; I believe that what I teach is important, and I want to protect the study of literature.  Mostly, these cuts enrage me because I believe that a healthy post-secondary education system is not only beneficial to Alberta but is necessary for our province to succeed in the future.  A well-educated citizenry can only be positive.

More than the fact that our current government ran on an election platform of stable funding for the education system and then cut funding by more than seven per-cent, I am enraged by the way in which these cuts have been meted out.  Obviously, they were surprise cuts, and the government has demanded large institutions to make drastic, horrific changes in only two years.  But it is how these cuts have been handled in the media and on social-media by our alleged champion, Mr. Lukaszuk, that sicken me.

Forgetting, for the moment, that this leader has limited experience with this portfolio or its “stakeholders,” and that the education portfolio also includes “enterprise,” and that he is also the Deputy Premier, his personal approach to these cuts is absolutely insulting.

This is a man who says that he will “deal” with angry professors; a man who says that he has not heard much from students or their parents; a man who is dismissive of the work done by lauded researchers and teachers; a man who engages, on Twitter, in ad hominem attacks against a far more rational professor than I who attempts to maintain fact-based, logical discourse about these cuts.

I have been blocked by Mr. Lukaszuk, and for good reason.  I called him an arse.  When he tried to capitalize on a school-shooting by re-tweeting another person’s tweet about the heroics of teachers, I said that it might be important to fund the heroes.  Don’t forget that he was the Minister of Education when devastating cuts were delivered to that sector.  Don’t forget that doctors and teachers in Alberta have also been bullied into accepting cuts.

All of this happens while a government in power for more than forty years refuses to levy a tax or increase royalties to the Oil and Gas industry.  We have to remember who the masters of Alberta truly are.  These masters are not Redford or Lukaszuk.

What I would like to address, though, is that Mr. Lukaszuk--even if he serves only as a diversion, an object of derision, as several people have astutely suggested--apparently had a tough go of it while at the University of Alberta.  There has to be something behind his absolutely dismissive attitude to instructors of higher education.  He seeks to woo students: the new doublethink is “Not on the backs of students,” all while student options decrease and non-tuition fees increase.  He is building Alberta for you by dismantling it.

Above all, Mr. Lukaszuk is clearly engaged in a divide-and-conquer strategy that is doomed to fail.  He does not know the students I know.  His absurd statements that these cuts will not affect students, that he is in support of students, that students come first--all of these statements would be dismissed by many students who have taken my classes or any number of post-secondary classes in Alberta. Remember:  this is a government that promised two per-cent increases to post-secondary education for three years.  Students are not as stupid as you think they are, Mr. Lukaszuk.