Alberta's Enterprise and Advanced Education

is Waiting to Hear from You

Alberta's ministry of Enterprise and Advanced Education has started a new blog:  http://albertaadvances.wordpress.com.  The blog accepts moderated comments.  I wonder just how many of these comments are, in fact, accepted.  I have submitted two (nearly) identical comments, both under my real name.  Let's see how much this government and ministry actually want to hear from real Albertans.

The first blog post is Mr. Lukaszuk's reminiscences of the wonderful day announcing the new renovations and expansions to University of Calgary's Engineering school.  I left the following comment (in two different versions, both with the same tone, with only slightly different wording):

"I think it would be a wonderful idea to name a brick after each person who has lost a job due to the $147M cuts to Alberta’s post-secondary education system.  If you were to include one for each student who no longer had access to the education system or each staff or faculty member who was not hired due to these cuts, each brick, wire, and bolt could have a name inscribed on it.

I do not mean this comment disrespectfully.  If the Redford government were to act on this suggestion, it would at least indicate to Albertans that the government knows what it is doing:  constructing buildings and destroying lives.  We could all rest easy in the knowledge that #buildingAlberta really means populating Alberta with shiny, new, empty buildings and the people who build them."

Both comments, one with my G+ account and one with my Twitter account, are awaiting moderation.  These posts were an experiment to see what kind of "dialogue" and "consultation" the Government of Alberta will tolerate.  Are the comments harsh?  Yes.  Do cuts to Alberta's post-secondary education system deserve harsh criticism?  Yes.  I have followed the guidelines for the blog's comments.  These posts are angry but they do not cross any lines as stipulated on the blog.

Will the current government recognize the damage they have caused, not only to the post secondary education system but to the lives of individual Albertans?  Does this government actually want to hear from Albertans?  Or do they want to hear their own voices returned to their cotton-stuffed ears?

Government of Alberta: I and my posts await your moderation.

UPDATE:  Much to my surprise, the quoted comment in this post was actually posted to the E&AE blog. So, there's that, at least.  Get on the blog and start commenting!