Provincial budget does not reflect Albertans’ priorities: Phillips

The provincial budget fails to meet inflationary needs and does not reflect Albertans’ priorities, according to NDP finance critic and Lethbridge-West MLA Shannon Phillips. Phillips says she believes education and healthcare will not be improved with the Alberta 2024 budget, especially in Lethbridge. 

“It is clear to me that the UCP has ignored Lethbridge — they don’t care about us and Nathan Neudorf has done a very, very poor and weak job of advocating for our city,” she says. “There is nothing in here that is meaningful for doctors’ compensation, attraction and retention — I am talking here about the anesthesiologists that we know we need, that physicians here in Lethbridge have said that due to the shortage, we are going to be looking at massive increases in wait time in surgeries.” 

READ MORE: Alberta tables budget with $367 million surplus 

The province released a list of school projects on March 1 and the vast majority are in Calgary and Edmonton, with none in Lethbridge. 

“Lethbridge is a growing community and both parents and kids deserve excellent, well resourced classrooms that are designed for 21st century learning. We know that we don’t have that in Galbraith, which is one of the oldest school in the province, we know we don’t have that in St. Francis,” Phillips says. 

Phillips says she believes the budget was about playing politics, rather than good public policy and if she was in charge she would have focused on healthcare and education more. 

“I would have done is put healthcare and education on a stable, predictable trajectory such that we could at least stabilize the crisis in healthcare and in education. There is no question that I would not have played the politics that they have clearly played with school projects. I would have made sure that growing communities across the province get what need,” she says. 

She adds she believes the most immediate impact from the budget on Lethbridge specifically will be increased wait times for healthcare.

The only major project in the budget specific to Lethbridge is a $26 million for the University of Lethbridge Rural Medical Teaching School. 

Phillips calls it a welcome investment, but adds she believes it would not have happened without her advocacy around healthcare. One other item she was pleased to see was investment in wildfire preparedness.