Seems like the tar sands was a bad bet economically as well as environmentally… oh, well. 

Disappointing mixture of policies:

1.  Hold the line on public education

2.  Cutback Post-Secondary Funding

3.  Increase funding for private schools

4.  Picked a number out the air in deciding that, starting May 1, pharmacies may only charge 18% of the brand name drug's price for generic drugs which will cause significant financial stress for all drug stores (including Rexall whose owner gave the PCs a huge donation, over $400,000 in the last election) -- unknown what effect this will have in the future, but some brand name drugs are sold with only a small margin above the cost of production.

5.  Reduced funding for environmental monitoring

6.  Reduced funding for before and after school child-care programs

7. 0 increase for doctors and teachers for 3 years

8.  Bending over backwards to ensure there will still be money for building more schools, even if there may not be money for staffing them.

9.  Closing Michener Centre even though there do not seem to be spaces in the existing group-home system for the 125 residents

And Redford was regarded as being especially concerned for vulnerable people.

There are a lot of people regretting decisions they made last year to support the PCs in the election campaign.

At least they committed to maintaining MSI funding. The bad news is our town has MSI funding cut back so much in previous years, there wasn't much left anyway.

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To me it looks like the Alberta government are making some poor decisions.

1.  Hold the line on public education

The cost of living is rising so logically they need to put in a bit extra to account for that (unless they are planning to cut the essentials like art, music, phys ed etc).  I think I heard that the population of Alberta is growing too.

2.  Cutback Post-Secondary Funding

A counter productive move.  Surely they need educated adults?

3.  Increase funding for private schools

Total waste of money.  If parents can afford private education let them pay for all of it - building, teachers, equipment, disposables.  It is NOT the responsibilty of the tax payers to support  private schools.

4.  Picked a number out the air in deciding that, starting May 1, pharmacies may only charge 18% of the brand name drug's price for generic drugs which will cause significant financial stress for all drug stores (including Rexall whose owner gave the PCs a huge donation, over $400,000 in the last election) -- unknown what effect this will have in the future, but some brand name drugs are sold with only a small margin above the cost of production.

Don't know enough to comment on this but it doesn't sound good.  Does this mean the drug stores are being forced to lose what has been legitimate income 

5.  Reduced funding for environmental monitoring

This of course, needs additional funding.  Once the planet is too polluted to maintain life then what do they plan to do?

6.  Reduced funding for before and after school child-care programs

This too sounds stupid.  Whether a child has one or two parents involved in their care they need a safe, affordable place between the end of school and the parent getting off work.

7. 0 increase for doctors and teachers for 3 years

I don't know what they are paid so can't say much.  To my mind teachers can't be paid too much - they hold the future of each child, the country and eventually, the world, within their hands.

8.  Bending over backwards to ensure there will still be money for building more schools, even if there may not be money for staffing them.

Doesn't Alberta have increasing population?  It seems to me that they would be needing more schools AND more teachers and support staff.

9.  Closing Michener Centre even though there do not seem to be spaces in the existing group-home system for the 125 residents

They are responsible for the well being of these people and MUST provide an acceptable place for them to live before closing down the centre.

If government cuts are made federally or provincially I think they should be at the government level.  Less perks, later and more modest pensions, cutbacks in expensive meals (I'd love to see government banquets supplied by local, qualified folk - like UCW, and ACW.  There is a Jewish group that makes meals as a method of fundraising - Hadasah?  Probably also Sikh, Hindu, Muslim groups along with totally secular ones.

Across the world we need to start thinking outside the box (or just forget there ever was a box).

Holding the line in funding (particualrly in a growth situation, but even in a stagnant population) is a cutback.  Increasing funding by less than population growth + COLA is a cutback.  That is the math.  And so this budget was full of cutbacks.  How that will impact service delivery will only be seen in time.

Part of it is ideology, the mentality that to increase revenue is somehow the worst thing to do.  Just as the Reform/Alliance Party cut money out of the national budget which will not be returned without great strength of political will and bravery (the 2% reduction in the GST) the [Reform/Alliance minded] Alberta government under Klein and Stockwell Day destroyed this provinces progressive tax system and replaced it with a flat tax (that benefits the wealthy far more than anyone else even when one remembers that Alberta has a healthy person income tax exemption).  Restoring a proper income tax system and possibly some alterations to corporate tax and royalty structures were options that never appeared on the table.

I didn;t vote Conservative.

I think the problem is we are in a recession and the MLA's are way overpaid with way too much retirement pension.  Those are where the cutbacks should have been made.  I sound like a broken record and I get stupid letters from my MLA when I tell him this,

There is a whole innercircle culture of entitlement thatis amazingly arrogant.  Ralph Klein died yeterday, and there are many complimentary things being said about him.  We moved back to Alberta in 1995 from Saskatchewan. In 1993, the Romano Government closed 55 hospitals across the province, then created regional health authorities.  They also balanced their budget a year before Alberta did, but most Albertans don't know that.  Klein looked at the Saskatchewan model, and created regional health authorities in Alberta.  In Saskatchewan, the administrators of those authorities got ordinary civil servant salaries.  In Alberta they received incredible salary packages.  In Alberta, Klein left it to the regional authorities to rationalize the number of hospitals -- he was not willing to be saddled with the public backlash against such a move himself.  Luckily for Klein, oil prices went up substantially after he was elected, and the increased inflow of royalties helped balance the budget and fund tax cuts for the wealthy and for businesses.  The entitlement culture that existed before Klein continues today.  AHS execs expect to get 'at-risk pay' even though they did not come close to meeting any of their targets.  And we are not in a recession in Alberta.  We have jsut given too much revenue generation away.