UCP pushes back against NDP attacks on choice in education

Three United Conservative Party (UCP) candidates seeking re-election in Alberta, Dan Williams, Adriana LaGrange and Rebecca Schulz have issued a letter decrying extremist NDP candidates who have advocated for the eradication of Catholic education and for the removal of choice in education via the creation of one education system to replace the plurality of options presently available.

You may recall Peace River MLA Dan Williams as one of the MLAs who spoke out in support of allowing unvaccinated students to return to post-secondary schools.

This time around, Rebel News was joined by Williams to discuss his latest letter advocating for students and parents alike, as well as the undeniable anti-choice in education sentiment that seems to permeate the NDP. Williams also condemned their continued rhetoric in favor of eliminating the constitutionally protected 170-year-old Catholic education system in the province.

Williams shared his thoughts on the potential motives for wanting to defund or altogether dismantle school boards that yield better results than the public system at a lower cost, in addition to pointing out that these options are often meeting the needs of various communities that public schools have struggled to accommodate. Many religious groups, language minority groups, sports performance-focused students and farmers, to name a few examples, rely on systems outside of mainstream public education to achieve the education they desire. The NDP seems to not care about those students' needs, but as Williams rightly points out, students are not one size fits all.

Rebel News also asked Williams about the NDP’s union ties and whether they may contribute to their motivation to attack school choice, with massively influential teacher's unions like the ATA not receiving union dues from teachers at many of the schoolboards that NDP MLAs have suggested need not exist.

We also discussed whether the underlying cause of NDP opposition to choice in education lies in a more fundamental opposition to the primacy of parents as educators and the at times more conservative tendencies within alternative schools.

You can read the full letter for yourself here: 

Rebel News was also joined by Jeff Park, executive director of the Alberta Parents’ Union, to discuss the NDP's latest attacks on parental choice in education. We also broke down whether choice in education yields better results and looked at the financials on whether maintaining choices beyond a unified public education system is costing or saving taxpayers money.

With the election fast approaching we are hoping that you will join us on the evening of May 29, 2023, for our live election coverage, which you’ll be able to find at AlbertaDecides.com. Turn off the MSM, come have some fun with us, and stay up to date on the election results and they come in.