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The bill moved away from employees having a presumptive right to decline work that seems unsafe, which employers had to then fix and were not able to discipline the workers for declining that work. Now, the work must present excessive or immediate danger, which makes it harder for employees to validate rejections and even discourages them from refusing risky work in the very first place.
Let's talk about the size of the public sector. In their very first budget plan, which they launched in the fall of 2019, the UCP federal government reported that in the 20182019 budget plan year, there was the equivalent of 210,407 individuals working full-time in the general public sector in Alberta. That includes government workers, instructors, nurses, postsecondary employees, and so on.
That suggests 3,679 full-time employees (or their equivalent) lost their tasks in simply two years. Let's have a look particularly at those numbers for post-secondary education. 2018201933,5882020202132,890Change-698 What we see here is that throughout the very first two years of the UCP's very first term in federal government, they eliminated approximately 700 full-time equivalent positions in the post-secondary system, which could include both teaching and assistance workers.
Because 20202021, however, the variety of postsecondary employees has increased by 851 full-time equivalent positions. 2018201933,5882025202633,741 Change153 Yet when we consider the loss of nearly 700 positions in the very first 2 years, we are left with a boost of just 153 full-time equivalent positions in post-secondary over the last 5 years.
Not 4.6%. 0.46%. The ratio of postsecondary workers to the overall public sector has decreased, going from accounting for 15.96% of all public sector workers in 20182019 to 14.93% in 20252026, basically dropping a complete percentage point.
Discovering the Best Local Program in WinnipegBut looking at simply the portion of overall public sector employees does not always provide us a complete image of staffing levels. After all, if they increased the variety of full-time equivalent positions in all other public sector locations, that would toss off the ratio of post-secondary employees to all public sector workers.
Alberta's population between March 2019 and March 2025 increased by almost 15.5%, far exceeding growth in the postsecondary sector. 2018201933,5882025202633,14420252026 adjusted38,796 Difference5,206 If we had actually kept up with population development, we would have had over 5,200 more individuals working in post-secondary last year than we did. Which's assuming we even had appropriate numbers in 20182019 to start with.
How many of you have ever heard an Alberta political leader claim that we have the highest salaries in Canada? It's a quite common claim. It's not real. Well, it's not true any longer. You see, the highest median hourly wage in Canada actually goes to British Columbia, which has actually held that area given that 2023.
They had usually remained in second place behind BC, and periodically third place behind Ontario. But even when Alberta had the greatest incomes, that fact was covering a stressing trend that everyone appeared to be ignoring. You see, BC didn't all of a sudden soar to top place in terms of earnings.
In 2014, BC really had the 4th highest mean hourly salaries of any of the provinces, behind Alberta, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Saskatchewan. A year later, Newfoundland and Labrador dropped from second place to 4th location, pushing BC up to third. At the beginning of 2020, before the COVID-19 pandemic began, BC went beyond Saskatchewan, which had fallen to 3rd location.
And BC has been primary almost every month since. Had actually anybody been paying attention, they 'd have seen that while Alberta's wages kept climbing up, so did BC's, however BC's wages were growing quicker than Alberta's. Between January 2014 and January 2025, BC's average wage increased by $10 an hour, the largest boost of all the provinces.
The trend is even more noticable when we look at real earnings, earnings changed for inflation. Throughout this very same 11-year period, Alberta saw the 4th biggest increase in the customer rate index: 30.95%. During this same 11-year duration, Alberta saw the fourth biggest increase in the customer rate index: 30.95%.
In reality, Alberta was one of just 2 provinces where mean earnings increased more slowly than inflation, and of the 2, we carried out the worst. This suggests that Alberta employees saw the largest decrease in real earnings in the nation. The median employee in Alberta efficiently had their salaries cut by nearly 6% over the last decade.
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