BARRHEAD - It wasn't the reception they were hoping for.
On Sept 19, half a dozen people, including County of Barrhead reeve Doug Drozd, gathered at the Barrhead Agrena's Charles Godberson to listen to Joshua Andrus, executive director of Project Confederation, and Jeff Park, executive director of the Alberta Parents' Union.
The pair were part of the Alberta Institute's Can’t Stop Alberta Tour, 24 community tour. The Alberta Institute is a not-for-profit, independent, third-party, libertarian public policy think tank based in Calgary.
Project Confederation and Parent's Union are umbrella organizations of the think tank.
Park made provincial headlines when Election Alberta fined him $10,500 for his irregular contributions to Jeff Callaway's 2017 campaign for the United Conservative Party leadership. He served as Callaway's executive director during the campaign.
Callaway was accused of running a "kamikaze" campaign for former premier Jason Kenney. Both men deny the allegation.
Park was also the former executive director of Parents for Choice in Education.
Park said he has worked in the education policy field for the last 17 years in various capacities, but its importance only hit home once he had the first of his four children seven years ago.
This was one of the impetuses for creating the Alberta Parents Union in the spring of 2022. They now have 20,000 supporters on their e-mail list.
"One of the reasons I think we've been able to gain that type of support is because we have a very basic set of commitments," he said. "The first is parents are the experts of their kids. There may be experts in curriculum design, pedagogy, or particular subjects — but no one is a better expert in my four kids than my wife and I."
Park said that’s why the Alberta Parents Union is a strong advocate for having more parents' voices around the K to Grade 12 table and more education choices, referring specifically to charter and pod schools and home education, with much of the funding coming from a parent accessible education account.
Andrus first got involved with the institute when the SNC Lavalin scandal first broke, saying at the time he did not believe Conservative Party of Canada leader Andrew Sheer had the "wattage" to take on the Liberals.
"[The Liberal government] has brought in a lot of policies that have effectively choked off investment, specifically the energy sector," he said, adding the impact goes well beyond oil and gas. "[The energy sector] not only does it power every other industry in Alberta, but the world. If you have affordable energy, keeping the lights on and moving and making products is easier and cheaper."
Andrus also noted he and Project Confederation are devoted to getting a fair deal for the province, complementing the province's Fair Deal Panel. Still, after the panel's recommendations were published, he was disappointed that the government did not act on them.
In 2019, Project Confederation released the New Alberta Agenda, an open letter to Premier Kenney outlining nine objectives the province should be pushing Ottawa for.
Among their top agendas were to establish a provincial police force and pension plan, collect provincial and federal income tax, resume provincial responsibility for healthcare, social policy, and infrastructure paid for by replacing the Canada Health Transfer, Canada Social Transfer, and various Infrastructure Transfers with a transfer of tax points in a similar to that of Quebec and take control of immigration.
"I think we've had an impact," Andrus said. "We focus on doing our research and being calm in our delivery. We hope people will take the information we give you and become our academic pitchforks," Andrus said.
Barry Kerton, TownandCountryToday.com
