I always find it fascinating witnessing the demarkation between acceptable and unacceptable socialism.  When we talk of saving an industry or encouraging business, the media quite happily falls in line and endorses said solution.  When it comes to social programs – healthcare, social services – the public sector so to speak, only then does the questioning and dissent really begin.

tp-cgy-pork-rallyRecently Alberta pork producers have been hit hard by a culmination of various market factors and global concerns.  The Pork industry in Alberta has shrunk dramatically and the remaining producers are requesting help from the provincial government.   The government of Alberta is in the process (over 6 years) of putting some 2.5 billion dollars into the pork industry.  But hard times call for more public money; to save the industry so to speak.

Contrast this with the history of severe cut backs and chronic underfunding of Alberta’s Social Services system.   The demands just to alleviate the crisis in social services is 240 million dollars as of May 2008.  Have the needs of the poeple been addressed in our supposedly rich province?  Of course not.  Public spending is rarely on the agenda here in Alberta, calls for increased social support are dismissed as frivolous and gratuitous extra spending.  When it comes to oil or pork though…watch out…  that is,unsurprisingly, where the priorities lay.