What a Difference a Day Makes

(or in this case, what a difference a couple of months makes.)

It seems the Department of Education is suddenly and unexpectedly short 10 million dollars. Education Minister Kelly Lamrock has devised an ingenious plan to fix the problem by forcing teachers to either accept more students in some classrooms or fewer resources for students in general. I guess Liberals support a teacher's right to choose.

Where did this budget shortfall come from anyway? Well, this "unexpected" deficit comes just couple of months after the Grits sat down with the Teachers union and signed an agreement to raise their salaries by 14.5%.

See all the smiles here:

http://www1.gnb.ca/cnb/multimedia/display-e.asp?ID=1745&num=1

You might ask, how much is a 14.5% increase worth? Well, if you assume the average salary for the 7,500 teachers is the province is $50,000 then the increase will be worth over $50 million in the last year alone.

Now we here at the NB Conservative may not be that good at math but we can read a calendar. On December 8th, the Graham Government admitted they had created a huge provincial deficit. On December 17th Minister Lamrock signed a deal with the teachers worth tens of millions of dollars. But it actually took the Liberal Government a couple of months to figure out - "Hey, we don't have the money to pay for those big pay raises for the teachers".

Minister Lamrock has a Letter to the Editor in the papers today where he incredibly states "Tough times call for tough decisions and frank discussions about new approaches."

Maybe that should read "Tough times call for big contracts and photo ops with politicians, followed by lower quality education for our kids."