When it comes to education, often in a political campaign, we’ve been talking past what really matters. Rather than focusing, for example, on promises about what schools will be built and what the class sizes are going to be in the province’s schools and how much money will be thrown at the education system, the critical question is what will Alberta’s children actually be taught in those schools and what will the parents’ role be in directing what is taught?

Screen shot of ad appearing in the Cochrane Eagle.
In his one-page newspaper ad, our socialist NDP candidate has promised to “deliver a modern curriculum”. So, what exactly are the NDP’s plans for our schools and what would such a “modern curriculum” look like? First off, the NDP plans to remove school choice and leave a public school as the only option. At a press conference for a “major campaign commitment on education” held on May 3rd, Rachel Notley alluded to cutting funding for alternative education options, such as private schools and charter schools.
The Alberta Teachers’ Association, a close friend of the NDP, is maxing out their $160,000 third party advertiser budget in this election for their ‘Stand For Education‘ ad campaign, a stand for public education, that advocates eliminating funding for alternate education. They are asking their followers to demand that MLAs commit to defunding private and charter schools. Who benefits from such a change? The Alberta Teachers’ Association union for one as they stand to gain many millions of dollars by forcing non-unionized teachers to pay them dues.
Finally, the selection of Cathy Hogg as a candidate for the NDP in this year’s election, someone who as the head of the Public School Board Association of Alberta has vigorously campaigned to end all other forms of education other than public education, sends a message that an NDP government will defund private schools — and perhaps more.
Such a push by the socialist NDP to restrict parental choice in education comes as no surprise. There’s room for only one system in Rachel Notley’s world, which is understandable from the socialist playbook, the Communist Manifesto. According to the Communist Manifesto, children are to be educated by the state and not by their parents (“The bourgeois claptrap about the family and education, about the hallowed co-relation of parent and child, becomes all the more disgusting”). In his Manifesto, Marx described ten steps as necessary steps to be taken to destroy a free enterprise society. The 10th plank in the Communist Manifesto calls for, “Free education for all children in public schools”. Karl Marx wrote, “The education of all children, from the moment that they can get along without a mother’s care, shall be in state institutions at state expense.” Under such a system, exclusively “state institutions at state expense”, those who want control to indoctrinate students in their worldview will have more power.
Education is critical for shaping a culture’s worldview. Those with totalitarian intentions recognize that one of the greatest tools for social engineering is in the realm of public education. Thus, Hitler understood, “He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future!” Vladimir Lenin asserted, “Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted”. Ultimately, as recognized by President Abraham Lincoln, “The philosophy of the classroom in one generation will be the philosophy of the government in the next”.
With that, let’s consider what the NDP has in mind with respect to their promise of delivering a socialist, so-called “modern curriculum”. In June 2022, NDP education critic Sarah Hoffman at a “Future of Public Education” event outlined the content of the NDP’s understanding of a “PROPER modern curriculum, one that ACTUALLY prepares them for their future.” According to Hoffman their “modern” curriculum will be, “One that teaches them about climate change, gender equality, poverty reduction, anti-racism AND the history of residential schools – something they will start to learn in Kindergarten, because we know that’s what is need to walk the path towards Truth and Reconciliation”.The NDP government has thereby clearly signaled its intent to incorporate and impose its radical ‘progressive’ political agenda when it comes to shaping Alberta’s education curricula.
What Hoffman proposed with respect to a so-called “modern curriculum”, is no different from what then NDP Education Minister David Eggen announced in 2016 was to be part of an overhaul Alberta’s education curricula, an overhaul which was to include topics such as climate change, gender diversity and sexual orientation as part of what is to be ‘taught’ in Alberta’s schools. Seeking the leadership of the Alberta NDP in May 2014, David Eggen had audaciously declared, “I think this is a crucial time for progressive voices to help shape the future of this province”. As in 2016, one expects gender diversity and sexual orientation to be part of the so-called ‘modern curricula’ that the NDP is promising to deliver if elected. Not surprising the socialist NDP is aligned with the intentions of the likes of the UN, the WHO and Bill Gates when it comes to what is taught in Schools. According to Dutch author and journalist David Sorensen, the United Nations (U.N.) and the World Health Organization (WHO) are working to normalize pedophilia globally. In April 2023, three U.N.-affiliated organizations published a report that implied that sex with minors should be decriminalized (see Article 16, “Consensual Sexual Conduct”, in the report), most likely the end goal of the efforts to sexualize children through comprehensive sexual education and SOGI (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity) programs in schools.
According to an NDP video in 2016 about its planned overhaul of Alberta’s education curricula the education system’s thrust wasn’t for students to acquire knowledge and skills, but, rather, “Our goal is to create actively involved citizens who realize their place and who are agents of change to create the globe that they want to be a part of”, thereby, creating global citizens, helping to usher in a new globalist world order according to the U.N.’s Agenda 2030.
With respect to the matter of “Trust” in the Wildrose Loyalty Coalition’s platform, we declare that “We trust parents and will protect their rights to make decisions concerning their children”. Parents – not teachers, schools, bureaucrats, or activists – must remain the primary caregivers and decision makers in their children’s education. We will stand up for parental rights and the ability of parents to choose the type of education for their children which transmits their values and worldview.
In keeping with Karl Marx in the Communist Manifesto calling for the “abolition of the family”, he accordingly sought to “rescue education from the influence of” and “stop the exploitation of children by their parents”. No wonder, therefore, that the during the last NDP government, the NDP’s so-called “Safe and Caring Policy”, a requirement enshrined in law, forced teachers and staff to keep secrets from parents about what their children were exposed to at school – keep parents in the dark.
The socialist NDP, not surprising, has no qualms in attacking Christians and their institutions that refuse to conform to their values During the NDP term of government witness the NDP’s Education Administration having reprimanded a private Christian school, stating that certain faith-based statements fell afoul of government regulations requiring “diversity”. As well as taking issue with a school stating that the school’s academic instruction is based on “unchangeable and infallible word of God”, the NDP government took particular issue with the word “Truth” that appeared the school’s Profession of Faith. According to the NDP, Christians were to teach the government’s doctrines or not teach at all, thereby, announcing as official policy the supremacy of the state over the church in education. Diversity means freedom; not forced speech. Real educational choice; not whatever choice the government dictates.
Bottom-line: Keep in mind the stated purpose of the Alberta NDP party, according to its constitution, “The purpose of the Party is to promote the principles of democratic socialism in Alberta and to establish and maintain a democratic socialist government in Alberta through the electoral process”. A socialist government follows the principles of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels as espoused in the Communist Manifesto. Embraces the ideology of Marx and Lenin. Also, note from the Alberta NDP constitution that the Alberta NDP Party “shall constitute a section of the New Democratic Party of Canada”. The Progressive Alliance is an international organization of progressive and social democratic political parties founded in 2013. Canada’s New Democrat Party is one of the 118 political parties worldwide who are members of the Progressive Alliance. Included among its members are the Socialist Party of Argentina, the Socialist Party of Belgium, the Socialist Party of Brazil, the Socialist Party of Bulgaria, the Socialist Party of Chile, and the Socialist Party of Portugal. As I like to say, ‘birds of a feather flock together’. To identify itself properly, the New Democratic Party should best be understood as the ‘Socialist party of Canada’. Prompted by the recent discovery and release of a photo of Edmonton NDP candidate Rod Loyola (among several other open Communist sympathizers among NDP candidates in the current election) leading a parade of communists, Western Standard journalist Linda Slobodian hit the nail on the head with her article, “NDP preaches socialism but has a heart for Communists”. Or as one commentator on the article wrote, “socialism is communism with lipstick”. An openly socialist party will want to implement an education policy compatible with its socialist ideals. One, therefore, expects that its actions will be consistent with this purpose.