One of the worst guarded secrets in Alberta politics was that the Alberta Teachers' Association (ATA) was planning to orchestrate a province-wide teachers' strike next spring, with the intention of having it coincide with a provincial election.

A strike during a government's most vulnerable time - an election - has been the same strategy successfully employed by other public sector unions in the past.

The ATA's hope, presumably, would be that a strike during the anticipated spring election would at least, make education a primary focal point, at best, result in angry parents turfing the PC government, and would likely end in the Stelmach government offering Canada's already-highest-paid-teachers an even better contract.

ATA President, (and former Liberal MLA) Frank Bruseker, as much as confirmed their plan recently in a recent Edmonton Sun article: "we look at taking a strike vote, and we could be in that position in February, which would put a strike as early as March or April, which might be right at the time of the provincial election."

Unfortunately, the ATA never had a chance to put their master-plan into action. Premier Stelmach pre-empted the strike by getting the ATA to agree not to strike during the upcoming election, and in fact, not strike for the next five years.

How, pray tell, did he get them ever to agree to this?  Was it his savvy negotiating skills, his sound fiscal arguments, or his grit and determination?  Nope. Stelmach merely backed a dump-truck full of taxpayer cash onto the lawn at Barnett House, where the ATA headquarters are, and poured out $2.2-billion (that's right, 2100-million dollars) of taxpayer's money.

The Stelmach government used taxpayer's money to bribe teachers not to strike during the next election.

To be more precise, the Stelmach government has agreed to pay off the teachers' $2.1-billion pension debt. The whole debt, which totals $6.4-billion, was a by-product of bad government policy, a poorly designed pension plan, and under-contributions by teachers and government. In 1992, as a long-term solution the ATA agreed to have teachers pay-off one-third of this debt and the Alberta government agreed to have taxpayers pay-off two-thirds.

As the debt continued to grow and contributions from both taxpayers and teachers increased (thanks to the fact that it's a defined-benefit pension plan and they have a tendency to do just that), the ATA decided it would be fantastic for their teachers if taxpayers paid-off the entire debt. No doubt it would be. Who wouldn't want someone else to come in and pay-off their obligation

As such, they requested numerous times for the government to re-negotiate the 1992 deal.

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation has never been opposed to the Alberta government re-negotiating the 1992 long-term deal on the unfunded pension liability, provided taxpayers end up in a better position at the end of the day.

Not only have taxpayers not gained any ground, they didn't even break even.

Premier Stelmach received a mere five years of no teacher strikes in return for $2.1-billion tax dollars.

That's it. That's all.

Premier Stelmach was not interested in negotiating on behalf of taxpayers and trying to ensure taxpayers got the best deal. Clearly, he was only interested in making sure he and his 82 PC candidates in the next election got the best deal by not having to see picketing teachers outside of their campaign offices.

And all it cost you was $2.1-billion or $600 each.

What a deal!