Alberta UCP Curriculum rewrite includes “War on Cars”

Over the past few days, Albertans have reviewed the Alberta Government’s curriculum rewrite for Kindergarten to Grade 6. Collectively, we have been left scratching our heads at a potential new curriculum that appears to seriously misalign with what Albertans want from their education system.

Many concerning examples have bubbled up on social media regarding the proposed approach to teaching Social Studies, English, Science, Math, and more.

Paths for People identified a major concern with the Grade 6 Social Studies curriculum.

Source Alberta Government Draft K-6 Curriculum (March 29, 2021)

This screenshot was captured on Monday. The UCP seemed dead set on perpetuating the “War on Cars” by teaching this fictional story as fact.

Paths for People engaged in advocacy by directly phoning Premier Jason Kenney and Minister Adriana LaGrange to voice our concerns. While introducing who we were, we may have accidentally mispronounced our organization’s own name. We stated “Pipelines for People” instead of “Paths for People.”

However, the slip-up appears to have worked in our favour. Once Premier Kenney and Minister LaGrange thought our name was “Pipelines for People,” they immediately listened to all of our demands and acted on them.

This is the new screenshot from the Grade 6 Social Studies curriculum.

Source Alberta Government Draft K-6 Curriculum (March 31, 2021)

Paths for People appreciates that the Alberta Government took the time to update the curriculum. As everyday people who are passionate about Edmonton and Alberta, we still have many, many, many concerns about this curriculum redesign. We are concerned that this curriculum appears to be re-written on the fly and that groups like “Pipelines for People” can have an inordinate amount of sway in the process.

Here is a quote Premier Kenney left us with

“Alberta is lucky to have groups like “Pipelines [sic] for People” to fight for their Albertan interests. Although it feels a little incongruent for a group called “Pipelines for People” to request changes to our curriculum regarding the “War on Cars,” I will not question it.”

Premier Kenney

APRIL FOOL’S! We wish this curriculum re-write was a April Fool’s Day Prank. Safe walking, rolling, and biking! If you want to read about our actual advocacy, look here.