Following a speech to the Economic Club of Canada in Toronto, Alberta Finance Minister Iris Evans suggested to the audience that two-income parents place less importance on raising children than families that keep a parent home. Evans’ then drifted even further from the topic of the economy and ‘suggested a link between a lack of education and mental illness or criminal behaviour.’
“The huge failure of Canadians is not to educate the children properly and then why should we be surprised when they have mental illnesses or commit dreadful crimes?”
Alberta’s Finance Minister then targeted her criticism on an even more unexpected area as she criticized funding for new police officers:
“The great tragedy in this year’s budget in Alberta … is that we put 200 more policemen, police officers, for the next two years and more Crown prosecutors, more law enforcement people,” she said.
“If we had put 200 more positions in place to help parents be better parents I would have been much happier.”
Only hours later, Evans apologized for her bizarre comments.
UPDATE: Is there a chance that this is simply a genius political distraction by Evans’ in order to distract Albertans from the announcement that Alberta may need to borrow up to $5 billion in the coming years?
