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“We want to take a very deliberate and careful approach to this,” he said. “I think one of the lessons learned from the Klein experience was they had to go back and undo some of those cuts because they were fairly arbitrary across the board and we don’t want to make that mistake.”

The Alberta Union of Public Employees said Friday that it expects up to 5,900 jobs to be eliminated over the next few years.

On Saturday, hundreds gathered outside the airport hotel where the UCP held its AGM to speak out against the public sector job cuts, including nurses, teachers and university staff.

Some in the crowd were chanting about a general strike and Alberta Federation of Labour president Gil McGowan donned a tuque commemorating the 100th anniversary of the famous mass labour disruption in Winnipeg.

“I thought it would be appropriate for today,” he told the crowd.

Kenney said that kind of talk is tone-deaf and would not be well-received, when public sector workers have fared well relative to those in the private sector during the last five years of oilpatch doldrums.

“I would say to those folks: let’s sit down and work this out. We want to minimize any effect on our public services, including our teachers and nurses,” Kenney said.

“We value what they do. I would just plead with them to look at the general economic and fiscal situation of this province.”

The NDP Opposition is demanding an emergency debate in the legislature over frontline heath-care cuts.

“This premier tried to claim it was fear and smear when we accused him of cutting front line nurses and health workers,” NDP health critic David Shepherd said in a release Sunday.

“Today, Albertans can see the so-called ‘smear’ was just the truth and the real fear is in the eyes of every Albertan relying on quality public health care.”