EDMONTON — Responding to two weeks of criticism over its decision to trim $970,000 from the operating budgets of more than a dozen women's shelters, the Government of Alberta clarified Tuesday that emergency services and women's shelters are, in fact, two distinct categories, and that only one of them gets to be an emergency.

"When you call 911 because your house is on fire, we don't ask you to fill out a waitlist or check whether the fire is happening in a priority funding region," explained a spokesperson for the Ministry of Seniors, Community and Social Services, speaking from a building with a sprinkler system, three marked exits, and a defibrillator mounted every forty feet. "A women's shelter is more of a discretionary emergency. The good kind we can revisit at budget time."

The five per cent reduction, announced May 19, was described by the province as a "modest efficiency" — language officials noted is also used to describe firing the lifeguard but keeping the pool. Shelter operators, who report turning away thousands of women and children every year for lack of beds, were reportedly relieved to learn the cuts were modest, having briefly worried they might be the kind of cuts that affect real people.

"We fund fire trucks before the house burns down, not after, but shelters are different because the emergency is, regrettably, a woman," said one government source, requesting anonymity on the grounds that the sentence sounded worse out loud than it had in the briefing binder. The source added that the province remains "deeply committed" to the safety of Albertans, a commitment it expresses primarily through press releases, which are free.

Critics have pointed out that the same budget found room for a $7-million sovereignty advertising campaign and a war room, prompting the government to clarify that those, too, are emergency services — specifically, emergencies of perception. "A woman fleeing for her life can always go somewhere," the spokesperson noted helpfully. "Whereas a poll number, once lost, is gone forever."

At press time, the province announced a bold new pilot program under which women's shelters would be funded exactly like any other essential emergency service, contingent on first proving they generate pipeline revenue, vote UCP, or can be photographed next to the Premier holding a hard hat.