On February 6, 2015, the Wildrose party and Leela Aheer announced that she would be the new candidate for the Chestermere-Rocky View constituency. Although the Chestermere Anchor CityNews has been unable to get the opportunity of interviewing Aheer, Patrick Bergen, President of Chestermere Rocky View Wildrose, did provide the following information. “The Rocky View region is where Leela has called home since 1979 and currently resides in Chestermere. She and her husband have been together for 25 years and have a busy family of four. Leela proudly advocates on behalf of her special needs son and actively guides her older son at the Victoria Conservatory of Music. Leela is an owner of the Chestermere Autowash as well as the Chestermere Community Health Centre. She was instrumental in bringing Alberta Health Services to her home city. Leela believes in and cares about bringing localized health care to smaller communities, a key plank of the Wildrose party. She also runs a music studio and plays in her “nationally released” ensemble Minerva. Leela is best known though for her charity work, especially in music and the arts. Leela works more than 50 charity events per year, including casinos, Wildrose fund raisers, bingos, and various music events. Leela has 3 years of Political Science from the University of Calgary and holds a Bachelor of Music from the University of Manitoba”.
On www.voteleela.com, Aheer states that she is passionate about starting conversations on topics such as fiscal conservatism, education, equal rights for all citizens of Alberta, healthcare and integrity. In her web post dated February 6, 2015, she states “The best way we can show We Care is to vote. There is clearly an election being planned for this spring and my greatest hope is that Alberta will see that the citizens of Chestermere Rocky View truly do care and come out and vote”.
On March 5, 2015, Aheer and supporters gathered at the Waiting Room Café where the MLA hopeful met with members of the community discussing what action they want to see on specific issues and what is important to them. Dozens of people mingled through the room speaking to each other and speaking with Aheer and her camp discussing what her plans are and undoubtedly asking those tough questions.
The Wildrose Party as a whole has been in a bit of a renovation process since nine of their MLA’s cross the floor to join the PC party. However, their focus remains on building urban and rural communities, excellence in education, caring for seniors, children and the vulnerable, responsible energy development, putting victims first, world class post-secondary trades and skills training and strengthening democracy and ending entitlements.
With no official announcement of an election and Premiere Prentice neither confirming nor denying rumours of an early election during his visit to Chestermere last month, we’ll just have to wait to see who will end up as the MLA for Chestermere-Rocky View.
