MLA report Oct 6

Hello Chestermere! I have had many meetings with you this week and as always you provide us with some great ideas and innovative thoughts on how to succeed in this beautiful province of ours. At the Whitecappers Potato Bake I had some great discussions on “Aging in Place”. I had the chance to chat about divorce by healthcare, and the need to have places to go to as we age that are closer to our family. This was followed by the Chestermere Aging In Place Forum at Lakeside Greens, the result of months of tireless work by Sherri Standish, Elaine Peake, Cathy Burness and the rest of the organizing committee. I was honoured to be asked to speak along with Tany Yao, the Wildrose Opposition Shadow Minister for Seniors, Dany Skelling from CMHC, and Carol Borschneck from the Rocky View Foundation, operators of a number of seniors facilities. This is a truly a discussion about integrity. We as a population are living longer and that is fantastic. There are many of us that will depend on public pension plans as our only sources of income. If you add that to having a spouse that is ill, we may be forced to live separately from them especially if we are in long term care facilities that cannot accommodate a married couple due to their differing needs. We cannot just “pitch” aging in place and then move couples away from spending their senior years together because we cannot accommodate them. We must understand the definitions of long term care facilities, levels of care that are actually available at a given facility, and what is retirement living and what exactly does that entail. Is the service provider willing to take seniors back after they have been discharged from a hospital or are they allowed to refuse someone who has left for medical needs not offered with in the facility? The business model needs to reflect all of these things and not only support independently living seniors. The forum was a great first step in addressing these issues. It is a discussion that needs to happen and I look forward to hearing your ideas.
As you know we collect for local Food Banks at the MLA office and we were just blown away by the numbers of people needing help. It’s no surprise, but to see the numbers is truly overwhelming. In 2015, there was a total of 237 food hampers that went out to local areas. In the first 7 months of 2016, we are already at 211 hampers, a 76% increase over the same period last year. Food Banks and other charities are not exempt from the carbon tax, and will face big increases in operating costs which will further reduce their funds available to help Albertans.
This week I attended the Pipeline expo, and as you can imagine the topic of discussion was about our own pipeline situation. There were so many of Alberta’s best and brightest attending this conference, and so many from abroad that look at our situation and just scratch their heads. Can you imagine what it must look like to a potential investor or business person who is thinking of working or investing here in Alberta? They meet us and see the technological expertise of our oil and gas sector. We excel at so many things in this province. They see our work ethic. They see the beautiful environment all around them, and the leading edge regulatory regulations that protect that environment. They see a people willing to go as far as need be to protect that air, water and earth, because their own children play in schools that are sometimes just miles away from the site that these industrious folk work at. They see a world class organization like the NEB whose mandate is to seek information, consult with those whose lives are impacted by a pipeline, and bring all that technological and societal expertise to the Federal government who then has the final say about Canada’s national best interest and prosperity. Then they see infighting, fear mongering, and an all-out attack on our own natural resources and energy sector! Would you invest? You would be looking at these folks and wondering why they want to be the “masters of their own demise.” Why are they sabotaging their own future and that of their children? Are the solutions really that difficult? We here in Alberta and Canada need to be loud and proud! We have so much and are so blessed with so many things, and yet here we sit as prisoners in our own province waiting and begging to do the right thing, and continue to be the world’s most environmentally conscious and responsible energy producers. Can we and should we do better? Absolutely! A carbon tax is not the way to do that in my opinion. Taking $1000 dollars more per family per year does not ease this traumatic and devastating down turn, nor will it bend behaviour. Bad government policy breeds distrust, and drives people away to jurisdictions that appreciate their expertise. Stay strong Alberta! Be proud and tell everyone how proud you are.
I would like to invite you to a Town Hall with Wildrose leader Brian Jean, yours truly, and other Wildrose MLAs at the CRCA MPP Room on Tuesday, October 11 from 6 to 9 PM. Come have a coffee and learn how the Wildrose is “On Your Side” and help us refine our plan to put our province back on the path to prosperity. We need your input! Admission is FREE.
As always, we love to hear from you.