Hale updates council about Wildrose happenings
Shannon LeClair
Times Reporter
Strathmore-Brooks MLA Jason Hale attended the April 3 regular Town Council meeting to discuss how things are going at a provincial level.
The budget is the big news right now, and Wildrose came up with the Financial Recovery Plan and a 10-year debt free capital plan, which shows how they would have done things differently with the budget, where to spend the money and how to prioritize.
“As a province we have the highest per capita infrastructure spending out of any province, we have the highest income tax per capita out of any province. Total revenue income per capita, per person is the highest out of any province, so our stand is that we do not have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem,” said Hale.
He said the bitumen bubble is being blamed for the level of debt the province will need to go into. He has a chart from 2005 that shows the differential of what we were getting paid for the Western Canada Select compared to the WTI. He said before the budget came out it was at approximately $34 and at the end of January this year it was at $32.
“One area that we are in agreement with the government is the pipeline capacity hat we need to build. The west-east pipeline, the Keystone pipeline hopefully eventually maybe a pipeline to the west coast. That one doesn’t seem like it’s going to be anytime soon,” said Hale.
“Right now with our product we can only go to certain markets, we need to expand our markets to get value for our product, and the safest most reliable way is through pipelines. It’s unfortunate that there has been some pipeline breaks. The companies do not want pipeline breaks any more than the environmentalists, or the landowners or the communities.”
As industry standards are changing and improving, so is the infrastructure when it comes to building the pipeline. The pipelines will take time to build if and when approved, which Hale said means it’s up to the government to budget properly and spend within its means.
One issue that has been discussed in session and will directly affect Strathmore and the County is WADEMSA. The government wants to take control of that contract which would then see ambulance services centralized, and likely being dispatched out of Calgary.
“We do not think that is a good idea,” said Hale.
“Strathmore WADEMSA isn’t alone, there are other communities, quite a few of them, that are going through the same contract negotiations and the province wanting to take over the contract.”
Hale asked the health minister how they plan to provide the same level of service for the residents if the government takes over the ambulance services. Being so close to Calgary, which has a shortage of ambulance services, there is a fear that our ambulances will be dispatched there leaving the residents of Strathmore and Wheatland County without service, or waiting an indeterminate amount of time.
Hale said he was told that won’t happen, but he doesn’t believe that and does know of cases where ambulances have been dispatched to nearby cities and it hasn’t faired well for people in the smaller communities.
“We’re going to keep pressing on that issue that local boards know how to run their ambulance service better than a centrally ran service,” said Hale.
He spoke of the Wildrose Caucus Foundation that was formed after members of the Wildrose party voted unanimously in favour of donating the eight per cent pay hike that was voted in. A donation was made to the Little Warriors Foundation, an organization that supports children who have been victims of sexual abuse. The $25,000 will go towards the creation of the Be Brave Ranch, which will be a treatment facility for kids who have been sexually abused in Canada.
The projection from now until 2016 is that there will be a $17 billion deficit, which Hale said is shown in the financial plans.
He said questions have been asked in question period about what the plan is to pay this back the funds.
“They don’t have a plan. They say they will be paying some of the interest back, but that doesn’t affect the capital. If the deficit is $17 billion by 2016 that will be over a $900,000 interest payment,” said Hale.
“If that continues to keep rolling forward, we’re going to be paying over a billion dollars for interest, not including capital.”