Looking for a fair deal

By Leela Sharon Aheer Chestermere-Strathmore MLA

Hello Strathmore Times readers! I hope you had an amazing week and enjoyed the warm weather before we head back into a bit of a cold spell. I want to start off by thanking Cheadle Hall for hosting our Fair Deal for Alberta Panel. We were honoured to have Fair Deal Panel members Stephen Lougheed and Donna Kennedy-Glans join us to hear from you about what you think is important for a fair deal for Alberta within Confederation. Thank you to my assistants Vicki Welsh, Peter Tindall, and Joyce Bazant for all of their work in organizing this panel as well as our volunteers who came out early on a Saturday to set up the room and take down. Most inspiring was how many great and thoughtful ideas came from you. Your guidance will inform our work so that we are able to best represent you both provincially and at the national level. I know that many of you are frustrated and angry, and we acknowledge that and we hear you. I am a proud Albertan and a proud Canadian, and I am truly honoured that you took your time on a Saturday morning to let me know how you are feeling about how we are being treated.
On that note, I would like to speak about national unity. I’m sure your table talk is similar to mine in that we are waiting to find out the fate of the Teck Frontier Oilsands project. We take our environmental role very seriously, and the federal government needs to acknowledge that and give their blessing to this project. As Minister Jason Nixon said: “This will show whether the Prime Minister is serious about working with this province or not.”
This $20 billion project is waiting for federal cabinet approval after going through the most rigorous review process on the globe. Contrary to what you may hear in the media, local First Nations are onside with the project. Teck Frontier will produce in excess of 250,000 barrels per day and create thousands of jobs. This project is about Alberta prosperity and Canadian prosperity. Our roads, hospitals, schools, hockey rinks, lifestyle and wellbeing are tied to these projects as we all benefit from the resource sector. If you go to a hospital, use a syringe, have an MRI, lie in a hospital bed, use medications, or have surgery, all of these products that we depend on are made from or run on fossil fuels, and we are the best in the world at producing them. We are the cleanest and most responsible developers of natural resources. It is time for the Prime Minister to do the right thing and give the go ahead for this project. We need to rally behind the resource sector at all levels of government and get this project done. This project is so much more than just building wealth and prosperity, it embodies the federal government’s acknowledgement of the resource sector and the phenomenal job they are doing creating jobs, building our province and our country. We want jobs, not charity, and for this project to be “built on its merits,” as said by Minister Nixon. The regulatory bodies have given their go-ahead after an impartial, science-driven and evidence-based review and stated that this project satisfies all regulatory requirements and is in the national interest. Frontier has committed to net zero by 2050, and will have lower emissions than most projects in the U.S., and half the emissions compared to other oilsands projects. We will be watching this closely. As always, we love to hear from you.
(Leela Sharon Aheer is the MLA Elect for Chestermere-Strathmore, Minister of Status of Women and Minister of Culture and Multiculturalism)