Summer coming to an end

By Leela Sharon Aheer Chestermere-Strathmore MLA

I just cannot believe that summer is coming to an end. It has been such a whirlwind, with having to figure out how to function with the looming concerns of COVID-19, creating cohorts to keep our vulnerable family members safe and sound, and trying to figure out how to do weddings, outdoor concerts and community events. I feel so blessed to be surrounded with such resilience, creativity and a willingness to adapt by our communities. You all care so much about each other and that is obvious and so inspiring. I wanted to highlight a couple of things going on in our communities.

The Chestermere Food Bank has taken on the backpack program and is busily building many backpacks for our wonderful families. However, they still need supplies for the backpacks. My family was honoured to join Mardi Oel, the executive director of the food bank, and Laurie Dunn, its president, to stuff some of the backpacks. We hope they bring as much joy to the families that are the recipients as it did for us who were packing them.

The Strathmore Ag Society is putting on the Buckin’ Best, and I am so excited to be attending this event. This is an invitational bull-riding jackpot on Sept. 5, and there are limited tickets to attend. The Strathmore Rodeo is one of the best in Alberta. If you like memorable experiences, this is definitely for you. There will be many vendors as well, so come out and support our local businesses.

In Langdon, Prairie Grounds will be holding its Curbside Concert featuring Michaela Sheedy from Okotoks. All AHS protocols will be in effect, so please bring your mask, your lawn chair and, as always, social distancing is a must.

Also, StrathmoreNow and 104.5 More Country are doing a wonderful event for our local farmers. The 2020 Grain Rush will deliver meals for the hardworking women and men that feed all of us. Thank you to all the sponsors who contributed to this awesome event.  

Finally, I would like to share our recent fiscal update. We have all been hit hard by the oil price crash, which of course weakened our economy followed by the impact of COVID-19. Our deficit is at $24 billion, which is $16 billion higher than what was estimated for 2020. We add to that the fact we have a decline in projected revenue of $11 billion. Our projections, which are modest, are around $38 billion. We spent $14 billion in our very fast response to COVID-19 to try and mitigate the health and economic effects on the province.

The numbers above are difficult to read, but it is important to know where we are at, so we understand where we need to go next. The choices all of us are going to have to make will be difficult ones, but we will do it together in partnership to help get through these tough days. We are an amazing and resilient province, and I know that we can do this together. This is about our communities and our families. This is about putting ourselves back together, picking up the pieces and recovering. This will not be easy. This will take all of us, and there will be growing pains. We will be beside you for all of that, and 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)