Albertans helping each other
By Leela Sharon Aheer Chestermere-Strathmore MLA
Chestermere – Strathmore readers, thank you for everything you have done for each other over the last two years. From our first responders to our nurses and doctors, our small businesses, to our truckers, teachers, families, friends, organizations, non-profits, farmers, ranchers, agri-food workers, those who work to build our communities and to those who question the decisions to advocate for change. To all of you, I hope you all understand how incredible it has been for me to work on your behalf and advocate for our beautiful constituency.
This last week has been one that has taught me so much, with deep humility and with the desire to approach the decisions that will be made with humanity. I am proud to have advocated for the many voices from all sides of this discussion to our leadership team regarding mandates, protocols and the needed understanding of dealing with Covid, living with it, and more importantly putting our communities and our families back together after two years of frustration, confusion, anger, sadness, loss, exhaustion and division. We have all been impacted in so many ways and I want you to know that as we balance our healthcare system, the cases of Covid along with surgeries and other care and we try to come out of the REP, it is only possible because of who you are and your deep care and love for one another. Thank you for getting your vaccinations, or for going to get tested to protect yourselves and those around you. The Omicron variant is highly transmissible in all people whether one is vaccinated or not. Vaccinations have shown that our outcomes are better in terms of recovering from Covid and the mildness of our infections, and that is truly amazing. I will always be grateful that vaccines were available to us.
Protocols were put into place to help with reducing transmission, but now we know how to work with this virus that is not leaving us anytime soon. It is time to put our communities and our families back together. It is time to make sure our kids can play sports, attend camps and music lessons and not be left behind because of their vaccination status. It is time for us to be together regardless of our choices and begin to rebuild trust and friendship.
I will work every day to bring your voices to those who are in the positions of making these decisions and I am so proud of our communities for the kindness and compassion they have demonstrated. There will be many days ahead of us that will be frustrating and liberating. There will be questions around the effectiveness of protocols and mandates and we will be discussing these decisions for a long time. I hope that we can lead with love and that we can treat each other with kindness and respect, because I don’t know about you, but I am optimistic about our future.
As always, we love to hear from you.
(Leela Sharon Aheer is the MLA Elect for Chestermere-Strathmore)