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These are critical times for our province, and decisions that are made over the next 3-5 years will affect the province for the next 50 years.
The Economic agenda's major issues include: Global market access for our energy; provincial infrastructure deficit;
Asian customers need to be accessed if the province wants to prosper. We cannot rely on the United States to be our "only" energy partner moving forward. We must deal on a global stage not only in oil, but also Agriculture and Forestry. We will only reach our potential if we access other markets. The role of government in this is to ensure that we have market access, and appropriate infrastructure and then get out of the way.
There will be no pipelines until we strike a deal with the First Nations in British Columbia, and the key player in that will be whoever is the Premier of Alberta.
In regards to the fiscal agenda, the PC party has been "off their game", there is no reason for a province like ours to be running deficits. People expect the government to balance the books.
And thirdly is the question of trust, we have to restore the bonds of trust between the residents of Alberta and their government. People need to be assured that there is no going to be 'sole source' or sweetheart contracts. They should also expect that the lobby restrictions are not so loose that they allow for a person to be in the government one day and lobbying it the next. Ethics like this come from the top, from the person in charge. The people who we elect to government are the 'servants' of the residents.
The fourth agenda item that Mr. Prentice is campaigning on is the environment. Alberta should be a province that can hold it's head high on this portfolio internationally. Because if you are in the energy business, you are also in the environment business so we have to get back on our game in this matter as well.
The fifth and final agenda item that Mr. Prentice brought is that the residents are looking for a longer sense of direction, they are looking for a government that will listen, they are willing to give the party "one more chance" to get it. What people are looking for are 'quality of life' issues such as good quality health care, public education, quality of infrastructure such as roads and bridges, and in the way that we are looking after our seniors.
We have not kept pace with the growing population in our building out of infrastructure. This includes schools, hospitals and senior care facilities and is occurring all over the province. From Mr. Prentice's perspective, we will not have our children taught in make shift schools, but will borrow to catch up on the deficit and have a aggressive plan to pay the loans down as quickly as possible because it would take too long to catch up if we only paid 'cash' for these facilities.
There followed several questions about elections processes, time constraints to access the global energy markets, whether there would be a sales tax brought in and whether Mr. Prentice supported a "Big City" Charter.
Brad Arsenault and all the Rotarians thanked Mr. Prentice for explaining his agenda to us today.
President Duane also thanked Mr. Prentice and adjourned the meeting.
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