Governments are elected to govern. Alberta is being short changed.
The Social Credit Party ruled Alberta for well over 30 years with a strong leader. The leader stepped down and a new leader took over but was somewhat weaker, and the Social Credit Party was on the way out.
The Alberta Progressive Conservative party has now ruled for nearly 40 years, and now have a real shaky leader. The present leader happened to be running third in the PC leadership race and by some voting system no one seems to understand, Ed Stelmach became leader of the PC party, and then the premier of Alberta. The PC won the last election handily but the voting turnout was down as the people of Alberta didn’t seem to feel there was alternative.
The first order of business the new premier did was one of giving all his friends and supporters cabinet posts and other high positions that they were not qualified to handle and, as they say, the fun began. The premier also felt a raise in pay was in order for his cabinet and other heads of various departments. At this time, the wheels seem to fall off and costly mistakes were the order of the day as it seemed there was no organized structure, and caucus meetings were either poorly attended or no one was paying attention.
The oil industry has put a lot of money into Alberta revenues since coming on the scene some years ago and also monies flow into many spinoff industries employing a lot of people.
The oil industry made Alberta one of the have provinces to be envied by a lot of Canadian provinces. Oil and Alberta were as of one as oil became one of the stronger industries in Alberta.
The premier says everyone is picking on Albertans, but we find the tarsands is the area that receives the negative attention. If the government would have left the royalties alone, then perhaps the oil companies with some supervision from government would have cleaned up the settling ponds, and would have developed new systems to handle waste as oil companies would rather see this going down the pipelines. With new technology, smaller oil companies could no doubt develop oilfields elsewhere in Alberta as they could recover oil that was not possible a few years ago. With new oilfields springing up, then work and prosperity would become provincewide.
The health-care system has taken one hit after another from the Stelmach government until the people in the health-care system have become frustrated with staff shortages along with outdated or no equipment, and this is felt by everyone with health issues.
Dave France
Stettler