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Convention set as party prepares for election

The Alberta Social Credit Party is gearing up for a provincial election.Len Skowronski, party leader, said Sunday a policy convention is set for March 26 in Innisfail at the Royal Canadian Legion.

The Alberta Social Credit Party is gearing up for a provincial election.

Len Skowronski, party leader, said Sunday a policy convention is set for March 26 in Innisfail at the Royal Canadian Legion.

“I invite all Albertans to attend the convention because a provincial election will be called for March 2012 or earlier,” the Calgary leader said.

“It’s important that Albertans attend this meeting and help update our policies so that we can formulate an election platform that will address their concerns.

“Albertans are ready to replace the Progressive Conservatives but we must make sure it’s not with the Regressive Conservatives the Wild Rose Alliance”, he said.

“We must show Albertans that Social Credit is the only alternative that strives to bring back good government with a high standard of morals and ethics.”

Skowronski faults the Conservative government for giving out too many oilfield leases in the last few years.

“If the government had controlled the boom a little better, there wouldn’t have been as big a bust,” said Skowronski, who wants the Tories to stop giving Alberta’s resources away to big business.

Instead, he suggests forming a Crown Corporation, “an Alberta Oil and Gas Company,” to keep more profits in the province. The nationalized company would make decisions that benefit Albertans — such as drilling, building and upgrading plants now, when construction costs are low and unemployed labour is available, said Skowronski.

“The price of oil is going to go up again”

He said oil firms shouldn’t have laid off workers when the oil boom faltered.

“We should have done something for them long-range.”

Skowronski, a former oilfield consultant who worked for multinational corporations in the Middle East, also wants to stop bitumen exports to the U.S., saying refineries that turn the raw material into synthetic oil should be built in this province to create jobs.

The party has more than 1,000 members.

Skowronski earned about one per cent of the vote in a September 2009 provincial byelection in Calgary.

In the 2008 provincial election the Socreds ran only seven candidates, including Wilf Tricker in Rocky Mountain House who was the lone Central Alberta candidate.

The party collected a total of 1,900 votes provincially in that election.