Former finance minister Iris Evans said the province will still be looking after “vulnerable people” in her address to a Progressive Conservative party breakfast in Red Deer on Friday morning.
It was in part a nod to the work of Red Deer North MLA Mary Anne Jablonski, whose Ministry of Seniors and Community Supports has had its funding maintained in the 2010 budget.
Evans credited Jablonski with pushing the need to take care of the vulnerable — those with mental illness, developmental disabilities or low-income seniors — in the budget discussions.
“In many ways, having finance was a lot easier, because you didn’t see the faces of the people who were hurting,” Evans said.
Evans also stressed the importance of continuing to build infrastructure with an eye to attracting workers to Alberta.
She said the province will emerge from the recession stronger than it was before.
“I hope, if nothing else, I get out the message that the $4.7 billion deficit is not debt, it’s an amount we’re spending from our rainy-day savings,” Evans, now minister of international and intergovernmental relations, told the media prior to her speech.
The event at the Black Knight Inn was hosted by the Red Deer North and Red Deer South PC constituency associations.