At the Lac La Biche debate for candidates in the Lac La Biche-St. Paul-Two Hills constituency, candidates had a chance to discuss the area's most pressing issues face-to-face. The April 28 event at Portage College's McGrane Theatre, organized by the Lac La Biche Post and the Lac La Biche and District Chamber of Commerce, was attended by all candidates running: Wildrose candidate David Hanson, PC candidate Darrell Younghans, NDP candidate Catherine Harder and Green candidate Brian Deheer.
At the Lac La Biche debate for candidates in the Lac La Biche-St. Paul-Two Hills constituency, candidates had a chance to discuss the area’ s most pressing issues face-to-face. The April 28 event at Portage College’ s McGrane Theatre, organized by the Lac La Biche Post and the Lac La Biche and District Chamber of Commerce, was attended by all candidates running: Wildrose candidate David Hanson, PC candidate Darrell Younghans, NDP candidate Catherine Harder and Green candidate Brian Deheer.
For Wildrose candidate David Hanson, Tuesday’ s event was only the second time he had ever participated in a formal debate [the first one was the night before in St. Paul], and he feels like he did a good job despite having some nerves at the start of the week.
“I was a little bit more nervous last night than I was tonight,” he said. “I spent a little bit more time preparing today - it went pretty well.”
The brunt of Tuesday’ s debate centered on issues like healthcare, education, taxation, infrastructure, and transportation, topics that Hanson said are heavily discussed everywhere else in the constituency as well.
“It’ s the same all over the constituency. Same concerns. Healthcare and education are number one and two, and education is number three,” he said.
With several weeks of campaigning and a couple of debates now under his belt, the political newcomer feels he has a good grasp on how people in the Lac La Biche - St. Paul - Two Hills constituency, and all over the province, are feeling at the moment. He said from what he’ s gathered, people feel that after 44 years of Progressive Conservative leadership in Alberta, the province should be in better financial shape.
“People in Alberta, all over the province, are angry that we’ ve gone through 44 years with this party [the PCs], and 15 of the best years in Alberta - and we’ re broke,” he said.
Darrell Younghans, Progressive Conservative candidate, focused on the topics of health care, education and seniors' care in the Lac La Biche debate on April 28.
In his introduction, the first policy point mentioned by the longtime school board member was that local school boards need autonomy and "proper funding." He also mentioned rural health care and seniors' care as his party's top priorities.
He touted the PCs' recently-announced budget plan - which included consumer tax increases and a return of health-care premiums - as a balance between taxation and spending, and told the crowd such a balance is necessary in order to protect vulnerable people.
In response to a question about the PCs' recent announcement to create regional health boards, his first point was to mention the oft-derided Lac La Biche dialysis bus, and he believes dialysis services could've moved inside the William J. Cadzow Lac La Biche Healthcare Centre if regional boards had existed in the past few years.
This lead to a discussion of perceived administrative bloat at Alberta Health Services - a point agreed upon both by Younghans and his Wildrose challenger David Hanson. When Hanson called for a major cut to administrative jobs at the provincial health authority, Younghans countered by reminding him the PCs already plan to eliminate over 1500 AHS administrative jobs over the next three years.
These two threads - the dialysis bus, and AHS administrative jobs, were brought together in a response to an audience question about whether the bus could be replaced instead with a ground-level trailer, to make access easier for people with disabilities. Younghans said he wanted to move dialysis services inside the hospital and have them replace administrative offices.
"I don't know why we have admin offices in a hospital," he said.
Debate also arose over provincial medical evacuation services, which allow rapid transport of patients to better-equipped metropolitan hospitals in Edmonton. The closure of Edmonton's city centre airport in 2010 was seen as a serious blow to medevac services, as patients now need to spend a longer time in ground transport from the less central Edmonton International Airport in Leduc.
Hanson criticized the closure, saying it was bad for rural Albertans. Younghans offered a rebuttal saying that if Wildrose prioritizes principles of land rights and local autonomy, then decisions about the airport's future should've been Edmonton's, not the province's.
Another major topic broached at the debate was Alberta's reliance on oil revenues, and how the province should cope with the current low oil prices. When asked by Chamber of Commerce president Ron Briscoe about why no funds were added to the Alberta Heritage Trust over the past decade, Younghans first responded by saying the fund was in fact growing - by accruing interest. When Briscoe clarified the question, Younghans answered that a need for infrastructure spending, due to the large influx of new Albertans, trumped the need to top up the fund during boom years.
Though Younghans has been a volunteer with the PC party for years, he said he was willing to go against the party line if it's what constituents want. He said the party was against the idea of raising corporate royalties, but if locals push for the idea he'll bring it to Edmonton. And he's a big proponent of making sure the new regional health boards have real power - he plans to push so that they aren't "just another layer of bureaucracy." And while he touted the PCs' plan to spend for highway maintenance, he said he'd have to "fight to get [Highway] 881 in there."
And while the other candidates - and some audience members - criticized the government for calling an election before the fixed election date next year, Younghans defended the move. He said this election gives Albertans a chance to vote on the new budget plan, and he also argued that an election would cost the same amount of money whether it's held now or later.
NDP candidate Catherine Harder made her first public appearance in Lac La Biche County at the debate table.
A university student from Camrose, Harder isn’ t a resident of this riding, but she says she’ s familiarizing herself with the pressing issues in this constituency.
“I’ m beginning to get an idea of some of the specific issues,” she said after the debate, adding that the concerns voiced locally are similar to those NDP candidates have been listening to across the province.
Multiple times during the debate, Harder reiterated her party’ s main promises. Among those are upping corporate taxes, protecting the environment, improving the provincial healthcare system and listening to individual communities’ concerns.
“I felt really good about it,” she said about the evening. “I thought that the response was really good and everyone is really well informed in this community and asked excellent questions.”
Now that her university studies are done, she says she would definitely be open to moving into the riding. Until the election date, her plan is to be visible in the constituency, talking to residents and hearing what they have to say.
Green candidate Brian Deheer, a musician and student union manager living in Lac La Biche, was no stranger to political debates - he previously ran as a federal Green candidate in the 2014 Fort McMurray-Athabasca by-election. Throughout the debate, he stressed his party’ s belief that Alberta needs to diversify its economy beyond oil and gas.
The Liberal Party of Alberta isn’ t running a candidate in this constituency, and Deheer has secured a Liberal endorsement of his campaign as well.
“I think people that understand the Green Party’ s platform, they know [the environment] is an important part of the party’ s concerns...I guess, I have to count on people understanding, being able to read between the lines and know that that’ s there,” Deheer said, commenting on how not much of the debate focused on environmental issues.
He said he’ s concerned about what he sees as an erosion of environmental legal protections, both at the federal and provincial levels.
“I certainly recognize the value of the oil and gas industry as a source of jobs, of economic activity” Deheer said. “But I certainly also feel strongly that those industries should be doing their part to operate as cleanly and as environmentally friendly as possible. It’ s sadly lacking, and I think we could do a lot better.
The provincial election in Alberta is taking place on May 5. The Lac La Biche POST will continue election coverage for the remainder of the campaign period online at laclabichepost.com.
