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It's time to deliver on your promises Mr. Prentice

Well Bonnyville, we're now a few days removed from the results of this past weekend's provincial Progressive Conservative party leadership election and, as I'm sure the majority of you are aware by now, former federal cabinet minister Jim Prentice wi

Well Bonnyville, we're now a few days removed from the results of this past weekend's provincial Progressive Conservative party leadership election and, as I'm sure the majority of you are aware by now, former federal cabinet minister Jim Prentice will serve as our new premier for the next couple of years, at least.

While I would like to offer my congratulations to Mr. Prentice for what was an absolute landslide of a victory, I think it's about time our government settled back down and started doing what it was always supposed to be doing – governing the province.

With the ill-fated reign of former Premier Allison Redford leaving a bad taste in everybody's mouth and the interim role played by Dave Hancock grinding things to a standstill for the past few months, I'm keen to see what our new leader is going to do once he becomes a fully fledged member of the legislature.

I'm sure there are a number of you that sat alongside myself at the all candidates meeting in Bonnyville last month where Prentice, alongside his unsuccessful comrades Thomas Lukaszuk and Ric McIver each promised not to forget Bonnyville should they be successful in their leadership bid.

Well Mr. Prentice, now is the time to live up to those words.

There are enough problems and issues in the Lakeland that require provincial attention to take up an entire week at the legislative assembly, maybe even two, the most important of which center on our need for a regional waterline and development of Highway 28.

When speaking to media following last month's open forum, Prentice said he would “certainly consider” the waterline when drawing provincial priorities over the coming months, while the need to rebuild Alberta's highways was one of the key points on Prentice's platform throughout the campaign.

It's our job now, having voted to make Prentice our new Premier, to ensure that he follows through with his promises and finally provides Bonnyville with an acceptable and clean source of water. It's up to Prentice now to ensure we don't feel like we're riding on a rollercoaster whenever we need to take in a trip to the city.

Our MLA Genia Leskiw has always done a good job at letting people know what we need in this region, lets make sure we're giving her everything she needs so that she can fight to bring much needed funds to the area to develop our region.

Rest assured, there is money in the provincial pot and lots of it. We just need to ensure our voices are loud enough so that we're heard when the bigwigs are at the table making the decisions.

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