Jason Kenney, former Member of Parliament and current PC Alberta leadership hopeful was at the Bonnyville Seniors Centre.
On Oct. 25, he spoke to residents about his hopes of becoming leader of the PC Alberta party, and took some questions from members in the crowd.
Kenney left his seat in parliament to pursue this position for PC leadership. He is the former Minister of National Defence and was the Member of Parliament for Calgary-Midnapore since 1997 and president of the Canadian Tax Payers Federation.
“The message that he has, is one that I think we need to hear,” said Ron Young, Bonnyville-Cold Lake PC association president.
One of the issues Kenney spoke about was the ‘Alberta Advantage', a plan that was brought in by the late Alberta premier Ralph Klein in the 2000s.
“Alberta lead Canada in those days, now we might be leading Canada in the wrong direction, but back then we lead Canada in the right direction,” explained Kenney. “Governments from left to right, east to west, saw that in Alberta politicians could make difficult decisions and be rewarded instead of punished by the voters.”
Kenney wants to try to bring that structure back if he is selected for leadership of the PC party.
“This helped to set Canada up for a couple of decades of economic growth,” added Kenney.
Another topic of discussion for Kenney was the carbon tax. He's unhappy with the NDP's support of this tax, and told those in attendance he doesn't understand why people support a government who is raising taxes and taking jobs away from the province.
Kenney added that he is concerned this tax will push jobs out of the province and into other jurisdictions.
“Nearly 100,000 full-time jobs have been lost since the NDP came into office, near record levels of bankruptcies and insolvency. Family incomes that are down, 22 per cent youth unemployment, billions of dollars in investment being pulled out of this province,” added Kenney.
His goal is to work together with other parties to get the NDP government out of office. The one he has in mind is the Wildrose party.
“PC governments got out of touch with many of our voters who went and started their own party because they felt the PC's had left them,” said Kenney, adding this was what created the Wildrose party.
“Today those two parties are voting identically in the legislature ninety per cent of the time,” explained Kenney.
The leadership hopeful has already been in discussions with Wildrose leader Brian Jean, and said Jean's response is he is open to unity and is just waiting for a willing partner.
Taking a different approach to win over voters, Kenney made his plea for members to vote for him to get the ball rolling on change. If after that term they don't feel they agree with him anymore, he said then they can vote against him.
“That is what makes him truly unique. Generally everyone is planning already how to take over the new party. It is refreshing to see someone who is committed and is as honest,” said Young.
Kenney also explained that coming to an area like Bonnyville is important to him in his plan to Unite Alberta.
“I am trying to get to every corner of the province and this has been a strong area, north east Alberta has been a strong area of support for the goal of unity. The MP here Shannon Stubbs is a strong supporter of that,” said Kenney. “I am optimistic for a lot of support from this area.”
