With one month left until Progressive Conservative party members choose their leader-and the new Alberta premier-candidate Jim Prentice rolled through Lac La Biche to deliver his pitch to residents.
With one month left until Progressive Conservative party members choose their leader-and the new Alberta premier-candidate Jim Prentice rolled through Lac La Biche to deliver his pitch to residents.
Prentice spoke to a crowd of about 25 at a meet-and-greet sponsored by the Lac La Biche Chamber of Commerce Aug. 1, where he laid out his agenda for the leadership and took questions from locals for about 30 minutes.
“Albertans want to see something that achieves higher standards of excellence than what we’ ve had,” Prentice told the POST. “I’ m here to hear from people in the Lac La Biche region about that, about what their thoughts are.”
Prentice listed the five key points of his campaign, which are fiscal responsibility, restoration of trust, connecting the Alberta economy to global markets, environmental stewardship and improving the quality of life.
When it came to local issues, he said he wanted to hear from locals, but noted that one of the major issues facing Lac La Biche is a province-wide infrastructure deficit.
“I came in here last night on some of... the worst roads I’ ve seen in Alberta,” he said during his speech, adding in a POST interview that other spending necessities included education and health. “I believe there’ s a need for certainly a new school here, from what I’ ve been told, and also, needs that we have in terms of our health care system.”
Prentice, a former federal cabinet minister who is competing with current PC MLAs Thomas Lukaszuk and Ric McIver, has positioned himself as an outsider, displeased with the actions of an unpopular PC government.
“I watch this with the same disgust that other Alberta taxpayers watch it. I can’ t explain it, because I wasn’ t there,” he told the POST. “I think it speaks to, first and foremost, the need for an outsider to be elected as leader of the party to clean this mess up.”
He used as an example his refusal to accept a government credit card for expenses and insistence on paying to furnish his office out of his own pocket during four years as a cabinet minister from 2006-2010.
“It’ s about the tone from the top, and it’ s about having discipline, commitment and zero tolerance for abuse of taxpayers’ money,” he said.
MLAs from the opposition Wildrose party, like Lac La Biche-St. Paul-Two Hills’ Shayne Saskiw, who attended the meeting, say Prentice’ s criticisms only vindicate what their party has been saying.
“It’ s quite shocking... he’ s demonstrating that every single criticism that the Official Opposition had was exceptionally valid,” Saskiw said. “Our opinion is that after 43 years of the same government, you need someone to go in and clean the slate.”
Saskiw also called into question Prentice’ s status as an outsider in the race, despite being endorsed by 50 of the sitting 59 Tory MLAs.
“Jim Prentice is slamming the entire PC Party, but of course every single PC MLA has endorsed him,” Saskiw said, adding that a closer look at the candidate’ s spending as a federal politician raises some questions. “If you look at the record, some of his costs when he was flying as a cabinet minister far exceeded anything Alison Redford did.”
But many attendees agreed with Prentice and said he would do a good job.
“I believe him, I think he’ s trustworthy, and so he certainly has my support,” said Peter Kirylchuk, former Lac La Biche County Mayor. “He sounds very level about his commitments, he appears to be very sincere. He’ s given up a great deal in contesting the leadership of the PCs and I guess I admire a man who is prepared to do that.”
“I believe it was worth my hour to come and see him and buy my membership,” said Eugene Uganecz. “He could be the next leader of this province.”
Uganecz, a former Lac La Biche County councillor, asked Prentice about downloading expenses to municipal government, which Prentice replied by addressing the fractured relationship between different levels of government.
“There’ s pressure everywhere in the province, and everybody’ s arguing,” he said, noting that municipalities are also taking positions against each other. “We’ ve kind of lost the idea that we’ re in this together.”
With both Lac La Biche County Mayor Omer Moghrabi and Fort McMurray-Athabasca MP David Yurdiga in the room, the event took on a flavour of curiosity about how Prentice would work with other groups.
Yurdiga challenged the premier hopeful to keep pushing for better relationships with other levels of government.
“We need to do a better job on all levels, whether it’ s municipal, provincial or federal, and as time goes on we must look at doing things better,” Yurdiga said. “We have some small communities that are struggling because of their inability to raise funds, to provide their citizens with the proper services.”
Prentice said he wouldn’ t forget about the smaller communities he has traveled to during his campaign. The Lac La Biche region, he said, is one that is known about across the province.
“It’ s a well-known community, it’ s a centre of this part of Alberta. It’ s a great community that lives here and has an influence that goes well beyond Lac La Biche,” he said, adding that the hospitality of the residents was apparent when one local woman whisked him inside her home while he was on the sidewalk making a phone call.
“‘You’ re not going to stand out in front of my house and use a cellphone. You’ re going to come home for lunch,’ ” Prentice recalled the words from local Stella Scott.
He said her food was delicious.
The Chamber, which is a non-partisan organization, said that it has reached out to Lukaszuk and McIver about hosting similar events, as well as the leaders of other provincial parties.
While in town, Prentice rode in the Lac La Biche Pow Wow Days parade, and visited the mosque before heading to St. Paul.
