Wildrose leader Danielle Smith wrapped up her tour of the province last week in the Lakeland area with stops in Mallaig, St. Paul, Elk Point, Bonnyville, Ardmore, Cold Lake and Myrnam.
Smith met with around 40 people at Tammy's Country Store in Mallaig early in the morning of Aug. 9, followed by a tour of Nor-Bees Honey Farm, with local Wildrose candidate Shayne Saskiw.
Concerns raised at the Mallaig meeting included inadequate and inaccessible health care, said Carl Christensen, a Wildrose constituency director at large, after the meeting. Others expressed concerns about new power lines, increasing power bills and crime, he said.
“The membership is growing. There is a lot more interest. More people know about the Wildrose now," he said, adding “a lot of people are frustrated with the current government."
Smith and Saskiw traveled to St. Paul for a meet and greet coffee at the Co-op Mall and to Elk Point for an afternoon Q & A at the Seniors Rec Centre. Smith also stopped in Bonnyville and held a meeting in Ardmore. On Wednesday, the tour held a pancake breakfast in Myrnam.
The tour launched on July 20 in Red Deer and since then put on over 8,000 km and stopped in 50 municipalities, the leader noted on her Twitter account. The tour reached as far north as High Level and south to Coaldale.
“We managed to do a pretty good swing through the province and heard a variety of issues from a variety of people," she said. “It always does strike me how common the issues are regardless of whether you live in the north or south, east or the west, or in an urban or rural environment."
People are finding the government has become out of touch with what's happening in their communities and is removing decision-making from local communities, according to the Wildrose leader.
“It's almost like they've lost faith in local people to make their own decisions," she said, pointing to the health super-board, school boards, municipalities, land use planning and power line decisions.
“This is a pattern of behaviour that we're now seeing with the government. They just believe all you have to do is hire a bunch of smart central planners and they can figure things out. Well, it's not worked out that way."
The result has been “worse and worse" decisions and the escalating cost of bureaucracy while the quality of services decline, she said.
Smith's tour coincided with the leadership campaigns of six provincial Progressive Conservative (PC) candidates.
“I'm finding that most people could care less that there's a PC leadership race going on," said Smith. In the past, choosing the PC leader meant choosing the next government, she said. “That's not going to happen this time. The next government is going to be chosen in the provincial election campaign."
For the first time, the PCs will face a well-organized opposition ready challenge in every constituency, she said, adding there would not be a single safe seat in the province.
With the U.S. debt crisis continuing, Smith said Alberta is in a fortunate position with robust energy, forestry and agriculture sectors. “In so many ways we're blessed with this abundance of natural resources.
“I think we can weather a world decline better than most jurisdictions."
The next issue for Canada and Alberta to face will be how to diversify the market, she said.
“The problem we have here is completely of our own making and we can't blame world factors for it," she said, citing poor stewardship of resources by the current government.
