Promising to build a stronger middle class by investing in solid jobs while still protecting the environment and promoting and building a stronger Canada, the Liberal Party of Canada is hoping to make a dent in the Conservative stronghold that is Alberta. 

Running in the Red Deer-Mountain View riding for the Liberal Party is Gary Tremblay, an insurance broker out of Calgary who stepped up to run when the local candidate decided not to. 

How do you plan on getting more money for Canadian families? 

“I think under the Liberal plan we’re doing pretty good. I think that, just in my area, 21,000 families saw an increase in their child care benefits. We are working on more daycare, also working on initiatives for people that have been retired for a while, it increases the OAS (Old Age Security),GIS (Guaranteed Income Supplement), CPP (Canadian Pension Plan) for future retirees, working on affordable pharma care as well, and that’s the way we are going to keep more money in people's pockets.” 

Canadians are saying they care a lot about the environment. What issues do you see as having the biggest impact on the environment, and how do you plan to address it? 

“Obviously fossil fuels, and it sounds terrible to say this, in another country that needs the petro dollars to survive, and we’re moving past that of course. It’s a sun downing industry here in Alberta, so I think we are making the right step by actually buying the pipeline, it sounds like it’s duplicitous to say that, but using the proceeds that we will get from the pipeline for green initiatives. As well, backing green initiatives in the province startups, and giving tax credits to green technology companies. 

What issues do you see in our education system, and how do you plan on addressing it? 

“Well it’d be nice to have a budget and have a premier that doesn’t run from a budget because it’s going to be unpopular prior to an election date. So he makes schools go without operating capital, to no plan for teachers to get ahead, teachers assistant etc… I think would be the most solid thing. I don’t think bringing in an American to rewrite our education system in Alberta is appropriate. We have talented teachers here and if a new education system is warranted, that should be something that’s done local in Alberta. An Alberta system for Albertans. “

How do you plan to manage the healthcare needs of our ageing population?

“That’s a very difficult one, especially with a spread-out rural district like Red Deer-Mountain View where people live a long way from emergency care. And with Red Deer’s hospital being as overwhelmed as it is, to be honest for the number of people who it has to service, I truly believe, and I’m in Calgary and I’ve seen many new hospitals go up over the last ten years, we should be focusing some money on centers like Red Deer, where the need is the greatest and they’re underserved by a huge degree.” 

How do you plan to address any shortfalls in our healthcare system, such as a lack of services and facilities in Central and rural Alberta? 

“Well, I don’t think we’ve put enough money into preventative care. In a spread-out area like Red Deer-Mountain View it is extremely difficult and expensive to have the same quality healthcare to every section of this riding. Right now we’ve got this one centralized hospital in Red Deer that’s supposed to service all the outlying districts. I think we’d be well served with keeping clinics in these smaller centers but also increasing the funding for the hospital in Red Deer. We need more staff; we actually need a new hospital, a new, bigger hospital, given what it’s tasked to take care of, it’s way underfunded.” 

What services do you think should be created or enhanced to address our major social issues, like homelessness and unemployment? 

“Yea that problem is systemic. You can point out the statistics for the whole country and see, there are 60+% of people are in that same situation where they don’t have emergency funds, if they were unemployed or didn’t get two paycheques in a row they wouldn't be making bills that month, or rent, or mortgage. And that really is a situation where more wealth is being concentrated at the top as opposed to wage increases that’s not keeping up with the cost of living these days, especially in Alberta where we have one of the most expensive provinces to live in Canada. Yes, our median income is the highest, but when you fall off that median income, you fall the farthest. I do know that we have, the Liberal government has addressed homelessness in Calgary to some degree building new low-income housing, I think we just put $45 million into Calgary. And how that plays out rurally, I think we should be seeing funds going to all the rural districts to fight homelessness too. The problem is with the rural districts, you don’t have the same support network that you have in the cities, the homeless shelters that are reaching out and addressing that problem, that are helping that problem. But in the rural areas it’s much more challenging, but that doesn’t mean they should be neglected in terms of affordable housing projects.”

How do you plan on supporting Alberta’s core industries, such as oil and gas, tourism, forestry, and agriculture? 

“We have some challenges in every sector I’ll say. Climate change has made the pine beetles not die, so maybe there has to be something done to address that situation in terms of killing wide swaths of forests... we’re burning whole towns down now because of the dead forests, they just go up like tinder every summer now. So I would put money into helping fighting the pine beetle infestation. As well, I think we are doing the right path in terms of oil and gas. We have two pipeline expansions as well as a new pipeline purchase to get oil to the coast. Again, we know it’s a sundowning industry... I mean 20 years from now will we still have the same jobs? Or if we’re still based on all oil jobs in Alberta, will we be in trouble? Yea we’re going to be in trouble. So investing in new technology we can be an energy superpower. And when we say energy, energy doesn’t have to be fossil fuels, energy can be wind, it can be solar. At some point they're going to be building 60 million electric cars a year; why aren’t we at the top of that? Why aren’t we investing in that type of technology here in Alberta?”

What major infrastructure projects do you see as a high priority for our area? 

“You know what would be nice? If you’re talking about infrastructure, it would be nice and fun to see a rail between Calgary and Edmonton, stopping in Red Deer, where we could actually have a big increase in travel around the province which would be great for Red Deer to see more activity in terms of people just stopping in Red Deer, and maybe seeing how much Red Deer has to offer the province in terms of investment. Red Deer is a great town, 110,000 people and it would certainly benefit a lot from having a direct line from Edmonton and to Calgary.” 

Is there anything else you’d like to add? 

“It’s kind of a weird election, just the fact that I as a Calgarian had to stand up in Red Deer.  I would just hope that people would have less vitriol, investigate issues themselves, don’t read opinion pieces and I apologize if you’ve already read them, and actually look at the facts as they are and you’ll see that, really honestly, here in Alberta, we’ve been neglected for so long by Conservative after Conservative after Conservative that we finally got a government in power that’s finally investing in our province. I think we were 4 times the infrastructure in the last 4 years than in Harpers last 5 years. And cities like Calgary saw twice as much investment over 4 years then all of 10 years involved with Harper. So we’re finally seeing money come back into our province, and what we don’t need is to slow that down. Conservatives, to be honest, take us for granted. They got our votes, they don’t care to win them or try to win them, they know they already got them. There’s no effort there on their half for Alberta. Their focus is on the votes they don’t have in other provinces. I like the fact that we finally have a government spending here in Alberta.”