The Outlook offered the following questions to Banff/Cochrane provincial election candidates:
1. Do you believe the government has been doing enough work on the grizzly bear recovery plan? What more could be done by the province to protect this threatened iconic species and restore it to a healthy population?
2. Infrastructure in towns like Canmore and Banff is used by visitors to the area as well as residents. However, the financial burden to pay for things like roads and sewer systems lies with residential taxpayers and a per capita grant funding system. What should the provincial government be doing to recognize this situation and help municipalities that host large tourist populations?
3. Has Alberta Health Services been doing a satisfactory job managing heath care in the province? Should this system be changed to put power and decision-making back into regional boards?
4. The current education funding formula works for two-thirds of school boards, but the other one-third struggle with deficits because they face unique challenges like declining enrolment. What should be done to immediately remediate the formula’s negative effects on boards like Canadian Rockies Public Schools, which has declining enrolments and high staffing costs as a result of the contract negotiated by the PC government and the ATA?
5. There has been a lot of talk about change in this election. Identify one specific area or policy of the government that you would like to see changed and why?
Ron Casey - PC
1. A recovery plan must address the habitat needs of bears and the importance of maintaining connectivity between these areas.
Alberta already has an extensive network of connected wilderness through provincial and federal parks as well as management areas such as Kananaskis Country and the Bow Valley Wildland Park, locally. While this starts to address some of the habitat requirements on a local level, the concept of a provincial/interprovincial system of connected habitat areas needs to be developed along with a commitment to cumulative impact research and mitigation strategies.
Setting aside adequate habitat with appropriate management plans that protect grizzly bears on the landscape is not enough to ensure success. There is also a need to provide adequate budgets and manpower to conservation officers and park rangers to manage these areas effectively. This will require a reinvestment in these departments by the Province.
2. Infrastructure needs of tourism-based communities like Banff and Canmore are not the same as similar sized communities in Alberta because we must address both the needs of residents and those of thousands of tourists and second home owners as well.
Typically, infrastructure grants are based on a permanent resident per capita formula; however, in our community that does not take into account the actual demand. Calculation of grants needs to be based on a formula that recognizes both tourist and second home owner populations.
In 2010, a report titled Alberta Tourism Based Communities was presented to the Province. This report reviewed the unique requirements of tourism-based communities and looked at both governance and funding models from other jurisdictions.
The recommendations from this report should be reviewed and opportunities explored for establishing “charter-based tourism communities,” much the same as B.C., that allow municipalities the flexibility to address their needs.
3. AHS has been improving over the past year, but there is still room for improvements, as there always is. The provision of family care clinics is a positive step forward in providing accessible health services in a cost effective and efficient manner.
However, there is still work that needs to be done to improve wait times and ensure that quality health care reaches the patient. To help provide AHS with the on-the-ground support they need, the role of regional health advisory councils needs to be expanded so that local issues and priorities can be better represented at the regional and provincial level.
The input of local health-care providers to advisory councils will ensure that system and operational efficiencies are built from the ground up.
4. There needs to be a funding formula that has the flexibility to take into account unanticipated situations like those facing the Canadian Rockies Public School and other school divisions.
A collaborative process engaging stakeholders that considers a renewed funding framework that provides sufficient funds for the actual operational costs should be undertaken by the ministry.
The Province invests over $6 billion a year in education to ensure that our children receive the quality education they deserve; it only makes sense that we continually challenge ourselves to be confident these funds are adequate given our rapidly-changing school environment.
In conjunction with a renewed funding framework a continued commitment to three year predictable budgets is essential.
5. There has been lots of talk about change in this election, but to what? We have the strongest economy in Canada and arguably in North America, we have low unemployment, we have the lowest taxes in Canada, we have great health care, good education etc.
Are we saying we want this to change? I don’t think so. However, there is always a need to evaluate programs and performance by engaging Albertans in meaningful and timely dialogue to ensure we are meeting current needs and expectations.
Re-engaging Albertans in their government needs to be a priority of the new government.
Tom Copithorne - Wildrose
1. I consulted good friend and lifetime Kananaskis resident Rick Guinn from Boundary Ranch before addressing this question. He said that 30 years ago it was rare to have a grizzly sighting. Now, within Kananaskis, there are usually numerous sightings per day throughout the summer season.
Rick cautions that one must be careful not to overprotect one species, as this will have an adverse effect on other animals such as elk and moose, as the small calves are prey in the spring. He says grizzly populations appear to be at all time highs in the mountain regions.
In high tourist areas like Canmore and Banff this could become a liability issue with increased risk of human encounters.
2. The provincial government needs to take into consideration that tourist towns such as Canmore and Banff are judged by the quality of services that they can provide. It is imperative that they remain competitive on a local, national and international stage.
A Wildrose government acknowledges that a new formula is needed to recognize the importance of businesses operating in tourist areas. The cost of services used by our visitors need to be taken into account.
A Wildrose government will deliver a new deal for municipalities. The Province must stop playing politics with infrastructure spending. Municipalities should know that money is coming and be free to spend it on their priorities. Community infrastructure transfers would also send 10 per cent of all annual budget surpluses to municipalities with no strings attached.
3. Health-care professionals have been the glue that has held our health-care system together.
The centralized control of health care in a massive Health Superboard bureaucracy has been unresponsive to local needs.
The solution lies in empowering local decision makers to determine the course of health care delivery based on individual needs of local patients.
4. Ensuring Alberta’s children have access to a world-class education is one of the most important roles the provincial government can play in building our province. Wildrose believes it is more transparent, efficient and effective to place decentralized decision-making into the hands of parents, local schools, and elected school boards. The Wildrose policy will link all new contracts only to inflation, which will be better for school boards like CRPS.
The contract negotiated by the PC government caused many boards such as CRPS distress. The Wildrose has proposed a one-year wage freeze so that all new contracts will be linked only to inflation. Ensuring Alberta’s children have access to a world-class education is one of the most important roles the provincial government can play in building our province.
5. Spending has gone up 91 per cent in the last nine years. A Wildrose government will bring back balanced budgets and have Alberta living within its means again.
Alberta’s balance sheet was once the envy of the country. By sticking to our values of fiscal responsibility, we eliminated our debt and deficits. We can do this again. We could realize billions in savings simply by evaluating government expenses and getting rid of the waste.
A Wildrose government would get Alberta back in the black permanently, by setting a hard cap on government spending increases, prioritizing capital spending projects, and introducing pay-as-you-go legislation.
Pete Helfrich - Liberal
1. Absolutely not. A great deal of scientific research has been done and it is quite clear that we must decrease the number of bear/human interactions and protect large areas of undeveloped land. The research also states that timber harvests and oil and gas development are a threat to bear recovery. The Grizzly Bear Recovery Plan was a step in the right direction, but it was stopped short and the government never enforced it.
The Land-Use Framework policy does provide opportunity to look at new research and then create a real long-term solution.
The question for Albertans is... which party is going to put serious effort into creating a long-term solution that will protect these bears? Only the party of people like David Swann and myself will make this a priority.
2. I recognize the stress that a large tourist population would place on a town’s infrastructure and without a doubt a plan for towns like Banff and Canmore to aid in covering the costs is required. I would suggest a funding formula that would provide towns with necessary money should be created.
The Alberta Liberals’ platform creates a Municipal Heritage Fund (off of resource revenue) and our platform would directly fund neighborhood associations and would reinstate community lottery boards, all of which would create a great deal more revenue for towns.
But the seasonal influx of a large amount of tourists still must be addressed and I would work hard with towns in the Banff-Cochrane riding to have a workable formula created.
3. Alberta Health Services has not done a satisfactory job in managing health care. Doctor intimidation, inability to staff facilities (Sheldon Chumir Centre, South Calgary Hospital) and unnecessary and very poor management of Alberta’s ambulance services is only the start of Alberta Health’s problems. As a paramedic, I have witnessed, first hand, the mismanagement of our health services and the human cost of a health system gone wrong.
Alberta Liberals have said from the very beginning “local solutions for local problems”. Raj Sherman has already outlined, publicly, the return of locally-elected regional health boards. But, I would suggest we must be cautious as we move forward in changing the health system as both the health care workers and the system are fragile and must be supported carefully.
4. There are no immediate quick fixes to this problem.
The simplest answer would be the one-size-fits-all funding formula operated by Alberta Education does not work, and local school authorities have been lobbying for years to have it changed.
CRPS is limited by contiguous boundaries, the highest teacher grid cost in the province and increasingly fewer per-student grants for such things as school maintenance.
We need to have local taxation authority back in the hands of the local school divisions so local needs can be met at a local level. If central office is going to continue administering every dollar, they need to put more staff onto helping the one third meet their needs.
The fact that this system doesn’t work for fully one third of the school divisions indicates a system that does not work.
The Alberta Liberals support local solutions for local problems.
5. Professionally, I want to change how RNs and paramedics are able to work within their respective scopes of practice. I believe a great deal more can be done to aid both the patients and the health system if these two professional bodies were enabled to practice at a higher clinical level.
Personally, I want to see real environmental protection for our water, our wild spaces and our wild animals. I would push forward with the Land-Use Framework policy and create long-term solutions for protecting our grizzlies, wolverines, watersheds and our forests.
Real solutions and real protection, not watered down versions politicized out of fear for the next election.
Jamie Kleinstuber – NDP
1. The Grizzly Bear Recovery Plan appears to be a decent strategy. However, as we have seen in the past, it is one thing for a government to write an interesting report, it is another thing to follow its recommendations.
Grizzly bears have an extensive roaming area. Outside of Banff National Park, they are running out of habitat. It seems the biggest causes of grizzly death are linked to train strikes on the CPR, vehicle strikes on the Trans-Canada, and human-caused mortality.
One solution to this problem is to maintain current wildlife corridors, and create new, larger wildlife corridor areas. The Y2Y (Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative), is an interesting plan that allows grizzly bears, and other wildlife, a large roaming area.
The NDP are committed to review wildlife population data yearly, to ensure vulnerable species are protected in accordance with science, with particular attention to habitat needs of grizzly bears (also caribou and whooping cranes).
2. Although there are costs connected with hosting tourists, like roads and sewer systems that are paid for, in part by, residential taxpayers, we should also be aware of the economic benefits to hosting tourists.
Tourists enjoy, and help pay for attractions that local residents might not be able to afford on their own. If municipalities are struggling to pay for infrastructure costs, then the provincial government could be required to assist with a special funding formula for designated tourist towns.
3. Nothing distinguishes us more as Albertans, and Canadians, than our commitment to a universal, accessible public health system. The NDP are committed to a health-care system that fulfills the principles of the Canada Health Act.
The current public health-care system is being weakened by a lack of sustainable funding and poor management. The PC government has broken its promises to build long-term care spaces and wants to further privatize health care.
The NDP would restructure Alberta Health Services and mandate full responsibility for health to a ministry, with elected regional advisory bodies. The NDP would then restore the regional system to ensure that local communities have greater input to the process.
4. School boards must have reliable, predictable, adequate funding. Fundraising and user fees to pay for essentials of education must not be permitted.
The lack of provincial leadership has created two years of uncertainties for school boards and families. The CRPS is in a unique situation, and the current funding formula does not work well or fairly for Canmore residents.
Exceptional cases must be looked at to work a funding formula that takes in this region’s unique situation. The NDP would commit to long-term predictable funding to support proper planning by school boards.
5. Conservative deregulation of the electricity market has driven up electricity prices for family households. Even though power companies are making more than their share, Albertans are paying the highest fixed price ever for electricity.
Profits of power companies in Alberta rose as much as 25 per cent between the third quarter of 2010, and the same time in 2011. For example, Enbridge made over $500 million in just three quarters of 2011. Meanwhile, Enbridge CEO Patrick Daniel was paid more than $8 million that year.
An NDP government would freeze power prices at a fair, affordable level, and then require power companies to justify rate increases to a utility board. Regulation of electricity rates is the only way Albertans are going to get the stable and affordable power prices they need to protect family budgets, and keep businesses competitive.
