Airdrie’s four area candidates vying for votes in this month’s provincial election went head-to-head for the first time this campaign during an all-candidates forum at the Bert Church LIVE Theatre on May 9.
For nearly two hours, the four candidates – incumbents Angela Pitt and Peter Guthrie from the United Conservative Party (UCP) as well as challengers Shaun Fluker and Daniel Nelles from the New Democratic Party (NDP) – took questions pertaining to several political topics, such as health care, public education, infrastructure, affordable housing, the cost of living crisis, and Alberta's energy sector, among others.
Airdronians Pitt and Nelles are running in the Airdrie-East riding this election, whereas Cochrane residents Guthrie and Fluker are contesting the Airdrie-Cochrane seat.
The Airdrie Chamber of Commerce put on Tuesday night's forum, in partnership with the City of Airdrie. Former chamber president Nicky Nordick moderated the proceedings, which included introductory and closing remarks from each candidate as well as several submitted questions.
The candidates responded to over 10 questions each, taking turns answering queries submitted by the Airdrie Chamber of Commerce, Airdrie City council representatives, and members of the audience. Candidates were given 60 seconds to answer each question before their microphones were silenced.
Early into the event, Nordick asked the Airdrie-East candidates how they and their party, if elected, would work to reduce Alberta's greenhouse gas emissions. Nelles responded first by arguing oil and gas is a “proud part of our heritage,” but that political commitments need to be made to diversify Alberta's energy economy and bring the province up to the level of renewable energy investment seen in other jurisdictions.
“Reducing greenhouse gas emissions also means we need to invest in our abundant wind and solar resources,” Nelles said. “We have to spur economic opportunity by creating investment in that sector and moving toward a net-zero economy by 2050.”
When it was her turn to answer the same question, Pitt replied that she is very concerned with the NDP's plan of pursuing net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, arguing the party's energy policies would drive investment out of Alberta's oil and gas sector.
“The NDP candidate is not wrong when he talks about diversification – but you get diversification by attracting investment to this province and you do that by having a low-tax economy,” Pitt said. “We have lowered corporate taxes from the NDP's 12 per cent to eight per cent, which has brought record-high profits into this province. That's how you diversify the economy. We have petrochemical plants coming into this province, we have a natural gas hydrogen facility being built in Edmonton right now, and Dow Chemicals is looking to invest $32 million in the industrial heartland.
“These are real, good, mortgage-paying jobs for Albertans.”
Asked about how the UCP would reduce inter-provincial trade barriers, Guthrie took a shot at Canada's federal government, arguing the Liberal Party of Canada has been “obstructionist” in the last several years, preventing Alberta from prospering on the global trade front by implementing policies like a carbon tax.
“We have countries like Japan, Germany, Korea, Philippines coming to ask for our help,” he said. “The world wants to do business with Canada. We have a great reputation. We’re a supplier of choice and we need to maintain that [reputation].”
Fluker's response in turn was to take aim at the Alberta Sovereignty Act, which Premier Danielle Smith promoted throughout her UCP leadership campaign, and which was passed in the Alberta legislature shortly after she officially became premier.
“Inter-provincial trade, inter-governmental relations – all of these require Alberta to be seen as having a stable, competent, and serious government,” Fluker said. “Not passing legislation like the Sovereignty Act, scaring away investment. Alberta needs to be seen as a jurisdiction that is stable, competent, and serious. Therefore, willing to engage in other provinces, nations, and show the rest of the world we’re a welcome place to do business. It’s time to get back to that.”
Later into the evening, when answering a question if they supported the Sovereignty Act, Pitt responded “Heck yeah, I do,” while Nelles called the Act an “extremely offensive” piece of legislation.
Pitt said the Sovereignty Act “inserts Alberta's place in confederation,” and argued that other provinces have enacted similar measures to protect their self-interest on the national stage.
“It stands up to overreach by the federal government,” she said. “Other provinces have enacted similar legislations. We have a hostile government in Ottawa and Alberta is simply standing up [for ourselves].”
In retort, Nelles took the opposite approach, claiming the Sovereignty Act would “unlikely be held up in any court of law,” and would “deter people from investing in our province.”
When it came to Airdrie-specific issues, the candidates took questions from members of council pertaining to advancing the city's health care resources, the need for more public schools to be built, infrastructure needs, and municipal funding.
Asked how his party would advance health care access in Airdrie, Guthrie spoke mostly about EMS, bringing up his party's new provincial task force that has been assigned to evaluate systems and processes for ambulance response times.
“We’re now implementing that plan to reduce response times and that care,” he said. “We’ve been seeing those results thus far. Response times are improving in urban areas. We've seen a 44 per cent improvement in responses. Red alerts are down significantly. In April, Edmonton had 10 minutes of red alerts compared to 295 in November, and in Calgary that was four minutes compared to 254.”
Fluker's subsequent response was that “all Albertans deserve to be able to access a family doctor within a day or two,” regardless of their financial means.
“We also have to ensure Airdrie ambulances stay in Airdrie,” he said. “There are two primary ways an Alberta NDP government would accomplish this. One – restore a positive and trusted working relationship between paramedics and their government by ensuring they have a supportive working environment. Two – a primary piece of our campaign platform is our family health teams plan, whereby we’re going to ensure at least one-million Albertans have acces to a family physician when they need it in their community.”
When replying to a question how they and their party would advocate toward getting more schools built in Airdrie, Pitt brought up the UCP's track record of securing funding for four school builds or modernization projects since 2019, and claimed the NDP was only able to get one school built in the city during their time in office from 2015 to 2019.
The four projects Pitt mentioned were the modernization of St. Martin de Porres High School, the newly announced secondary Francophone school, and two future public school builds when preliminary work is completed.
“We’re actively bandaid-solutioning with portables, which I know isn’t a permanent solution,” she said. “We're actively working with the school board to get those sites ready so we can get shovels in the ground. There’s a lot of work to do, but the projects are on the books. They’re coming. We have high-growth needs and continue to keep up with the growth in this community. There has been some great progress and we have to continue to keep moving forward. I think the municipal census and the numbers we see with that [this year] will move forward that advocacy work as well.”
Nelles cited his status as a father of five children who have attended or will attend Airdrie's public schools as evidence he and his family are all too aware of the capacity issues facing local schools.
“We're acutely aware of the enrolment crisis being faced in our system today,” he said. “Every year, Airdrie has enough student enrolment growth to justify a brand new school. The UCP track record? Quite poor. How many were there in this recent UCP budget for full construction funding? Maybe 14?
“Planning to build a school doesn’t get a school built.”
Other topics the candidates discussed included orphan well clean-ups, electricity consumption caps, renewable energy, their stance on Smith's previously proposed Alberta pension plan, rent control, and private-versus-public health care.
On the topic of health care, Pitt expressed annoyance at the NDP's advertising campaign that suggests the UCP intends to privatize health care. She argued public health care is enshrined in federal legislation and that Smith's comments back when she worked in radio asking if regular doctor check-ups should be 100 per cent covered by government were taken out of context.
“I’d like to talk about truth in advertising,” she said. “The premier has made very clear, [as has] the Canada Health Act, that it’s illegal to pay to see to a doctor unless you're accessing a private system in some way, shape, or form. Public health care is protected under federal law... I’m really sick and tired of the mistruths in the ads by the NDP.”
Before that comment, Nelles had said an NDP government would ensure free doctor visits would remain a hallmark of Albertan society.
“Public health care is one of the greatest gifts we have in our society and we have to protect that,” he said. “Danielle Smith has pontificated numerous times about a payment relationship with your doctor. The only kind of relationship I want with my doctor is a patient/doctor relationship.”
Roughly 70 people were in attendance at Tuesday's forum, parts of which were also streamed live via the chamber of commerce's YouTube channel.
The provincial election will be held on May 29.
