Did you know that United Conservative Party MLAs are not allowed to try and make sure their communities get what they need?
It’s true. If you’re a private company, you can lobby the government all you want. All you need to do is put it into Alberta’s lobby registry and you’re good to go. If you’re a private healthcare company, you can try to convince the Alberta government to kill public health funding and give the money to you instead. If you’re Suncor, maybe you’re asking the government to give you the right to drill wherever you want.
But speak out for the people living in your riding and you might just get kicked off the caucus.
This is a lesson that Scott Sinclair, MLA for Lesser Slave Lake, learned the hard way.
Sinclair, who is serving his first term as MLA in the rural riding, spoke out against the UCP budget last week. He said that the budget didn’t give enough funding to rural communities such as his own. That the government was prioritizing big city centers and leaving rural Alberta to suffer.
He stated in a Facebook post, “This budget is indefensible for the Lesser Slave Lake Constituency, and I will not support or vote for it “as is” without significant changes.”
The Reeve of Lesser Slave River, Murray Kerik, agrees with Sinclair. In case you haven’t heard the word “reeve” before, it’s a fancy word for the mayor of a county. He said in a letter that the budget “fails Albertans on many levels.”
Lesser Slave Lake area contributes $1.5 billion annually to Alberta’s economy. Kerik said that even though the area is part of what makes Alberta so rich, the UCP’s 2025 budget ignores the needs of the people that live there.
Crumbling Highways
The UCP set aside $106 million in the budget to build a new park where Northlands currently is in Edmonton. There’s $9 million to hire 50 new police officers in Edmonton.
Meanwhile, Highway 2 and Highway 88, the two major highways that run through the Lesser Slave Lake area, are crumbling to bits.
Dozens of people have lost their lives on the two highways. Last August, two men on a charity motorcycle ride were killed on Highway 2. Last July, two truckers collided on Highway 88. Both men died in the accident. A total of 92 collisions have been reported along the worst stretch of Highway 88 in the past three years.
Reeve Kerik in his letter, “I could go on at length about the ordinary citizens who end up in the ditch, the hospital, or the morgue, due to the condition of our provincial highways.”
The Alberta government has promised to upgrade 35 kilometers of Highway 88. They announced the project last January. One year later, the highway upgrade is still incomplete. The road remains filled with potholes. The shoulder is crumbling to bits.
Hospitals Closed
Hospitals in the district need help as well. In fact, there are only three across the huge region. The Slave Lake Healthcare Center is suffering from staffing shortages. Its emergency department had to close for a 12-hour period on January 8.
High Prairie Health Center could use some more funding as well. It currently doesn’t have a cancer treatment center, or any obstetrics coverage. Mothers about to give birth have to get to the Slave Lake Healthcare Center, a one-hour drive from High Prairie. People sick with cancer are even harder up – the closest cancer treatment center is in Edmonton, a three- to five- hour drive from the Lesser Slave Lake area.
Need More Money
Clearly, Scott Sinclair’s riding needs more money. Some of the Alberta budget could be tweaked to fix the problem.
They could slash the $16.4 million set aside to fix up some land around Edmonton’s Ice District and make it ready for retail and commercial space, for example. As much as we love the sport, Alberta funnels enough money into hockey already. Making sure people don’t die on the highway between High Prairie and Slave Lake seems like it should be more of a priority than making sure people are able to have a nice shopping experience before their night out at an Oilers game.
But in general, Alberta’s budget needs more money. Lesser Slave Lake is not the only rural area in need of repair. And the UCP has already said they’re going to be running a $5 billion deficit this coming year.
There’s an easy way for Alberta to get more money for everyone. Currently, corporations are pitching in the lowest amount into Alberta’s collective pool of money. Corporations in Alberta give less to the collective pool than in any other province in Canada. They give less than most places in the world. Corporate income tax is at 8%.
If Alberta raises the amount of money that corporations are required to give to the public pot, the province would have enough money to pay for the upgrades that the Calgary LRT needs and also fix the roads in rural Alberta.
There’s no need to kick MLAs out of the group because they’re speaking up for their communities. Scott Sinclair is raising real concerns. What the UCP could do is figure out some good ways to get Lesser Slave Lake the help and the road repairs that they need.
