A united-right party must welcome moderates, Starke says
If Alberta’s political right does end up united in one party, Progressive Conservative leadership candidate Richard Starke says the key will be finding a place for moderates.
Rachel Notley’s NDP is moving to the political centre with its pro-pipelines stance, Starke says, so a right-wing party that rejects progressive policies is in danger.
“If centrists don’t feel at home in that (new) party, or are made to not feel at home, then that party will not be successful in the next election and the NDP will win another term,” the MLA for Vermilion-Lloydminster says.
On issue after issue, Starke, 56, charts a prudent course in his leadership bid. The son of German immigrants, his father a butcher at Canada Packers in Edmonton, Starke grew up learning the value of hard work and careful spending. As a result, he’s now driven to be sensible and moderate as a politician, especially on spending issues.
“Spending other people’s money is a tremendous responsibility. Some people say, ‘Spend it like it’s your own.’ I say, ‘No, no, no, no. You have to spend it way more carefully than you spend your own.’ I’ve spent my own money on stupid things from time to time.”
When it comes to one of the hot topics of the day — whether or not the government should provide funding for private school students — Starke comes at it from a personal perspective. He and his wife, Alison, both worked as veterinarians in Lloydminster, but decided to home-school their two sons for their entire K-12 school years.
The two boys, Roland and Alastair, were eligible for government funding, just as are all students who attend private schools in Alberta. Private school students get about 50 per cent of the funding that goes to public school students, but the Alberta Teachers’ Association and other union groups want that money redirected to public schools.
Starke disagrees.
Alberta offers many choices of paths for schooling, with some funding following each child wherever they end up, he says.
“It benefits the public as a whole,” Starke says. “It benefits the province. It provides different alternatives and different options for students that may have different needs.”
With Starke’s own kids, the eldest was clearly an exceptional student, reading at a Grade 9 level at age five, so home-schooling seemed like the best bet.
“The choice is the vitally important thing. It gives you the opportunity to choose the route that you feel is best for your child — and the people who know that the best are going to be parents, in conjunction with their kids.”
On the matter of big-city projects, such as LRT expansion, Starke says he’d continue with the consistent level of transit funding from the province that has been in place since the Ed Stelmach years.
“A well-functioning, well-used public transit system is a benefit to a municipality.”
Starke wants to see Edmonton’s LRT branch out in more directions: “Right now, our LRT is incomplete.”
One issue in rural Alberta is county governments take a much larger percentage of each region’s industrial tax base from factories, refineries and pipelines than do country towns and hamlets. The NDP is putting in place a plan that will force towns and their surrounding counties to come up with a plan to share that $1.9 billion in industrial taxes more equitably (towns and cities get just $100 million).
But Starke says there’s plenty of cost-sharing and co-operation now between town and county governments, so there’s no need to force agreements.
“I think the NDP’s approach is heavy-handed.”
As for the carbon tax, Starke says he’d axe it because it’s essentially a form of income redistribution. He might replace it with a tax similar to Alberta’s previous intensity tax on carbon, where large emitters paid, or with a carbon tax based on best practices from places like B.C.
“Nobody wants to have taxes. Nobody,” he says, then draws on his experience as a vet. “But taxation is like surgery. Sometimes you have to have it whether you want it or not, and what we’re taught with surgery is that if the patient is strong and the surgeon is skilled, the outcome can be positive.
“In this case, the patient is our economy, the surgeon is our government. Our economy is not strong. Our government has not been skilful in the design and application of this carbon tax. As a result, the outcome I don’t think is going to be favourable.”
It gives you the opportunity to choose the route that you feel is best for your child — and the people who know that the best are going to be parents.