Familiar name seeks Alberta Party nod
Three issues are likely to dominate in the next provincial election, says a contestant hoping to win the Alberta Party’s nomination for the Brooks-Medicine Hat riding.
Provincial debt, carbon tax and health care will be key in the election, Jim Black predicts.
He says NDP government spending has ballooned, but some of that has been in education with the building of new schools, said Black, who acknowledges an infrastructure deficit had occurred under the previous PC government.
“I’d like to have seen a more balanced approach (under the NDP),” he said.
Black also feels the carbon tax is another contentious issue, and says putting it into general revenue makes it more difficult to see the income generated or how it is being spent.
Black would like to see a stronger emphasis on diversifying Alberta’s economy with some of the carbon tax revenue being used as an incentive for existing, successful, businesses to further this. He offers the example of finding alternative ways to use resources, such as coal, that would not be detrimental to the environment.
He says it can be easy to complain about health care, but he knows the impact when there is no universal system. His sister contracted polio in the late 1940s, and says it took his parents six years to pay off the debt incurred for treatment.
There are ways to maintain public universal health care, he says, without costs escalating out of control.
Having once served on the Palliser regional health board, he would like to see a return to local decision making in both health care and education.
Earlier this year it emerged that consideration is being given to closing the laundry department at Medicine Hat Regional Hospital in favour of sending it all to Lethbridge. Under the regional health board laundry equipment in Medicine Hat was maintained and replaced as necessary so it would not get into the position of no longer being viable, says Black.
Black is a retired school teacher who currently teaches at an alternative night school in Bow Island. Although geographically the Brooks Medicine Hat riding is large, it is one he knows well. He has lived in Newell County and says he has excellent name recognition.
Black was the Alberta Party candidate in the Medicine Hat riding for the 2015 provincial election. He believes the Alberta Party will be in a better position next election with quality candidates in more ridings. Alberta Party leader Stephen Mandel was elected in February and has created momentum for the party, says Black.
The next provincial election is likely to be called by the end of May 2019.
Rather than it being about the ideology of the political party it is more about representing the people that matters to Black. When other parties have a good idea there is nothing wrong with giving them credit for that. Universal health care and the heritage fund were both excellent ideas from very different political parties, he says.
Politics is where the decisions that affect people are made, and political representatives have to be accessible and approachable for governing in a responsible and articulate manner, said Black.