NDP promises Alberta energy research centre
NDP Leader Brian Mason, looking for Alberta to keep its place as the nation’s energy hub, pledged Monday to create a renewable development fund that would help pay for a $50-million research centre in this southern Alberta city.
Mason said the new fund could be established with $400 million remaining in the PC government’s carbon capture and sequestration strategy.
A portion of that money could then be invested in projects like the creation of a $50-million renewable energy research centre based in Lethbridge, Mason explained.
“Many other countries and states in the United States are well ahead of Canada in terms of their investments in renewable energy and we need to catch up,” said Mason, who also welcomed the endorsement of former longtime Lethbridge mayor Bob Tarleck.
“We need to make sure that Alberta remains the energy centre of this country.”
But PC Leader Alison Red- ford pointed to her party’s announcement in the first week of the campaign of $3 billion in funding over 20 years for energy research.
“A fund that will allow for investment in research with respect to technologies for energy, whether it’s conventional, sustainable or renewable,” she said. “That really is a forward-thinking perspective.”
She also said the dollars in the carbon capture fund are subject to an existing memorandum of understanding.