McIver vows to spend $20M on rural high-speed Internet
PC leadership rivals hope to make inroads in Wildrose territory
PC leadership candidate Ric McIver has committed to investing $20 million of taxpayers’ dollars into highspeed Internet infrastructure for rural Alberta communities if he becomes premier this fall.
The former provincial infrastructure minister announced Wednesday he would invest $10 million over four years to build communication towers in communities without broadband service and make another $10 million available to municipalities with a population of less than 10,000 for local broadband initiatives.
“I got a strong message from rural Albertans that broadband Internet is going to be one of the keys to maintaining and expanding the economy and quality of life in rural Alberta,” McIver said in a phone interview following the announcement in Medicine Hat.
“I don’t think Alberta can afford not to do this.”
In announcing his rural policy, the former Calgary councillor also pledged to boost funding in the provincial budget to $1 million annually to support volunteer fire departments. He said the increase from $650,000 is needed to better equip, support and train volunteer fire rescue staff.
McIver also vowed to bring more clarity to Alberta’s controversial legislation around land use and expropriation — laws that triggered the first rumblings of discord among landowners in rural areas.
“They don’t want government to make regulations that make their land less valuable or less usable or take away some of the uses they have without compensation,” he said.
“I think rural Albertans are very anxious to hear somebody is listening to their concerns.”
RIC MCIVER
All three candidates for the Progressive Conservative party leadership have vowed to bolster property rights in the wake of the Wildrose sweep of rural ridings in southern and central Alberta in the 2012 election.
Jim Prentice made property rights a key issue early in his campaign, telling Medicine Hat residents last May that he intended to “stand up in defence of property rights off farmers and ranchers.”
Rival candidate Thomas Lukaszuk vowed to amend the offending laws his government passed to ensure the rights of landowners are protected. “If there are Albertans who believe this law and the way it is written right now in some way puts them at a disadvantage, I want to make sure we address that,” Lukaszuk said Wednesday.
The Edmonton MLA and former deputy premier said he will build Alberta’s agriculture industry on par with oil and gas so the province is not only energizing the world, but also feeding it.
He and McIver both pledge to press railways to address the problems Alberta farmers are having getting their grain to market in both the short and long term.
Both city candidates garnered low levels of support in rural Alberta in a Leger poll conducted for Postmedia, but both committed to working harder to spread their message beyond the borders of the two major cities where they are better known.
McIver said he will continue travelling across the province listening to Albertans.
“I think rural Albertans are very anxious to hear somebody is listening to their concerns, caring about them and taking action, and that’s what I am doing today,” McIver said.