Morinville-St. Albert MLA Dale Nally took time to talk to his constituents last week and answer questions.
“This is really important to me. One of the things that, of course, that I'm not able to do that I could have done earlier on was to engage with constituents,” said Nally during a virtual town hall.
On March 2, Nally held a telephone town hall. The hour-long event allowed constituents to ask questions about anything they wanted answers to.
The event was hosted by Spruce Grove-Stony Plain MLA Searle Turton and was attended by 994 people, according to a social media post summing up the evening. Questions were either asked over the phone or through email, and the topics were varied and spanned across health, jobs and highways.
“If you have questions that are unique to the riding that are specific to Morinville-St. Albert, please feel free to ask those questions, but also, I'd like to put everything else on the table as well,” he said.
Health was at the top of the list for topics, with people calling in asking about vaccines, mental health-related issues and public health protocols.
The first question was an online question about mental health and whether or not there was a plan to attract and retain mental health practitioners to the province.
In response, Nally said the government is prioritizing mental health by allocating more money to the budget.
“We're going to increase funding for mental health by another $140 million over four years, because again, we know that because of COVID-19 Albertans are struggling,” he said.
On the job front, Nally was asked about the government’s plan to get Albertans back to work. Red tape reduction, competitive corporate tax rates and economic strategies detailed in the Alberta Recovery Plan will all help with employment, Nally said. The province made a $10 billion dollar investment in infrastructure through the plan.
The Capital Plan, which was announced with budget 2021, will also create jobs, said Nally. The plan will invest $20.7 billion over three years to infrastructure projects.
Nally also spoke about the Natural Gas Strategy and Vision plan. Alberta's chemicals sector, comprised primarily of petrochemicals, was valued at $12.1 billion in 2019, and Nally said the government wants to increase that.
“That will definitely help the area of Morinville-St. Albert because of the Industrial Heartland and the petchem investment that we have there. The Alberta Petrochemical Incentive Program that I put in place in the fall is giving grants to attract companies to come to Alberta to invest in petchem,” he said.
“Companies globally are literally kicking the tires, because they're so interested in this program.”
In a question related to pipelines, Nally said he wants to get at least another two natural gas pipelines started under his watch.
“We campaigned on pipelines, we have not taken our eye off of pipelines, and we're not going to get discouraged by one defeat,” he said.
Repealing the provincial carbon tax was one of the first things the UCP did when they came to office in 2019. A phone question asked about what the government was doing to help people on fixed-income and supports with the federal carbon tax that kicked in on Jan. 1.
The short answer, Nally said, is the government is fighting it in courts.
“If we lose in the courts, then we're going to have to have some kind of conversations about a made-in-Alberta solution because I don't trust the feds to come up with a better solution than Albertans can come up with,” he said.
An emailed question asked what the government was doing about oil companies not paying their leases or municipal taxes. Alberta's rural communities are already owed $245 million in unpaid oil and gas property taxes from the industry.
“The last thing that you do before you go bankrupt is you stop paying your taxes. These companies are not paying their taxes, they're on the cusp of bankruptcy and so we're going to do everything that we can to save these companies, so that they can pay their taxes,” he said.
The final question asked Nally when the government will repair Highway 28.
“I can tell you right now it's on the books for late 2021, so it will be done this year,” he said. “I want you to hold me accountable to that. I am not the Transportation Minister, but if it’s not done by late 2021, I want you to call me in my office.”
