Alberta's New Democratic Party Leader Brian Mason expects to build off past provincial and federal success to fill more seats in the legislature following the provincial election Monday.
Mason is confident his party's campaign platform of championing health care – something he said is the defining issue this election – while also focusing on the environment, will strike a chord with voters.
"The first and most important thing is health care," Mason said. "Albertans are very clear that they want to strengthen, but they don't want to privatize. They want a public health-care system."
Mason spent much of his time at the St. Albert Gazette editorial board meeting Wednesday discussing the shortfalls of the Progressive Conservative government, particularly taking issue with attempts to privatize health care.
"The PCs play with the language and say we're in favour of publicly funded health care," he said. "What they actually mean is that the taxpayers will pay for private-sector agencies to deliver a lot of the health care."
The NDP platform stresses the importance of a publicly funded and publicly delivered system and Mason suggested eliminating the fee-for-service model that currently exists for physicians.
"I think there's other models of payment for physicians and we need to push a little harder," he said. "I think we need to establish a model where doctors are hired and put on salary."
He said the party is focusing on senior care through adding 1,500 long-term care beds and expanding home care. He would also implement a $25 price cap on prescription drugs for seniors.
"The government's tried now twice to come up with a new seniors' drug plan and failed both times," he said.
The cap on prescription costs would be funded through savings resulting from a bulk-buying initiative for drugs, which aims to purchase generic drugs when proven as effective.
Green focus
"The environment is something the other parties don't seem to be talking about, yet we know that it's really important to Albertans," Mason said.
The NDP platform outlines a plan to eliminate tailings ponds, and although Mason was unsure what a realistic timeline would be, citing the need to consult scientists and other environmental organizations, he said this could be reached in the next two decades.
"They just keep multiplying and quite frankly, there's been almost no real remediation," he said. "Mostly, they just sit there for decade after decade and they just keep getting more."
He said this is paramount to repairing Alberta's international reputation and demonstrating environmental responsibility.
Mason plans to consult industry to set environmental standards, which will cost the companies rather than the province.
"It's fine to put a few million dollars into a PR campaign in the United States to tell them that everything is fine, it's quite another to actually make it fine," he said. "We need to actually clean it up, not just tell people that it's not a problem."
In efforts to curb the dependence on natural resources, Mason proposed a 25-per-cent increase on bitumen royalties while leaving conventional oil and gas royalties untouched.
Although this would mean an increased cost to companies, Mason said it will not force them out of the province.
"I think it's very appropriate for the government of Alberta representing the owners of the big resource to put in place royalty policies that meet the economic objectives of the province," he said.
He said he would like to see more upgrading done within provincial borders, ultimately creating long-term jobs in the province — something he said was a broken promise in the last two elections.
On the issues
On access to family doctors:
"Ultimately, what you have to do, is you have to have Alberta Health establishing clinics in those places and hiring the health-care professionals who are necessary, not necessarily always a doctor."
On ambulance service:
"I don't know the answer to how you solve those problems and ultimately, ambulance service should be part of the health system and a provincial responsibility, but it's evolved as a municipal service."
On current electricity system:
"It's bad for Alberta business. This system is bad for business. It's hard for homeowners and we tend to focus on them but, you know, industry's got to be able to compete with other provinces who have regulated prices and they also find it extremely hard to budget."
On electricity-price regulation:
"The regulating consumer price would be relatively easy, just put in place a regulatory body and some regulations."
