Rick Orman brought his outsider campaign for the Progressive Conservative leadership race to St. Albert Wednesday night.
Orman spoke to a handful of supporters at the St. Albert Senior Citizens' Club about his quest for the leadership, saying the other five candidates in the race seemed to represent more of the same.
"It looked like more of the same. It looked like we were just shuffling the chairs around," he said.
Orman, who served in the Tory cabinet in the late 1980s and early 1990s before leaving government for business, said the party has lost its way and the abandonment of its principles launched the Wildrose Alliance.
"If we had been a responsive party and a responsive government, there would be no Wildrose," he said. "We should offer a platform and government that will attract them back."
Orman said a PC government under his premiership would return to its roots of fiscal responsibility and would honour its agreements. He said, in talking with people before his run, he found the government was not living up to its promises.
"They want a government they can respect and they want a government that respects them, the people of Alberta."
He said the government has to respect everyone's opinions, but also has to remember who sent them to the legislature.
"What you have to do, first and foremost, is respect the people of our Progressive Conservative party that sent us there and that comes around actions that reflect those principles."
Three priorities
Orman also spent some time discussing his platform. He said his number one priority would be health care, where he said people appreciate the system when they get in, but access is their biggest hurdle.
He pledged to look at building more long-term care beds by using Crown land that is going unused.
He added, however, that costs throughout the whole system have to be brought under control, before they crowd out other government initiatives.
"We have an unsustainable model in this province. Our economy grows at three per cent and health care grows at six per cent," he said. "We have to find a way inside the spending in health care to bring discipline to it and bring respect for taxpayers' dollars."
His second priority would be education, where he said he wants to put more resources into the classroom. He said to free up the funding, he would look closer at the ministry of education and school boards to make sure new funding landed in the classroom.
Public safety
Orman's third priority, which he unveiled earlier on Wednesday, centred on public safety.
Drawing on ideas from Calgary police chief Rick Hanson, Orman said he would open up an alternative correctional facility where inmates could receive addictions treatment.
Orman said the move would get people off drugs and ultimately prevent more crime in the long run.
"This initiative is an effort to try and break, try and stop early the cycle of crime that happens through homelessness," he said. "The more and more this cycle continues, the more likely it is going to become a habitual situation."
He said he doesn't know what the project would cost in the long term, but he believes it is the right path to take.
"I am not concerned about the cost. That is not an issue with me. The issue is, if this thing works, we have gone along way to reducing crime."
He said the cost of not addressing the problem is also expensive.
"There is the cost to the persons whose property has been stolen, to the insurance company and then to the jail system for incarcerating this person."
Orman is also pledging to create a province-wide after-school recreation strategy to keep young people occupied and making sure they avoid crime and gangs.
He also wants to make sure municipalities have the money for more police. Orman did not have an estimate on how much money or how many police were required, but said he wanted to make sure the resources were there.
