After nine months of campaigning, regardless of the outcome, on Monday one of the three remaining candidates will be the next premier of the province.
They will be the leader of a party with 40 uninterrupted years in power and head of a government with a $38-billion budget. With that in mind, the Gazette asked all of the candidates to explain what they want to achieve in their first six months in office.
Spruce Grove-Sturgeon-St. Albert MLA Doug Horner said, if he is elected leader Saturday, one of his first steps would be to help bring the party together so it can govern effectively.
“It is going to be talking to all of my colleagues face-to-face. It is going to be talking to the party about how we move forward. It is going to be talking to the party about the way we do some things.”
After that, Horner said he would be putting together a cabinet and starting on next year’s budget.
“You have to get the right team in place and put them in place and then, when you have them in place, start talking about the budget.”
Horner said he would also have some important discussions with the federal government and immigration would be on the top of his list.
“We need to sit down and talk about having our own immigration agreement tailored to Alberta’s needs so we can increase the number of people coming to Alberta,” he said. “We are going to be 70,000 people short in the next three years.”
He said he would also want to sit down with the federal government and talk about the Keystone XL pipeline and make sure the province was confronting some of the misinformation about the project.
“We need to be sure that the federal government and our representatives at those hearings are knowledgeable about the facts.”
Horner said he would also like to see the province push the Gateway pipeline aggressively to open up new markets in China and India.
In her first six months as premier, Alison Redford would have a wide variety of issues that she would aim to address.
Redford suspended her campaign on Tuesday due to a health emergency with her mother, who later died in hospital, but her campaign manager Stephen Carter said her first move would be to put $100 million into education, in line with requests from school boards.
“Number one is to reverse the education cuts,” said Carter.
Carter said education would also likely be Redford’s first legislative priority, with a new education act being introduced as the first piece of legislation while she is premier.
Carter said there is a new education act in the legislature, but this would be different than what the government proposed.
“It would look something like the Inspiring Education report,” he said.
The Inspiring Education report was released last year and called for more active and engaged students who have more input into their own learning.
Carter said it is an example of a great government report and recommendation that now sits on the shelf.
Redford has pledged to open family care clinics in the province that would be staffed by health care professionals from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. She is pledging to allow other health care professionals, such as nurses and nurse practitioners, to bill the system directly as part of that approach.
Carter said cutting the ribbon on one of those clinics would also be a goal.
“Alison would like to open the first family care clinics in that time.”
Carter said she would also make a strong pitch for the Keystone XL pipeline as part of a broad effort aimed at promoting Alberta industry and would aim to work with the private sector to get more continuing care beds available for seniors.
Gary Mar was unavailable Tuesday, but he released his blueprint for his first four months in office on Monday.
He pledged to work on party renewal, including a task force lead by former candidate Doug Griffiths. He also pledged to bring in a new smaller cabinet that would include people appointed only on their merits.
He also promised to appear personally at U.S. State Department hearings on the proposed Keystone XL pipeline and advocate for it on the province’s behalf.
Within 90 days, he said he would change Bill 50 so cabinet no longer had the authority to create critical infrastructure, and he would ask the Alberta Electric System Operator to take another look at proposed north-south transmission lines.
