Trevor Horne was a 24-year-old political science student at MacEwan University when he was elected as part of the NDP government in 2015.
Once elected, he quit his job at Starbucks and became the full time MLA for Spruce Grove-St. Albert. He now serves on both the Alberta's Economic Future Committee and the Resource Stewardship Committee.
Horne caught up with the Gazette's editorial board on Wednesday to discuss some of the issues facing Albertans.
Carbon tax rebates
Gazette: The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is estimating that the carbon tax is going to cost families $600 by 2018. What is the strategy to help families with that cost?
Horne: There is a variety of different support systems. One of them being the rebates. We are estimating that 60% of the population will receive a rebate and 60% of those will receive a full rebate. With the current projections it is kind of hard to give a definitive projection until it kicks in. Beyond that there is a variety of programs that should help with the costs that will be coming out of it. The carbon levy is just the first piece of the leadership plan.
Gazette: Is the rebate expected to lower the carbon footprint of lower income families?
Horne: It depends on what the programs ultimately end up looking like. I personally hope that some will help the lower income families adjust their carbon footprint. If you look at the breakdown of emissions in Alberta, residential is a very fairly small proportion of carbon emissions and a lot of it is industry and commercial, whether that is leaving lights on in office buildings for security or heavy industrial. Looking at those are part of the big focus.
Pipelines
Gazette: Do we need both the Kinder Morgan pipeline and Energy East pipeline to bring Alberta's finances back in balance?
Horne: It certainly wouldn't hurt. At this point I would be happy with any pipeline. Whether or not we need both I'm not sure, I suppose that would depend on the price of oil.
Minimum wage
Gazette: What do you have to say to businesses that are speaking out against the minimum wage saying it is too much, too soon?
Horne: A lot of people making minimum wage are single parents, a lot of them are over the age of 30 and roughly 60% are women. I don't think it's necessarily fair to say that we shouldn't be working towards giving them a fair wage that they can support their families on regardless of the economic times.
Gazette: Is there a possibility of a two-tiered minimum wage?
Horne: There was some discussion on that. I can't speak too much to the reason why it was decided against but I know that a lot of teenagers that I worked with over the years – all that money was either going straight to their education, saving up for university or to pay for the car they bought to get to their job. I don't think a two-tiered system would help them.
Gazette: How does the raise in minimum wage benefit business?
Horne: If you're buying food for your family the grocery store is still a business. Then the grocery store hires their staff who provides that service, who then spend money feeding their family. Ultimately, I do think it supports business as a whole.
Municipal Sustainability Initiative
Gazette: Will the Municipal Sustainability Initiative program continue past 2017?
Horne: I know that is something the minister is currently looking at. The challenge right now is making sure that municipal funding is more predictable. The challenge with the MSI funding right now is that it's application based so if you are looking 10 years down the road, it's not easy to predict how much money you are going to get.
