Amidst talk of polls and an upcoming election, both the St. Albert and Spruce Grove-Sturgeon-St. Albert constituency associations had policy resolutions passed at the Alberta PC Convention in Calgary last weekend.
"Certainly there was discussion of poll results and getting ready for the election," noted St. Albert MLA Ken Allred, who attended the convention.
The first resolution from the St. Albert PC Constituency Association aims to improve access to primary care networks (PCN) by making it easier for patients to access services based on health needs and the skill sets of providers affiliated with PCNs.
The second resolution involves making a concerted effort to support the early construction of a heavy oil pipeline to a Pacific port in order to create another outlet for a key Alberta product in the high economic growth, high energy demand markets in Asia.
The Spruce Grove-Sturgeon-St. Albert Constituency Association's policy resolution aims to see all Albertans with electronic health records by 2015.
Resolutions passed at the convention are accepted at the party level only. The premier and caucus can determine if they wish to take further action such as upgrade legislation.
Provincial election on the horizon
Between now and the next provincial election, rumoured to be in 2012, the Tories will be focused on its Policy Blue Paper, a province-wide, association-based initiative which will incorporate feedback from constituents to form the party's next election platform.
"It's really about ensuring that we have input from across the province into policy development, which effectively will lead into a platform development as we move forward to whenever that next election might be," explained Spruce Grove-Sturgeon-St. Albert MLA Doug Horner.
"We're going to be focusing on the same things we're always focused on and that is getting out and meeting and greeting our constituents. I think that's important."
Allred said the party needs to focus on communication, specifically as it relates to the environment and the energy sector.
"We're getting so much bad press from silly little things that happen and they are just so overblown," he said, in reference to news last month that an estimated 350 more ducks were euthanized after landing on a Syncrude tailings pond.
"Yeah, that's a major concern but how many ducks are killed by wind turbines? How many birds are killed by flying into buildings in the city? How many are killed by cats?" he said.
"You have to get these things into proportion. I'm not saying they're silly little things that we should ignore, but we seem to blow them out of proportion and Greenpeace is famous for doing things like that," Allred said.
During the convention, members were presented with the results of a recent public opinion poll conducted by Innovative Research Group.
The poll showed the Conservatives doing well for the most part but also pointed to significant support for the Wildrose Alliance among those polled.
Had an election been held last month, 40 per cent of participants would have voted for their local Tory candidate while 26 per cent would have supported their local Wildrose Alliance candidate, according to the poll.
The poll also showed that, regarding the competence and leadership of Alberta's four main political parties, only 23 per cent of those polled thought Stelmach was competent and only 21 per cent saw him as a strong leader. In the same categories, Smith received 18 and 20 per cent respectively.
"There were some pundits who thought that the numbers might be down, who thought that there might be some negativity toward the party but I think, given the poll results and given the numbers that attended the convention and the very positive discussion that we were having and the resolutions, there is a good level of excitement in the party, great grassroots discussions," Horner said.
Compared to the mood at last year's convention, which he said was 'tentative,' St. Albert PC Constituency Association president, Randy Duguay said this year's convention was upbeat.
"I think the tone of the conference was really the starting point and I think they had been preparing themselves, all of us collectively, for a number of months and it's really about listening and engaging people more specifically," he said.
Duguay said the recent efforts of Edmonton-Rutherford MLA Fred Horne to gather input from across the province on health care this past summer was a good example of what the Tories need to do to further engage their constituents.
"I think that's the kind of work that I think all of us are looking towards," Duguay said.
"We're really making sure we're trying to understand what people are thinking and what they are saying."
