By Curtis Galbraith

Provincial Budget

Toews: There is a lot in Budget 2023 for Peace Country

Mar 6, 2023 | 6:00 AM

Alberta’s Finance Minister says there is a lot in the new provincial budget for all Albertans; including residents of the Peace Country.

Grande Prairie-Wapiti MLA Travis Toews points to a long list of things, including a 5.1 per cent increase to education funding, a 13 percent increase in public safety funding that will allow the province to hire 235 more sheriffs, and a ten per cent increase to justice to hire more Crown prosecutors and expand the justice system.

Toews also lists an increase of over four per cent in the health budget. He says there will be new 2,000 new training spaces for registered nurses, licensed practical nurses and health care aides.

“I would expect Northwestern Polytechnic will figure into that expansion and that will also be very important to ensuring that we have in our region, as well as the rest of Alberta, enough front-line health care professionals.”

Toews says there will also be 120 training spaces added for physicians.

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He adds the new budget also includes money for a recovery community in Grande Prairie for residential addiction treatment.

“We’ve already started a number of recovery communities across the province. Right now, this one is in (the) early stages but we’ve funded it with this budget, so I’m really pleased with that.”

There is also a line item related to a replacement for the Beaverlodge hospital.

“The new Beaverlodge health care facility is a budget line in this capital plan. There’s been a letter of intent signed between AHS and the developer.”

“This is going to be quite an innovative approach. We have a private sector developer that’s intending on building the facility and will be leasing that facility to AHS.”

Toews says there is also money for twinning work along Highway 40 and for buying land, engineering, and design work for a Highway 40X connector from Highway 43 west of Grande Prairie to Highway 40 just above the Wapiti River.

Toews says there is also money for Northwestern Polytechnic to expand its instrumentation lab in Grande Prairie. He calls this “important capacity” for the oil and gas sector in this area.

Policing funding also included.

Toews says wanting to improve enforcement across the province led to the provincial government putting money in the budget for municipalities to set up their own police force. He says the province believes there is merit in this idea.

“A local police service can be very accountable to local leadership. A local police service can really key in on the priorities of the specific region and we think it will result in better enforcement.”

The province recently announced $9.7 million over two years should city hall decide to go with a municipal police service.

Critics of the idea have said the cost of such a move is not yet known. Toews says the city has an important decision to make and the province will leave the decision up to council. He adds the province did want to let the city know it supports the idea.

When asked if this was related to any provincial-federal government conflicts and the province letting municipalities take the lead rather than the Alberta government bringing in a provincial force, Toews says the bottom line is that he’s interested in ‘better enforcement at maximum efficiency.’