By Sheldon Spackman - rdNewsNOW

Kenney talks scrapping carbon tax, expanding hospital during Red Deer visit

Feb 23, 2018 | 11:55 AM

RED DEER- Alberta’s carbon tax, pipelines, hospital expansion and rural crime were just some of the topics UCP Leader Jason Kenney touched on during a stop in Red Deer on Thursday.

Speaking with rdnewsNOW, Kenney says the Auditor General’s February report indicates the NDP has no clue how much money is being spent on or raised from the government’s carbon tax.

“This is a tax they hid from voters in the last election,” says Kenney. “It’s all economic pain and no environmental gain, it’s doing nothing to reduce carbon emissions but it’s doing a lot to punish consumers.”

He says when the legislature comes into session in a few weeks the UCP will be demanding accountability on the issue.

“Frankly, we’re committed to scrapping the carbon Tax,” stated Kenny. “It has made our recession, worse, longer and deeper than it needed to be. It’s not helping the environment and the very least the Premier should say is that if Justin Trudeau, her friend and ally, doesn’t get one of these pipelines built, she’s not going to increase the carbon Tax by 67 per cent like he wants.”

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When it comes to the Trans Mountain Pipeline dispute, Kenney says banning B.C. wine imports to Alberta in retaliation for B.C. fighting the expansion of the federally approved pipeline was a good symbolic first step.

“We only buy $70 million of wine from B.C. per year, we sell them billions of dollars of oil, so it’s not exactly proportionate” explains Kenney. “I’m telling the NDP government here we have to be prepared to ‘up our game’ to make it clear to the New Democrats in Victoria that there will be consequences if they break the law, violate our constitution and continue attacking Alberta’s vital economic interests.

“If we stop shipping Canadian oil, if we don’t produce Canadian oil, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Venezuela, Iran, they’re going to continue producing and shipping,” Kenney adds. “So the question is whether or not Canada will compete with and hopefully displace the oil coming from some of the world’s worst regimes. There is both an economic and a moral argument for us to get these pipelines built.”

The desperate need for expansion at Red Deer Regional Hospital is also an issue Kenney is becoming more familiar with. He met recently with local doctors regarding a Catheterization Lab, and with Red Deer Mayor Tara Veer Thursday morning regarding the hospital’s overall expansion needs.

“She pointed out that it had been number four on the priority infrastructure list for Alberta Health Services but somehow has disappeared from that priority list,” admitted Kenney. “I want to find out why. We’ll be asking questions in the legislature about this in the spring.”

With rural crime a growing concern in the province, Kenney says his party has established a task force focused especially on central Alberta to make recommendations to the party and future governments.

“We’re seeing increasingly violent and sometimes repeat home invasions in the middle of the day,” exclaims Kenney. “Farms that are getting robbed multiple times, police not showing up in some cases for an hour or two, people threatening to take the law into their own hands, this is a serious situation.”

Finally, as the Winter Olympics wind down in South Korea, Kenney advises caution when it comes to the City of Calgary making a bid on the 2026 Olympic Winter Games, saying public consultation should happen first.

“Most of the recent Olympic Games have run huge multi-billion dollar deficits,” says Kenney. “We’re broke as a province, we’re borrowing a billion dollars a month, headed to an $80 billion debt, we’ve had six credit downgrades, higher taxes have killed jobs. So I’m not signing on to a multi-billion dollar spend on the Olympics without very clear guarantees that the tax payer is not going to pay through the nose for it.”

Elsewhere, Kenney says the UCP is preparing for upcoming events like a by-election in the Innisfail-Sylvan Lake riding and the party’s Founding AGM and Convention in Red Deer May 4 – 6.

“We’re looking for great people to step forward as candidates, this is an opportunity for renewal,” explains Kenney. “Alberta has gone through some tough times recently but I’m an optimist about our future. The key thing is Albertans have a sense of responsibility for our future by getting involved in our democracy and this new party is an invitation to do that.”