Lethbridge-East Candidate Profile – John McCanna – Alberta Independence Party

Do you support the funding announcements made in December 2018 about supportive housing and intox/detox spaces?

Who made the announcements? It doesn’t matter which party it was. The problem with the announcements is that the government has no money. None. It doesn’t matter which political party. They have no money and in order to fund something, they have to first take it from somebody else. So, I’m always suspect at election time when the mainstream political parties come out with all of these promises. They day after the election they have an excuse why they can’t do them. So, that one I’ll have to take a pass on, because I really don’t have any information on their funding.

Lethbridge has been sheltered compared to other parts of the province when it comes to the economic downturn, but jobs remain a key issue in this election. What is your party proposing when it comes to economic issues, and what policy are you championing as something that will help the people of Lethbridge?

Our party is going is going to contribute $15 billion to Alberta. And that breaks down to $36 million every year to every riding. Lethbridge has two ridings, so that’s $72 million of new money. That money will go to whatever the people in that riding wish it to go to, whether it’s infrastructure projects, projects for the disadvantaged or disabled or anything else. That’s money to tie them over from the ups and downs of the economy, and the excessive taxes and regulations that are levied on them by the current political parties.

Can you take the positive experiences in Lethbridge when it comes to economic issues and what policy in particular are you championing as something that will help the people of Lethbridge?

Southern Alberta, especially Lethbridge, is in a unique position. Most of the northern portion – and some in the south too is heavily relying on the oil and gas industry. Lethbridge area is unique in that they have a very, very strong agricultural community. The challenges they face are regulations imposed on them by the provinces and the federal government that makes it very difficult for them to sustain their operations. Right now, the agricultural industry, the margins are so small they can barely keep their heads above water, and it’s shrinking every year. So there needs to be something specifically done to look at diverse economies such as Lethbridge and give them all the support they need. We can do that under the Alberta Independence Party because we will retain $45 billion that Alberta currently sends to Ottawa every year, without receiving anything in return. So, if we keep that money here in Alberta, it will grow all of the industries, all of the jobs and make Alberta a much better place to live in.

How do you view the health care system in the province in 2019, and what would your party do if elected to improve it?

The healthcare system, and this is from my personal experience – I just had a knee operation – but the healthcare system in Alberta is the most expensive system in Canada and it’s the least…I don’t want to say competitive, but it has the least quality or service for the citizens of Alberta. The main reason is the bureaucracy is out of control – my wife used to manage a hospital, so I’m pretty up to speed on this – but our party, what we want to do is we want to turn the medical system in the province into a world class medical system. We don’t think only Edmonton and Calgary should have all of these specialized medical services. We think that communities such as Fort McMurray, Red Deer, Medicine Hat and Lethbridge are major centres spread throughout the province and those ones should receive all of the benefits that the two major centres have, because the population is so diverse that if you’re living on the eastern boundaries of Alberta, it’s a long stretch to get from there to Edmonton or from there to Calgary. It would much better if Lethbridge were a major medical centre, and that’s what we’re proposing.

Are cuts in funding needed? Are additional funds needed, or is it a matter of finding efficiencies?

Yes. The efficiencies that would turn it around, is to bring more front-line workers – but competent, skilled front-line workers on staff. And there’s a term called ‘rule of six.’ And that means for every six workers on the front line, you should only have one supervisor, instead of having six supervisors for one worker. And that’s the current situation the Alberta health care system is in now. And it’s an easy turn around, we just have to have the people buy into it.

From three weeks of the polar vortex, to grass fires at the start of spring, Lethbridge and southern Alberta are bearing the brunt of climate change. Where does your party rank dealing with climate as an issue, and what are your plans to protect the agriculture and farming industries that will be impacted?

Protection from grassfires, winds – which is the cause of most of the damage because a small fire can be put out very easily by the local community. Once these hurricane force winds we’re used to in southern Alberta start blowing, it’s very, very difficult to put these fires out. It needs a concerted effort from all of the communities in the path of that fire to even just attempt to hold it back. And if they’re lucky they can put it out. We need to have a greater, and our party will endorse, a better emergency services system in place where we can employ these things. Everything from those huge water bombers you see that for some reason our government doesn’t want to use in Alberta. And that would be a huge first step to take to as a remedy, reduce the impact of these fires. There’s not much we can do about the climate, even though some politicians say ‘well, if you pay more taxes, it will help the climate.’ It doesn’t work that way. And so, we are a grass roots party. We look at the people who let’s say, live in the Lethbridge region. We will take their input and formulate our policies for that region, based on the input of the people.

Southern Alberta has been described as a leader when it comes to green energy, from wind turbines to solar panels. Will you commit to keeping and improving Energy Efficiency Alberta, and if not, what are your plans for the industry?

Wind turbines, solar panels, they all have their place. The danger comes when a government arbitrarily cancels one industry that all of Albertans need to survive and replaces it with an inefficient green energy that causes more harm than it does good. We are in support of green energies, but they have to be phased in slowly. You just can’t cut off, say the oil and gas industry and replace it with solar and wind because they’re not that reliable yet and there’s no facility to store that energy. So, I think right now that cart has been placed in front of the horse, and we just need to step back a bit and look at the situation more realistically, because we can’t have people freezing to death in the winter because they can’t use their furnaces on cloudy days.

Recently comments have emerged from candidates about homophobia, white nationalism, and anti-muslim/refugee rhetoric. What is your party doing to raise tolerance and civility regarding public office, and what are your views on the LGBTQ community?

Ok, our party has a Bill of Rights that apply equally to every citizen in the province. And so, it doesn’t matter to us what your beliefs are, what your sexual preferences are; everybody is treated exactly the same. And we don’t think the government should be in somebody else’s bedroom. That’s up to the people. There’s one other issue that – our rights as citizens have been completely eroded by the government. Little bit by the provincial, but a lot by the federal government. When our rights and freedoms were removed from the constitution and placed into a bill of rights and freedoms, that enabled our politicians to take away any rights they wanted any time. Where they were protected by the constitution, under the bill of rights, there is no protection. And so that’s the problem that’s happening right now. Whatever party is in power, they’ll look and they’ll say, ‘we need to take these rights away form the people, against their will to satisfy our agenda.’ We don’t believe that is appropriate, and so if we get elected, we’re going to make sure these basic rights and freedoms are put back into a constitution where the only way they can be changed is if the people give them up by referendum.

For more details on the specifics of the Alberta Independence platform, you can go here.

https://albertaindependence.ca/what-we-believe/

by Lara Fominoff

Lethbridge-East Candidate Profile – John McCanna – Alberta Independence Party

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