Stay informed with the LNN Daily Newsletter

United Conservative leader focuses on economy as Alberta election called

Mar 19, 2019 | 5:15 PM

LEDUC —  The leader of the United Conservatives says he will focus on jobs, the economy and pipelines if Albertans make him premier in an election that’s been called for April 16.

Jason Kenney officially kicked off his provincial election campaign this afternoon by asking – “Are you better off than you were four years ago? For the vast majority of Albertans, the answer is ‘no,’” he said during a media conference hosted at an oil and gas company in Leduc.

Kenney wasted no time in his first official campaign appearance at an Edmonton-area energy services company to link Premier Rachel Notley and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

He said an alliance between the two has resulted in a destructive carbon tax in Alberta, a failure to secure even one pipeline to transport the province’s oil and the loss of billions of dollars in potential investment.

Kenney says Albertans are poorer because of N-D-P policies and his focus will be the economy and pipelines.

He said a United Conservative government would scrap the provincial carbon tax and create 55,000 new full-time jobs.

The UCP leadere also said he would push for a constitutional referendum to end equalization payments if Trudeau does not accomplish a timely completion of a coastal pipeline.

Notley called the election in Calgary this morning and made it clear that the front-burner issue will be Kenney’s integrity and his party’s “nasty record of intolerance.”