By Sheldon Spackman

Lacombe-Ponoka

Rural Alberta overlooked says Alberta Party candidate Chykerda

Apr 9, 2019 | 8:00 AM

The Alberta Party candidate for Lacombe-Ponoka says rural central Alberta has been overlooked for far too long and he wants to change that in the provincial election campaign.

Myles Chykerda says it’s ultimately what’s inspired him to run.

“The PC’s just took it for granted we would vote blue and the NDP government seemed to not care too much about the rural area,” he explains. “I think that’s what this area really needs, someone who is there to listen to the constituents, listen to the people, hear what challenges are going on and use that to drive what the MLA is doing, not just listen to the Party top tell us what to do.”

The Lacombe resident reminds voters that more than two choices exist for the April 16 election.

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“There are some things that the NDP have done over the years that I’m fine with but there are certainly things that I don’t agree with,” he says. “I’m concerned about the growing debt, I’m concerned about really their passing-over of rural concerns. It seems things are very urban-focused, particularly in how the Carbon Tax has been rolled out.”

Chykerda also notes his concern over how the UCP is evolving, particularly under Jason Kenney’s leadership.

“It seems there’s a lot of spin going on, a lot of rhetoric and not many ideas,” he declares. “So I started looking around and saw the Alberta Party, looked into their policies and saw specific ideas, I think bold ideas, things that are building for the future and trying to set Alberta up so we can succeed. The thing that really sets us apart is we’re not stuck in any kind of political ideology or dogma, we don’t have any sort of direct-ties to what’s going on at the federal level.”

In terms of putting out policies, Chykerda says the Alberta Party is simply looking for the best idea.

“Just looking at our platform, which all these ideas are coming out at albertaparty.ca as we announce them, there are some things there that you could tag as leftish leaning,” he explains. “There are other things you could tag as being a bit right-ish leaning. That’s because we want to find what works best for Alberta and for specific areas.”

On the campaign trail, Chykerda admits pipelines and standing up to Ottawa are two of the larger issues being identified.

“We have two parties that have very close ties to federal parties,” says Chykerda. “Mr. Kenney was a minister under the Harper government, he was a minister when the equalization formula was last changed. The Alberta Party isn’t holden to anyone at the federal level, we’re going to stand up for Alberta and do so in realistic ways, just holding a referendum, threatening to separate, that’s not going anywhere.”

In the Lacombe-Ponoka riding, specifically, Chykerda says there are different concerns amongst the varying communities.

“Ponoka is a community that really needs fair funding,” he notes. “Right now it has really been difficult for them to build facilities to keep the town attractive and viable under the current MSI formula. So that is something the Alberta Party is definitely looking into, is changing how that funding is doled out and making sure rural communities have their unique circumstances looked at.”

On the flip-side, Chykerda says Blackfalds has a very different set of challenges.

“There is a younger community, one of the fastest growing in Canada and the schools that were just built there in 2015 are already over-capacity, they don’t have a high school there” he explains. “There’s one doctor that’s not taking any patients in Blackfalds. So we have a community of 11,000 people there that doesn’t even have a clinic in the town and there’s a feeling there that they’re constantly overlooked.”

Chykerda hopes the 2019 election gives constituents something to vote ‘for.’

“In 2015, there was a lot of voting ‘against’ things going on,” recalls Chykerda. “You have to vote NDP to keep Jason Kenney out or you have to vote Jason Kenney to keep the NDP out. The Alberta Party is hoping that people will see something to vote ‘for’ in our policies and our ideas and the way we’ve been running this campaign.”