(rdnewsNOW file photo)

By rdnewsNOW staff

city council byelection

Candidate profile: Buck Buchanan

Apr 18, 2024 | 12:13 PM

This is a candidate profile for the April 22, 2024 Red Deer byelection.

All 10 candidates have been asked the same three questions, and were given a 600-word limit.

Responses are unedited for grammar and spelling, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of rdnewsNOW and Pattison Media.

Advance voting days are April 18, 19, and 20 from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Byelection hours on April 22 are from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Learn more here.

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1. Why are you the right candidate?

I think what has to be kept in focus here is that it’s an 18-month window. Going into a new function at any kind of job is going to take you six months to figure out where things are at and what you’re doing. So for me, the reason is experience, to kind of be able to go in and hit the ground running. In six months we’ll be a year out from a general election and that’s when people start getting motivated and in tune for the next election. People start posturing. The window is why I think I’m the right candidate.

2. What personal priorities for the remainder of this council term do you want to highlight?

I said this at the forum: One of my passions is crime prevention and safety, and it took many years to get the Crime Prevention Centre where it’s at with the budget cycle. The CPC has lost 60 per cent of its City funding, down from $160,000. They house MADD, Neighbourhood Watch, Crime Stoppers; the force wanted those moved out in the early 2000s so they could be arms’ length. Now they are, but if the CPC goes down, we’ll lose crime prevention programs. That’s my concern. We can’t dare lose what we’ve got. A new funding model needs to be addressed and I think that in an 18-month window, it can be.

The other thing I have a passion for, now being off council, has been reconnecting with the mental health and addictions piece going on. With the overdose prevention site, I was at the public hearing, and I’ve heard stuff in the past, and there’s the us versus them mentality. I don’t think the doors should close there but I think we’re doing a poor job of getting people well. That’s very doable with the experience I have in the addictions and mental health area.

3. To you, what makes Red Deer special?

Going back to my lived experience, I’m a Manitoba kid that took my high school in Saskatchewan, was then stationed in Northwest Territories, BC and Ontario, and I’ve always said that if I’m going to be in western Canada or west of the Ontario border, Red Deer’s where I want to be. It’s where I’ve raised my family, it’s where my grandkids are, and I hate to sound hokey, but it’s one of the best places in the world. That’s why I think Red Deer is great, the geography where are is fantastic between Edmonton and Calgary, and we have proximity to everything without a lot of the big city issues. That’s why I want to be here.

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