Mountain View County reeve Bruce Beattie says he is in support of a resolution regarding flood prevention passed at the recent Alberta PC Party's annual convention.
The ‘Flood Preparedness' resolution calls on the provincial government to “give the highest priority to updating all of the appropriate provincial maps to provide the most current and accurate information on floodplain and flood fringe information to Albertans.”
It also calls on the government to commit to an “immediate program to evaluate and, where appropriate, strengthen flood preparedness and to allocate sufficient funds in its annual budget to ensure that future flood damage in Alberta is mitigated as much as realistically possible. This flood preparedness program should be completed with the highest priority.”
With parts of Mountain View County damaged in recent floods – and in particular along the Red Deer River upstream of Sundre and along the Little Red Deer River – Reeve Beattie says he welcomes efforts to prevent future flooding and to help with recovery efforts if flooding does occur.
“I would agree with the concept of ensuring there is mitigation as opposed to simply response. I think that makes complete sense,” said Beattie.
Another resolution calls for a health-care premium system to be “established to generate a portion of the funding required to maintain reasonable access to high quality health care for all Albertans.”
“They abolished them a while back and right after they abolished them we were suddenly two or three million dollars short in the (provincial) budget,” he said. “Personally I don't think there should be any problem (reintroducing the premiums) if we can be assured that the funding is used appropriately. The question is how do you structure it?”
Another resolution, titled ‘Action on Child Sexual Abuse in Alberta', calls on the government of Alberta to consider undertaking the following actions:
• Mandate child sexual abuse prevention and education in schools for all children, parents and teachers;
• Implement a specialized sexual abuse and sexual assault court in Alberta;
• Press the government of Canada to review all sexual assault legislation and case law;
• In partnership with community, immediately adopt a comprehensive plan of action to actively address the reduction, prevention and intervention of child sexual abuse in Alberta.
“I think that any kind of abuse is unacceptable. I think abuse and assault are unacceptable and they should be dealt with,” said Beattie.
Rimbey-Rocky Mountain House-Sundre Wildrose MLA Joe Anglin says he questions whether there is a need for a return to health-care premiums.
“We've heard from the minister of health, saying that money is not the issue, so clearly he is saying that management is the issue,” Anglin told the Gazette.
“As far as we, as the official Opposition is concerned, we have a wait-and-see attitude on this. It will be interesting to see if they will act on it.”
Asked if he believes the government should act on it, Anglin said: “I don't think it is necessary and we don't have any evidence that it is. We don't have access to the inside information, but I will tell you this, I would be more interested in looking at how the money is being spent.
“I can say with some confidence that there is a tremendous amount of waste and bureaucracy in that system that could be curtailed.”
Following the PC convention, Health Minister Fred Horne reportedly said: “We're not even sure if we should entertain that (health premiums) in Alberta. I'm certainly interested in what our party members think, but this is a matter of public policy and we don't think money is the problem in health care.”
Regarding the flood preparedness resolution, Anglin, who is his party's Environment critic, says he has questions about the Redford government's commitment to accurate flood zone mapping.
“Everything is supposed to be based on this accurate mapping, but we are not going to have definitions of what some of the main criteria are and that doesn't make sense to me,” he said.
“In order for this to work they need accurate maps and so far this government has refused to even provide a definition of what a floodway is, what a flood plain is, or what a flood fringe is. How can you create an accurate map when you won't define what it is?”
PC delegates also passed a resolution calling for the repeal of daylight savings time.
The resolutions passed at the convention are not binding on the Redford government.
