Seventy-three-year-old Ty Lund, who has been an MLA since 1989 and Sundre's MLA since 1997, plans to seek a seventh term, he announced Friday.
A Rocky Mountain House-area resident, Lund said he will be contending for the Progressive Conservative nomination in the Rimbey-Rocky Mountain House-Sundre Progressive Conservative constituency.
Lund has been elected six times in a row in the West Central Alberta Rocky Mountain House riding, which includes Sundre. The recently created Rimbey-Rocky Mountain House-Sundre riding is the new designation for the slightly modified constituency.
During his tenure as MLA Lund has served in a number of cabinet portfolios, including as infrastructure and transport minister, agriculture minister, environment minister and minister of government services.
He said if he wins his party's nomination he plans to run the next election campaign on not only his record but on his plans.
“As far as the next term is concerned, I believe Alberta is at a crossroads and there are a number of things we really need to emphasis,” he said. “When you think of what's going to happen in world population, unless there is major war or epidemic or something, the world population is going to reach nine billion people by 2025.
“When you look at what's happening in Asia today, their standard of living is going up and what happens when people get a higher standard of living? They use more energy, they eat better quality of food and they upgrade their homes. Well what does Alberta have? We have excess of all of that, so we have to concentrate on doing what we can do best. We've got to get our oars in the water quickly, because there will be others, and South America is one of the areas, that will be producing more of everything.
“Then, of course, there's the health-care system where there's got to be some changes made.”
Although a date for the nomination vote had not been set at press time, the vote will likely be held sometime in January, he said.
“There's a certain amount of time we have to wait between the nominations closing and actual vote. We don't have the new memberships yet; we were supposed to have them this week but they haven't come in yet. We have to have a meeting and lay it out.”
Meanwhile, Lund says he will be keeping busy with a number of things before the next provincial election, including chairing the newly formed Red Tape Reduction Taskforce.
“We need to do a bunch of public consultation and that takes time, so I'm going to be bogged down with that,” he said. “I've sent a member to all of the MLAs urging them to talk to their chambers of commerce, and talk with small businesses and then let us know what you hear. So I have to do the same thing in my constituency, and of course I've got about seven chambers of commerce in the constituency.”
Lund is the second-longest current serving Alberta MLA; PC Ken Kowalski has served 32 years in the Barrhead-Morinville-Westlock riding, although Kowalski announced Friday that he won't be seeking re-election.
Before being elected to the legislature in 1989, Ty Lund was the Reeve of the Municipal District of Clearwater and a member of the provincial executive of the Alberta Association of Municipal Districts and Counties.
See more in this week's Mountain View Gazette.
