Little Bow residents will have four political-savy options on their ballot for this provincial election, with a returning MLA, two former provincial candidates, and two former reeves from Vulcan County.
Little Bow residents will have four political-savy options on their ballot for this provincial election, with a returning MLA, two former provincial candidates, and two former reeves from Vulcan County.
MLA Ian Donovan is back on the ballot this year, this year as a PC rather than a Wildroser since he made the journey across the floor. Donovan said he feels supported by his constituents and added that each decision was always made with them in mind.
“I think people looked at the leadership side and then also, I've always represented my constituents, didn't matter which side of the floor I was on,” Donovan said.
Donovan said he feels confident in the PCs plan to move Alberta away from resource revenues and stands behind the decision not to increase tax on corporations.
“Every place you go around there's usually a small corporation on the corporate tax side so when you talk to the little coffee shop, well they're a corporation too,” Donovan said. “You've got to remember these corporations are also the people who pay everybody every day, so if you tax the corporation more they can't pay their employees as much either so it's kind of taken from the left hand to the right.”
As a farmer himself in the primarily agricultural district, Donovan said agriculture will remain a top priority for him in addition to finding dollars for infrastructure, schools and hospitals.
While his win in 2012 was his first venture into provincial politics, prior to that the Mossleigh native spent 16 years sitting on Vulcan County council as both a councilor and reeve, a nearly identical resume as his former councillor colleague and current Wildrose challenger, Dave Schneider.
Schneider is a full-time farmer of their land just outside Kirkaldy, and spent six years as a councillor for Vulcan County and was reeve from 2010-2013 before being “democratically retired.”
While he's been out of politics for a few years, Schneider said he felt that someone should step up to give Little Bow residents another alternative.
“We just needed a candidate for the Wildrose party that was prepared to get to Edmonton,” Schneider said. “It's not about taking Ian on, it's more about this riding having an opportunity to vote for someone other than the PCs or the Liberals or the NDP.”
In his first stab at provincial politics, Schneider said he's hoping to use his experience in municipal government to help guide what he believes is best for Little Bow.
“This is a rural riding and obviously healthcare is a very important issue, a couple of years ago the government cut the number of ambulances in rural Alberta and centralized delivery,” he said. “I remember them coming into our chambers and saying you will never see degradation of service and that's just not true.”
He added that he believes the Wildrose Party is the best option for the small municipalities that make up Little Bow.
“The Municipal Sustainability Initiative that was a lifeblood for municipalities and the government is starting to pull funding from the MSI,” Schneider said. “And, the Wildrose has a plan of a 10-10 community infrastructure transfer, allocating 10 per cent of all tax revenue and 10 per cent of surpluses.”
On the other side of the spectrum, Liberal candidate Helen McMenamin has her qualms with the budget as well, and said the tax structure needs to be reexamined to help dig Alberta out of its $7 billion deficit.
“The few richest Albertans could pay more, we could have a really sliding scale. But we can have them pay more and people at the bottom end of the Alberta tax bracket pay a little less so it's more fair,” she said. “The Liberals stand for fairness, so we all need to pay our share. If everyone pays their share we could get this big deficit paid off.”
McMenamin has held a variety of agricultural jobs over the years, including a writer and pesticide quality assurance auditor, and has been involved with the Liberal party for several years. It's the Lethbridge resident's second crack at provincial politics, as she unsuccessfully ran in 2012 for the Liberals in the Cardston-Taber-Warner constituency. She said she has no illusions about what she's getting herself into.
“Realistically the liberals can't look to be the government but we have been a very effective opposition,” she said. “We feel we're the party that hardworking Albertans can count on.”
Another name that should be familiar to Little Bow residents is Bev Muendel-Atherstone, who is once again putting her name on the ballot for the NDP.
Muendel-Atherstone lives in the constituency just outside of Lethbridge, and said her background as a teacher is what led her to politics.
“The reason I'm running is my concerns about children getting the best quality education that they can because when we do cutbacks to education and it affects children, a year in the educational life of a child can not be replaced,” she said.
“So I'm very concerned that the larger class sizes especially in the elementary years that these reduce the quality of education.”
Muendel-Atherstone said the solution to some of the problems, such as a lack of school funding and cuts to front line workers, could easily be solved with a corporate tax. She said she's already hard on the campaign trail having that conversation with constituents.
“Little Bow is such a huge geographical area, filled with many smaller centres, each of which has its own particular areas that has its particular area of concern,” she said. “I'm listening to people and that's the key, you've got to listen to the constituents, if they say tax the corporations you have to listen to them, and that's what I'm hearing at the doorsteps.”
