Blaine Calkins is the incumbent MP for Red Deer - Lacombe, having served as MP since 2006. He says he’s committed to addressing rural crime, delivering a fiscally responsible government, and getting Albertans and Canadians, back to work via the East-West Corridor project. 

Calkins has been serving residents in the Red Deer-Lacombe riding for years and says he is hopeful that he will be able to represent the needs of our region in parliament, come October 22. 

1. How do you plan to get more money for Canadian families? 

“I’m really excited because the entire conservative platform, well the majority of the Conservative platform, is based on the premise that it’s time for Canadians to get ahead. We know that the average Canadian household is about $200 away from insolvency every month. This is untenable. Justin Trudeau has raised taxes on Canadians to pay for his reckless spending and we’re going to change that. We’re going to be fiscally prudent, but at the same time, we know that if we put more money in the pockets of Canadians, whether it’s in their businesses or their families, they’re going to spend it. They need it, they’re going to use it, and that’s good for our economy.” 

“So, we have a universal tax cut for the first tax bracket - that’s going to save each individual Canadian that earns in that first tax bracket, up to $440 a year. For a couple, that’s over $850 a year, that’s almost $1,000 right there. We’re going to get the carbon tax out of the way and take the GST off of home heating. We’re going to raise the age limit so that seniors can keep more of the money that they have, as well. They’re going to get more for their old-age security.” 

“Plus, if you’re a young family, and you’re staying home or making the choice to stay home on maternity leave, that entire income that you receive on your leave will be completely tax-exempt, so there would be no tax applied for that. So, at a time when young families need that money the most, they’ll be able to keep it. We’re also going to re-introduce the arts and fitness tax credits. For those who choose to use public transit, we’re going to reinstate the public transit credit, saving commuters money as well.” 

“We are all about helping Canadians that want to make these choices, or need to make these choices, and helping them have the resources they need. It’s their money, they’ve earned it, we’re just going to keep that money in their pockets.” 

2. Canadians are saying that they care a lot about the environment. What issues do you see as having the biggest impact on our environment and how do you plan on addressing it?

“There’s a lot of talk about the environment. Here in Alberta, we know that we are environmentally responsible. We have clean air, we have clean water, our lakes and rivers are pristine, so it’s a matter of continuing on and making improvements where necessary. Andrew’s got a great plan. If folks want to know more about it, they can go to arealplan.ca. There are over 50 different measures that we’re going to implement, including things like a green energy home credit, so if people want to make their homes more energy-efficient, they can do so.” 

“We’re going to be proud of our technology when it comes to energy, instead of trying to shut certain parts of our energy sector down. We’re going to be proud of that sector, and create incentives instead of taxes and punishing people. We’re going to create incentives so that businesses will invest in research and development. We’re going to sell that technology and make it easier for that technology to go worldwide. Canada is only responsible for about 1.5 percent of the world’s carbon emissions - the rest of the world is responsible for 98.5 percent. There’s no reason that we shouldn’t be using our technology to help the rest of the world make the world greener and cleaner.” 

“We’re not going to be punitive to our fellow Canadians, especially here in the west. We’re going to celebrate the successes that we have, continue to invest in Canadians and make an environment suitable for investment in research, technology, and innovation and get this green tech out into the world.” 

It makes no sense that we’re shutting down the cleanest coal fire technology in the world, and shipping our coal to other countries where it’s burnt in dirtier reactors. Instead, we should be pursuing getting these clean-technology reactors out into the world, and making the rest of the world cleaner. 

3. What issues do you see in our education system and how do you plan to address those issues?

“So what we’re going to do, is, obviously Andrew has said in a Conservative government we will do what we did under the leadership of Stephen Harper, which is we will continue the health, social and education transfers to the province on a per-capita basis. We’re going to increase those transfers, particularly for healthcare, up to 3 percent per year, or with the rate of inflation, whichever number is applicable.” 

“For the education perspective, I’ll go back to how we’re going to help Canadians save more money. We’re going to increase the government’s amount - by up to 50 percent - of the contribution to Registered Education Savings Plans. For families that are just starting out and wanting to save money for their children’s education, the Government of Canada will increase its contribution by 50 percent, and even more so for low-income families. That way, we make sure that everybody who wants to go to school will have an opportunity to go to school, or university or college, once they’re done their secondary school.” 

“These are the things we can do to make life a little bit more affordable and make going to school a bit easier.” 

4. How do you plan to manage the healthcare needs of our aging population? 

“There’s a number of things we can do. Obviously, the government of Canada has in the past, the conservative government, had a number of programs for seniors that would help them with adaptive measures for their homes so that they could stay in their homes longer. There’s programs for seniors’ drop-in centres and other facilities where they can apply for some infrastructure money to put in things like lifts and elevators and so on. We’ve seen that money invested in communities right here in central Alberta.” 

“Aside from that, we’re going to continue with the three percent minimum transfer, increasing the health transfer funding to provinces every year. Of course, the delivery of healthcare is provincial jurisdiction but of course, any initiatives that make sense so that we can keep seniors living longer and healthier, and keeping them in their own homes, is going to be a benefit to the healthcare system and it just improves the quality of life for everybody.” 

“The government of Canada has in the past, and I know a conservative government would as well, have plans to invest in affordable housing for everyone. There will certainly be programs that communities can access and projects will have access to, and I’ll be happy to champion any of those as a Member of Parliament for the area.” 

5. How do you plan to address shortfalls in our healthcare system, such as a lack of services and facilities in central and rural Alberta?

“This is a fantastic opportunity for Canadians to elect a Conservative majority government because Andrew Scheer has promised $1.5 billion dollars to basically replace or increase the capacity of medical diagnostic equipment. This would be things like PET scans, CT scans, MRIs and so on. We have some fairly significant wait times for people to access this equipment. Sometimes those wait times are influenced by the reliability of this equipment. We might as well be using the money that Canadians send to Ottawa to help Canadians with their healthcare needs.” 

“This is a great initiative and I’m looking forward to a Conservative majority government rolling this program out, so we can get some updated and new and improved and even new equipment here in central Alberta. There’s a lot of demand here in central Alberta.” 

“Rural communities will continue to get their healthcare funding directly from the provinces because that’s how that works, but as a member of Parliament, I would always advocate for equipment and services that would improve the lives of the people in the communities that I represent.” 

“For example, Sylvan Lake has just achieved some advanced ambulatory care, emerging care services, so this is a good thing. We have to be smart with the healthcare dollars we have. It is a huge portion of provincial and federal budgets, so we will place the equipment where it makes the most sense and where the most people can have access to it.” 

6. What services do you think can be created or enhanced to address major social issues such as poverty, homelessness, and unemployment?

“The best social program is a job. What I really like about our program is that we’re going to get people back to work. Here in Alberta, we’ve been feeling like we’ve been treated punitively by our Federal government. The energy sector around the world is booming right now, everywhere except for Canada, and that means it’s the government that’s in the way. It’s not the free-market economy or free-market global economy, it’s the government of Canada that is standing squarely in the way of that prosperity. My number one job as the Member of Parliament for this area would be to get all aspects of our economy firing again, including the energy sector.” 

“That means that we have to get pipelines built, and for that Andrew has a plan - the east-west Corridor. This is something that’s very exciting to me. This east-west corridor is basically an energy corridor that once completed, would allow any proprietor of any project to basically know exactly what the rules are, and have a very shortened window for project approval and getting it constructed. Plus, with the removal of interprovincial trade barriers, Canadians would start trading with each other east to west.” 

“It makes no sense that the gasoline in a car in Atlantic Canada doesn’t contain a single molecule of energy from Western Canada. This is untenable in Canada, and Canadians from coast to coast, it doesn’t matter what province you go to, think that this is a ridiculous situation for our country to be in.” 

“We’re going to go for energy independence by 2030. The east-west corridor is a great initiative, it will tie our country together, much like the railroad did at our countries’ inception. Plus, in the interim, for projects that are already there, Andrew has promised to scrap the carbon tax, kill bill C-48, which is the tanker ban, because that is ridiculous. It makes no sense that we will allow tankers to come into our country, but we won’t allow tankers to eave. We’ll kill bill C-69, which is the no more pipelines bill, and provide some more certainty. We will end the foreign influence in the approval process. We will provide reasonable time periods for approvals and where necessary, use the authority of Canada through the constitution to say that a project is in the nation’s interest and get it approved right away.” 

“Look, we’re handcuffed here with pipeline capacity in our economy, so we need to focus on that. The broader question though, if how do we help out with these other things?”

“Well, a lot of the socio-economic issues we’re facing right now have been because we went from being a burgeoning economy to having a higher unemployment rate than Nova Scotia, for heaven’s sake. This is something that we're not used to dealing with, so if we can get people back to work, we can deal with that. When your economy is ticking along, you’ve got a greater tax-base and more revenue to work with as a government. You can make tax cuts, but you still end up having more revenue coming in. For example, 15 percent of 200 is much larger than 20 percent of 100.  We’ll have more resources for things like healthcare, for programs for affordable housing and all of the other suites of programs that central Albertans are asking their political leaders to invest in.” 

7. How do you plan on supporting Alberta’s core industries, such as oil and gas, tourism, forestry, and agriculture?

“On the agriculture side, obviously very, very important as well to central Alberta, as to someone who grew up on a farm here and still has farming roots… the over 50 countries that the previous conservative government completed or negotiated trade agreements with, we had much-increased market access. Unfortunately, Justin Trudeau, through his fumbling of Foreign Affairs, we’ve lost access to the United States, we’re in a tariff tiff with the United States. We’ve lost access to China for canola, for pork, for beef. We’ve lost access into India for lentils - we have had shrinking access for agriculture products under Justin Trudeau’s short tenure of leadership, so we need to get him out of the office and get someone responsible in.” 

“The conservative government - made up of a lot of farmers in our caucus, by the way, from across the prairies and across rural Canada - we know what we need to do to get our agriculture industry going again.” 

“Obviously, we will promote tourism. Canada is a beautiful destination, it’s a destination where people from all over the world come. We have a pristine environment, we have lots to see. Even within Canada, there will be no end of opportunities to promote to other Canadians. If we get this east/west corridor going, and start trading with each other, we get into that positive environment going east to west again and create a positive political and economic culture here in Canada, tourism will naturally follow.”

“It’s a great opportunity, but when the economy is booming and people have money in their pockets, they spend it on things like traveling and holidays. I’m looking forward to getting Alberta back to work. It’s been too long.” 

8. What major infrastructure projects do you see as a high priority for this region?

“There are some regional water and wastewater things that are happening right now, those are in progress. I don’t want to go through the list, but these communities have been in touch with me, and I know what their needs are. I’d be happy to continue to advocate for those needs.” 

“Obviously, it’d be great to see a CATH lab In Red Deer for the hospital ( cardiac catheterization lab), so I'll continue to be an advocate and help any way I can on those kinds of issues. Right now, Alberta is not getting its fair share, and nobody is suggesting that communities in Alberta are getting their fair share of federal funding. The liberals are very, very good at saying they’re treating everyone equal, but very, very bad at actually making it happen. Right now, if you were to look where the government of Canada's investments is going, they are in ridings where liberals hope to win - they’re not spending a dime here in Alberta, and that’s just unfortunate. That’s not the way Conservatives govern the country and we need to get back to treating all Canadians equally and fairly. 

Anything else you’d like to add?

I’m very much looking forward to a majority Conservative government. Our issue is Justin Trudeau and replacing him and the damage he’s done. He’s divided our country, created riffs and created economic havoc for the folks here in central Alberta, regardless of whether it’s directly in the energy sector, or any of the other businesses that benefit from strong agriculture and energy sector - all of the sectors we have here in central Alberta. We need to get back to work. There’s only one option that can defeat Justin Trudeau -  that’s Andrew Scheer with the conservative party of Canada. I look forward to going back to Ottawa on October 22, with Andrew Scheer as the Prime Minister and get our province and our country back on track.