Blaine Calkins began his political career from humble beginnings here on the Lacombe Town Council back in the 2004, and then elevated to a member of Parliament in 2006, first as the MP of Wetaskiwin, and now as the representative for the recently formed Red Deer-Lacombe riding.

But he is not done yet, as he recently announced he will once again run under the conservative banner in the 2019 election.

Calkins says he wants to continue to stand up for Albertans, and says we have been lied to by the Federal Liberals and Rachel Notley’s NDP, when they told us that if we made certain considerations about the environment, we would be rewarded.

However, he says when it comes to anti-oil or anti-pipeline people, it’s difficult to convince them otherwise.

“There’s not a single oil exporting country in the world that has a cleaner environmental record or better human rights record than Canada does. The energy sector in Alberta is leading edge, the technology is exported around the world to help other countries. We’re about as good as it gets when it comes to extracting our resources from the ground and moving them to the marketplace, but we are locked in the North American marketplace. We’ve been told by Rachel Notley, we’ve been told by Justin Trudeau that we have to somehow do a better job at being the best, and if we do, then we’ll get all these pipelines approved. Well, it’s simply not true, because the people who are anti-oil and anti-pipeline are not going to be convinced by any of those things.”

Calkins says he is focused on things like getting pipelines built, building back up the Alberta economy, and keeping a careful eye on the how the Liberals are rolling out legalized marijuana legislation.

He also intends to focus on one aspect that us in Central Alberta are all to familiar with.

“Right now my colleagues and I, especially those who have a large rural component of our ridings, are working on an Alberta Rural Crime Task Force that we put together. Over the next several months we’ll be going out and meeting with as many people from various communities across Alberta, to come up with recommendations both on the federal and provincial level. The amount of crime that’s happening in Alberta right now, everywhere, is astounding, but the rural crime is something that folks in the rural areas are simply not used to dealing or coping with. They sometimes live in very isolated communities that are very far away from police detachments.”

Provincially, the United Conservative Party announced today that they will be launching their own Task Force on Rural Crime. No word if the two tasks forces will overlap in anyway, as both are in the early stages of development.

Conservative MP Earl Dreeshen from the Red Deer Mountain View riding also recently announced his intention to seek re-election.