Strong UCP leadership shown in many areas

By Lethbridge Herald on April 8, 2023.

AT THE LEGISLATURE
Nathan Neudorf – UCP MLA for Lethbridge East

This will be my last opportunity to talk to you in my monthly column in the Lethbridge Herald before the upcoming provincial election. However, it is not your last opportunity to talk to me in person as myself and my team will be out in the community knocking on doors and participating in community events. Hopefully, we can pick up where we left off after May! 

It has been a challenging four years with the effects COVID had on our communities and our healthcare system, and on the heels of four years of economic decline due to the NDP government’s detrimental policies. Under the UCP government’s watch we have built a stronger and vibrant economy, giving Albertans a brighter future. 

In a recent Herald article, MLA Shannon Phillips said, “Albertans need to have the facts before voting for their premier and MLAs in May.” Surprisingly, I could not agree with her more! So here are the facts:

Fact: Shannon Phillips, Maria Fitzpatrick and their boss, Rachel Notley, introduced the Supervised Consumption Site that misused taxpayer dollars, had a devastating effect on local business, and negatively impacted public safety. Our UCP government listened to the people of Lethbridge and transitioned to a mobile site to help better meet the needs of our city.

The NDP did not prioritize helping people in their pursuit of recovery from addiction. Our government took a different approach, and we’re building a 50-bed Recovery Community in Lethbridge, and a 75-bed Recovery Community on the Blood Tribe.

Fact: Ms. Phillips and her team raised the corporate tax rate from 10 per cent to 12 per cent. That cost the province a revenue loss of $860 million dollars and 183,000 lost jobs.

Fact: the UCP reduced corporate taxes from 12 per cent to eight per cent and we’re generating upwards of $6.4 billion. The NDP cried “corporate giveaway;” however, our government is just business-friendly and saw the opportunity to create a more inviting environment to help strengthen our economy.

Fact: Our government spent $3 billion more on healthcare than Shannon’s and Notley’s NDP government. We successfully negotiated new collective agreements with doctors, nurses and healthcare professionals. Most importantly, our plan calls for an additional $1 billion for healthcare in the next fiscal year. We have a short-term plan to fix three critical areas of our health care system — decreasing ER wait times, improving EMS response, and reducing wait times for surgeries. 

Based on our strong economic plan we will have the revenue to continue our investment in healthcare. Critical to that plan is opening more seats in post-secondary institutions for more doctors, nurses, and healthcare professionals — trained in Alberta to practice in Alberta.

Fact: We are making record investments in education with an $8.8 billion operation budget for 2023-24. This is the biggest education budget in Alberta’s history. This is an increase of $433 million over the 2022-23 budget and is equal to $44 million every day students are in school. During my time as MLA, we have had two new schools announced and two major renovations for schools in Lethbridge. From 2019-2023 our government has announced 106 school projects while the NDP (2015-2019) only announced 47.

Fact: Alberta’s technology and innovation sector broke records for a fourth straight year, attracting $729 million in investment in 2022, a 20 per cent increase over 2021’s record-breaking $607 million. The compound annual growth rate is also the strongest in Canada – further proof of Alberta’s diversifying economy and sustainable economic growth. 2022’s record breaking $729 million venture capital investment attraction was $629 million higher than the NDP’s best year – a paltry $100 million.

Fact: Through the various Capital Maintenance Programs and investments, Lethbridge has received $27 million more under my time as MLA versus when the NDP were in office — and that does not include the second  half of 2022!

Fact: The NDP government drove up a whopping $31.9 billion deficit whereas our UCP government started with a $14.8 billion deficit, but ended with a surplus year in Budget 2023 and a $2 billion investment into the Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund.

I believe in having a positive attitude on every task I undertake and I have maintained that position for the past four years and will continue with the same attitude throughout this election. I believe in doing real work — hard work — that benefits our city and our province. I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who supported me over the past four years, and I ask for your support again so I can continue to work for you over the next four years.