MLA Neudorf weighs in on back-in-black budget

By Al Beeber - Lethbridge Herald on February 25, 2022.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDabeeber@lethbridgeherald.com

MLA for Lethbridge East Nathan Neudorf says the provincial budget tabled Thursday by the UCP government should be cause for celebration.
“Today really should be a day of celebration for most Albertans. This gets us where we need to go, this brings our debt-to-income ratio way down, it looks like we will not press the $100 billion in overall debt. It’s just a psychological threshold but I think that’s really positive and now we can begin to talk about plans of what we do next year if we are able to come back and gain a surplus. What do we do in the years after that?
“That gives us substantial leeway for strategic investment, it gives us substantial ability to put money away on the debt and pay the debt down, something that hasn’t happened since Ralph Klein. It gives us the ability to grow our Heritage Investment Fund for the next cycle of economic decline,” Neudorf said from Edmonton after the budget was released.
“It’s an extremely hopeful day from where we were last year. I can tell you the amount of hope we have this year is exceptional.”
“There’s a lot of hope in the room with that budget,” said Neudorf.
Neudorf said several facets of the budget are of particular interest to southern Alberta. Among them is the province’s investment in broadband.
“$390 million for broadband. That’s coupled with $600 million from the feds and private industry. So that’s almost a billion dollars for broadband but it’s going to cost us as a province only $390,” Neudorf said.
“It’s a huge, huge thing” for southern and rural Alberta, he said.
Another key element of the budget for southern Alberta is $600 million invested for career pathways to help people get back to work, he said.
“There’s the Alberta 2030 initiative, the 10-year strategy to develop a highly skilled competitive workforce, so $170 million over the fiscal plan to expand enrolment in areas of skilled shortages. These are the kinds of things that are really important to southern Alberta because they go to support our workforce.”
Neudorf said many employers he’s spoken to in southern Alberta are looking for staff and skilled trades.
He said he’ll be looking at budget details to see if Lethbridge will get another school for the Holy Spirit School division “or different things like that because most of the other things we’ve checked off. I’m not looking so much for infrastructure big project builds because we’ve had so many of those. What I am looking forward to is there’s another $30 million for enhancing apprenticeship programs,” he said adding Lethbridge College has a great apprentice program.
“Fifteen million dollars will enable us to acquire skills in emergency technology sectors; that should help the university. And because of the strong growth in our economy, one of the top areas of growth is agri-food and agriculture, which again is all of Lethbridge and southern Alberta. It’s not so much the initial investment. We have done that and we have seen that and now we’re looking at the next step which is all the investment into training and getting people back to work,” Neudorf added.
While Canada lost 200,000 jobs in January, Alberta gained 7,000 on top of 130,000 in 2021.
“We’ve completed something like six pipelines in the past couple years” and now some of that work is in southern Alberta,” said Neudorf.
This is important, the MLA added, because with Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine and the U.S. importing 800,000 barrels of Russian oil daily, if some sanctions are oil and gas-related, that may put pressure on Joe Biden’s administration to take another look at the Keystone XL pipeline which was terminated last year.
Investment in doctor recruitment and retention is also important.
He said a lot of input into that came out of his office “in terms of really working on that.”
“We’ve provided a lot of feedback so it’s really great to see that. We’re not just saying we’re doing something, we’re actually investing in doing something and I’m expecting some really positive news for Lethbridge and area in weeks and months ahead to address that doctor shortage,” said Neudorf.
“On top of that we’re looking at better planning for the future to train doctors in smaller centres so that they’re more likely to stay there when they’re finished.”
After spending seven to 12 years in school, a doctor is pretty established in a community so moving to Lethbridge or a smaller community from Calgary or Edmonton can be tough, said Neudorf.
“It is very difficult to dictate to a graduating professional where they should set up their practice and live their lives so that’s something we’re trying to get ahead of by adjusting how we do that training. Now that’s a long term goal.”

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