Phillips commits to new Catholic elementary school at SACPA session
By Lethbridge Herald on February 10, 2023.
Herald photo by Ry Clarke
Shannon Phillips, MLA for Lethbridge-West, spoke to an audience at the Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs giving insight into the NDP’s plans for the upcoming election, Thursday at the Lethbridge Senior Citizen’s Organization.Ry Clarke – LETHBRIDGE HERALD – Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
The Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs, SACPA, turned its attention to politics during Thursday’s session.
Shannon Phillips, MLA for Lethbridge-West, spoke to an audience on the topic of “Building Strong Communities and a Strong Economy For Alberta.”
Phillips discussed issues that will be hot topics during the upcoming election, scheduled to be held on May 29.
“The election is in 109 days, and of course Rob Miyashiro (NDP candidate for Lethbridge-East) and I are ready as the Lethbridge team,” said Phillips.
“We have seen the province really neglect communities like ours, so I am going to be talking about our school infrastructure today, and clarifying some of our commitments and what we will do first in this city.”
As the official Opposition Finance Critic, Phillips shared her thoughts on how the UCP has managed Albertans resources. “Affordability is on people’s mind. We know that everything has gone up. Certainly, in every area where the government can help, they have made things worse. That is to say, in insurance – your car insurance, utility costs, property taxes through cuts to municipalities, cutting seniors benefits. A number of ways that UCP decisions have made a bad situation worse, there is no need for it. The ‘ finances are in good shape. If we steward those resources carefully, we can use them to make life more affordable for people to pay down debt, save for the future, and invest in our healthcare and other programs people care about,” said Phillips.
With many issues on the political table as the election nears, Phillips wanted to assure Lethbridge residents of the NDP’s commitment to this city.
“I want to make the following announcement for new schools in Lethbridge,” said Phillips. “If elected, Rachel Notley and Alberta’s NDP will ensure that a new Catholic elementary school is built on the west side. This is the top ask from the Holy Spirit board. We have listened carefully and it is time to make this commitment to the people of Lethbridge.”
Phillips also noted Galbraith Elementary School on the northside, which is 108 years-old, will also be modernized.
During the questions period, Phillips heard from those concerned about their health care, economies, and workforce gaps.
“For the past four years, we have consulted with over 100,000 Albertans in various town halls and other capacities,” said Phillips.
“One of the silver-linings of the pandemic was that we could conduct so may of these consultations, one-on-one meetings, roundtables, with various industry groups, experts, economists, and others from around the country. We have therefore been releasing proposals on albertasfuture.ca We have detailed proposals there on our investment and competitiveness strategy, on our digital media strategy, on our agriculture and agri-food value added strategies, on hydrogen, on geothermal, you name it, it is up there.”
After hearing from the NDP this week, SACPA will host the Honourable Joseph Schow, UCP MLA of Cardston-Siksika, next Thursday to give insight into the provincial budget for 2023, and discuss important provincial investments over the last three-years. Sessions are every Thursday at the Lethbridge Senior Citizen’s Organization Dining Room, starting at 12 p.m. and concluding at 1 p.m.
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Campaign mode. Lining up locations where she can spend other peoples money.
This province cannot take another (financially or socially) four years of her government!
Re: the dissing of ‘other peoples money,’ we now have the UCP proposal to direct $20 billion of corporate welfare to the oil and gas sector to pay them to clean up their well site messes. Our money, because the resource belongs to us, and future Alberta generations. Those fiscal conservatives eh?! 🙂
Yeh and if they weren’t doing that you’d complain about that. With a 90 billion debt left by your friends there must be priorities.
how do you justify what amounts to the public paying for what these companies must be responsible for?
So we should just leave the wells to pollute the environment and come at a bigger cost to remove them in more expensive reclaimation? It is expensive to reclaim land since the wells must be cemented off and the upper parts removed while removing contaminated soil and sending it to hazmat sites.
The current plan isn’t working and if there is oversight to this plan to make sure the funds are used in the reclamation, it should work.
It would be much more expensive, 5-10 times more in some cases if we do not work with the industry who know what has to be done. If this incentive fails, then that is why we have elections, just like the NDP failed harm reduction/SCS failed and destroyed this province, costing many lives that are worth more than anything on this planet and probably province wide we are over $2 billion easily!
The sites need to be reclaimed and there has been very little movement so far. Although the industry recently had one of the best years in a long time, don’t forget they have been hit hard for several years prior.
They have been paying carbon taxes in one form or another since 2007.
“Canada’s carbon-tax history began in March 2007, when Alberta became North America’s first jurisdiction to legislate greenhouse gas reductions from large industrial emitters via a carbon levy.”
the cos need to be forced to clean up – even it means lawsuits.
well said – hard to fathom that people find this acceptable
The NDP destroyed this strong community when they ‘forced’ the safe drug consumptiom site on this city and the failed harm reduction policies.
The site attracted people from other communities and provinces, deatroyed our reputation internationally, falsely stating we had the busiest consumption site in the world when it wasn’t because the operators were playing with figures and misleading the public. It created more stress on the shelter, almost doubling the numbers, increased crime, increased crime near the site by almost 6000% as stated by LPS in a report, magnified the homeless/housing issues in this city and cost the taxpayer in this city alone tens of millions of dollars, not to mention the exponentially more pumped in by the feds and provincial governments.
NDP is pro-SCS and want to open another brick and mortar site in this city which will destroy all the progress made since they were ousted last election.
Your choice! If they return to government you may as well move out of the downtown and throw a match to it! We are just recovering from their mistakes and still have more work to do to take back our city.
The comments made by this MLA show she is out of touch with the issues, the cause and the solution! She is suing our police force and that will cost our taxpayers millions as well!
More NDP electioneering!