Open Letter to Premier Jason Kenney

January 13, 2021

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Red Deer – Mountain View, AB

On December 13, 2020, thousands of small business owners, including barbershops and salons, were once again forced to close their doors. Little information has been provided to these businesses to justify the reason for the closures.

To date there have been no reassurances provided to indicate if current health measures, which were extended from January 11^th to the 22^nd, will be repealed next week.

As a result, many barbershops and salons have unilaterally decided to reopen at this time. This has resulted in a closure order and threat of fines for one business owner in Innisfail.

These small business owners have done everything the government has requested in order to operate in a safe manner. They have been understanding but are looking for the government to provide clarity.

Yesterday, on the Danielle Smith Show, you stated that to date, Alberta has not traced one case of COVID-19 to a barbershop or salon. This should be reason enough to keep these businesses open.

After the MLA travel scandal, you have consistently supported the efforts made by the airline industry to provide a safe environment for its customers. It is apparent that the same can be said for the personal services industry.

Arbitrary shutdowns are continuing to fuel division within this province. Businesses who wish to reopen in a safe manner should be able to do so. Those who wish to attend these businesses understand and accept any risk in doing so. I urge you to provide clarity to small business owners by the end of the week.

WestJet might be too big to fail. Please don’t consider small businesses too small to matter.

Sincerely,

Jared Pilon

Candidate for Red Deer – Mountain View, AB

2021 is an election year. The municipal election will be in October and a federal election is also expected. No provincial election is expected but with the Premier’s ratings sinking to as low as 16% in some polls before vacationgate, it might also be in the works.

Politics has turned up some things to think about. In the USA Donald Trump has given doubts to blind loyalty to a leader, with dire circumstances. Republicans everywhere are starting to regret keeping their leader in office.

Vacationgate here in Alberta have turned up more things to think about. We have too many elitists, silent seat-warming, self-serving politicians who believe they are above the people they were elected to serve. While we are missing birthdays, weddings, funerals, anniversaries, trips, holidays with family, friends and others at the request of our elected officials, they, themselves, traveled around the world. These silent invisible politicians took our trust and spit on it before crushing it under their heels.

Statscan recently reported that Alberta has lost 5.1% of workers since 2018. The politicians will scream it is the world oil glut and low prices that destroyed Alberta’s job market, but Calgary, Alberta’s oil capital actually saw an increase in jobs of 1%, Edmonton lost 7% and Red Deer has lost 18.2%.

Unemployment rate was reportedly down to less than 10% but I had a nice knowledgeable person explain to me that is because they are not collecting employment benefits because they ran out and others who have simply stop looking for jobs.

Perhaps it is time to look for new blood in our political arenas. A new generation of thinkers and doers. There are some younger people in politics after all the median age in Red Deer is 39.5 years of age, half the population is 40 and older so 40 does seem young. But if you spent your entire adult life in politics then 40 is not young. I once asked about Red Deer; ” Do all we do is build houses and ice rinks?” We do get funding from all levels of governments for ice rinks, but try building a swimming pool.

If Red Deer’s median age keeps rising we will see less need for ice rinks and more need for pools.

So is it possible to get out of the rut of rewarding the old guard, the same parties, the same inner circle that tend to look inwards for answers rather than outwards.

How can we grow if we repeat the same program. Remember there is a difference between having 15 years experience and repeating the 1st year 15 times. Does it matter if we have 12 or 13 ice rinks? Would it matter more if we had the only 50m pool? Can we not at least think about it? Why can’t our silent federal and provincial political representatives find funds for more than ice rinks and sports events?

It takes a village to raise a child, it takes the co-ordinated effort of all levels of governments to help our city stop declining. It takes looking outward, beyond the privileged inner circle to find solutions.

We lost 18.2% of workers in 2 years, can we afford 2 more years without change. We talk about diversification, but someone keeps saying we are an oil and gas city. When I ask about capitalizing on ongoing projects, I have been told things like, we looked at it years ago, and thought it was too expensive. It does not matter that things become cheaper and more efficient these days, but we looked at it once and that’s good enough.

For example I asked about the success of cities putting turbines in their water systems to create power. Red Deer is pumping millions of litres of waste water into the river everyday, so I asked about running it over turbines to create some power, and I was told they looked at it many years ago and thought it was too expensive. I was not talking about $100 million dollar turbines but something smaller. Remember that movie where a boy saved a village by hooking his bicycle light generator to a windmill to irrigate the crops. Could we do something in between?

We lost so much, is it time to rethink our politics? Look beyond parties, look beyond incumbency, look beyond age and look for someone willing to move forward for us.

Red Deer has lost 18.2% of it’s workers since 2018, population has only increased by 195 since 2015, I think it is time look beyond the few and look at the whole. Just saying.