Residents of Fort Macleod and southern Alberta are being punished for electing a Wildrose MLA, Alberta Liberal Justice and Solicitor General Critic Laurie Blakeman said Wednesday.
While supporting the government’s decision to scrap the $122-million Alberta Public Security and Law Enforcement Training Centre project, Blakeman said the Progressive Conservatives are doing it for the wrong reason.
“They’ve been sticking shovels in the ground for years trying to pretend that this project still had life and now that the riding isn’t theirs, the project is dead,” Blakeman said in a news release.
Blakeman was referring to the results of the last provincial election, in which Wildrose candidate Pat Stier defeated incumbent Progressive Conservative MLA and Agriculture Minister Evan Berger.
The Livingstone-Macleod riding had been held by the Progressive Conservatives since 1971.
“The PCs didn’t have the facts to support this facility in the first place,” Blakeman said.
Denis said Wednesday that a recent poll of police forces in Alberta showed one stand-alone facility would not be utilized to a point that it would be financially viable.
Blakeman said when the project was first announced in 2006 she felt Edmonton and Calgary have superior training facilities in the cities, closer to the areas for which officers were being trained.
“The timing is all too convenient for this,” Blakeman said. “The PCs knew they didn’t have the support to follow through with this project, so I’d say this is the right decision being made the wrong way.”
“I am not surprised that this government has sunk to this level,” Blakeman added. “They have kept the people of Fort Macleod on the hook for a long time with this project, and I feel for the community who is now left without the economic development project they had been relying on.”