By Chris Brown

Barnes happy a fair deal for Alberta, inflation were part of UCP leadership debate

Jul 28, 2022 | 4:00 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – Former United Conservative Party caucus member Drew Barnes is pleased those who want to take over for Premier Jason Kenney tackled two specific issues in Medicine Hat on Wednesday.

Barnes was in the audience as the seven people – Leela Aheer, Brian Jean, Todd Loewen, Rajan Sawhney, Rebecca Schulz, Danielle Smith and Travis Toews –
who are running to become UCP leader and therefore premier were on stage at the HALO hangar in the first of two official party debates.

A fair deal for Alberta within Canada and the rising cost of living stuck out in Barnes’ mind the next day.

“With Alberta’s position in Confederation what I liked is when I heard that Alberta wants what Quebec has,” he said.

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Barnes said there were differences about how to do that, with some wanting to cause more chaos and turmoil than others, but it was good to have the discussion.

“A couple of the candidates presented that yeah, a strong part of Canada but our autonomy to develop our resources to give our people every economic opportunity that there is and to be a strong leader. That needed to be talked about.”

On inflation, Barnes said they all recognize it as a huge problem but doesn’t remember hearing any concrete solutions.

“I’ve been loud about proposing we should have lower taxes for families, more competitive insurance costs for families and some kind of subsidy, some kind of rebate for Alberta families and those things only came up briefly. So they touched on it but they didn’t go in deep enough.”

He is disappointed there wasn’t more discussion of issues that are important to his constituents such as property rights, the local oil and gas sector and the twinning of Highway 3. He said he will continue to identify and promote those issues to the government.

Barnes is still considering his political future. He’s been sitting as an Independent MLA since being kicked out of the UCP caucus in May of last year.

He said people have been pleased with how he’s represented them the past 14 months.

“Many Albertans have reached out to me and said they like how I’ve had the ability to speak up as an Independent to speak up for their needs and values and to you know applaud the government when they were doing the right thing and to criticize the government when they weren’t doing the right thing.”

Barnes hasn’t publicly endorsed any of the candidates and the debate didn’t change that, saying there was no clear winner last night.

The second debate takes place Aug. 30 with members voting on Oct. 6.