[Seamusmuldrew]

Red Deer is a growing city,” the premier said.

“They absolutely do need to have a full-service hospital in central Alberta

And yet the city that has been growing by an entire Red Deer’s worth of people every few years doesn’t need any additional full-service hospitals.

 

[Glenco]

And yet the city that has been growing by an entire Red Deer’s worth of people every few years doesn’t need any additional full-service hospitals.

Edmonton’s population has almost doubled since the last hospital was built. That is about 7 or 8 Red Deers

 

[Airboy]

This has to be a joke at this point. A City of close to over a million and she's telling those of us on the southside that Red Deer is an option.

She defines the use of the word idiot.

Ft Sask may get a full expansion before we do.

 

[Airboy]

Red Deers hospital is still at least 5 years away from being usable. I would love to see how much has been wasted on the start stop designs for the Stollery and SE. And we forget Red Deers expansion has been stop and go for almost 10 years as well.

 

[The_Cat]

Maybe South Edmonton will get a Travelodge instead!

 

[David A]

And yet the city that has been growing by an entire Red Deer’s worth of people every few years doesn’t need any additional full-service hospitals.

This makes me think about the old saying about a village is missing its idiot. And the only reason it isn't true in this case is because High River isn't a village.

Do her supporters actually not realize how stupid she is?

 

[MacLac]

Her supporters are in-bred "Billies" of central AB. I had a conversation the other day with one of her staunch supporters who hails from Drayton Valley - "Hillbilly" capital of the province. Me, "why do you support her?" Him, "Cause she is way hotter than Notley. Notley tried to kill the oil business." Which subsequently is Drayton's ONLY source of employment.

 

[TAS]

Her supporters are in-bred "Billies" of central AB. I had a conversation the other day with one of her staunch supporters who hails from Drayton Valley - "Hillbilly" capital of the province. Me, "why do you support her?" Him, "Cause she is way hotter than Notley. Notley tried to kill the oil business." Which subsequently is Drayton's ONLY source of employment.

If she tried to kill oil business, you should have asked him why do you think she worked to get the pipeline built - if she was trying to kill oil?

Or went across the country advocating that industry helped build schools, hospitals and roads

 

[Whatup]

Her supporters are in-bred "Billies" of central AB. I had a conversation the other day with one of her staunch supporters who hails from Drayton Valley - "Hillbilly" capital of the province. Me, "why do you support her?" Him, "Cause she is way hotter than Notley. Notley tried to kill the oil business." Which subsequently is Drayton's ONLY source of employment.

So all of Danielle Smith supporters and people who voted for the UCP are "in-bred Billies of central AB"? I know many people who voted UCP and they have legitimate reasons for doing so - they are hard working, generous and kind people who have concerns about their communities and voted UCP. I guess they are not educated tolerant "progressive" urbanites like you are.

 

[Whatup]

This makes me think about the old saying about a village is missing its idiot. And the only reason it isn't true in this case is because High River isn't a village.

Do her supporters actually not realize how stupid she is?

And .... do the supposedly "educated" and "progressive" professional (and usually unionized) people who went to echo chamber universities and think there is an endless money tap to fund endless government programs to ram their belief systems down everyone's throats realize how stupid they are?

 

[Kosy123]

And .... do the supposedly "educated" and "progressive" professional (and usually unionized) people who went to echo chamber universities and think there is an endless money tap to fund endless government programs to ram their belief systems down everyone's throats realize how stupid they are?

I mean there’s not an endless money tap to subsidize rural Alberta which is an endless money sink both in terms of health expenditure, provincial agricultural subsidies and everything else in the sky and have them sneer at the cities which provide positive tax revenue and cash flow.

But yeah no go off about all the progressives and government programs and unionized employees. God knows what else can be brought up besides these tired overdone arguments that should be an absolute embarrassment to bring up to this sort of debate.

 

[Garneau2Go]

Yeah look, ideology doesn’t really change the fact we are in dire need for a new general hospital to keep up with growth and aren’t getting one.

There’s nobody really else to blame except the UCP because it’s their constitutional responsibility to build them and they have a majority government. If they moved the location because they found it unsuitable we’d have a different conversation, but that’s not what happened.

 

[ChazYEG]

And .... do the supposedly "educated" and "progressive" professional (and usually unionized) people who went to echo chamber universities and think there is an endless money tap to fund endless government programs to ram their belief systems down everyone's throats realize how stupid they are?

So, Oil & Gas and Industrial Services worker here... If you're concerned with people reducing the UCP supporters to uneducated hillbilies, you shouldn't be doing the same thing to everyone who supported Notley and NDP. I have an "I love Oil & Gas" sticker right next to my Notley sticker in my car, and being on the finance side of the industry, I understand quite well how much the Notley government did for the industry, rather than destroying it.

Realistically, we all know not all UCP supporters fall into that category, and you're right, a lot of people, especially in rural AB, have reasons to vote UCP. Most of these people are voting UCP because they want their subsidies kept, don't want to see money go to the major cities or to policies that they feel are "too progressive", etc (and some of this is largely due to a lack of education on how a lot of these policies could actually benefit them).

The major issue is that these people have a disproportionate amount of representative power in the provincial government. We have rural MLAs that represent only a fraction of the amount of people an MLA in Calgary or Edmonton does, and this ends up skewing the balance of power towards the UCP and, more specifically, towards the fringe, nutjob side of the party (the Danielle Smith's of the world).

 

[Glenco]

So, Oil & Gas and Industrial Services worker here... If you're concerned with people reducing the UCP supporters to uneducated hillbilies, you shouldn't be doing the same thing to everyone who supported Notley and NDP. I have an "I love Oil & Gas" sticker right next to my Notley sticker in my car, and being on the finance side of the industry, I understand quite well how much the Notley government did for the industry, rather than destroying it.

Realistically, we all know not all UCP supporters fall into that category, and you're right, a lot of people, especially in rural AB, have reasons to vote UCP. Most of these people are voting UCP because they want their subsidies kept, don't want to see money go to the major cities or to policies that they feel are "too progressive", etc (and some of this is largely due to a lack of education on how a lot of these policies could actually benefit them).

The major issue is that these people have a disproportionate amount of representative power in the provincial government. We have rural MLAs that represent only a fraction of the amount of people an MLA in Calgary or Edmonton does, and this ends up skewing the balance of power towards the UCP and, more specifically, towards the fringe, nutjob side of the party (the Danielle Smith's of the world).

It is called gerrymandering the vote or the erosion of democracy.

 

[David A]

Well so far the parties that have won provincially have won the popular vote, but as the major cities continue to grow faster this could change in the future if the number of ridings is not adjusted sufficiently.

However, it does currently give disproportionate political power to some parts of the province over others and skews political decisions, such as building hospitals in a smaller community that is growing while not in a much larger community that is growing more. So Smiths very illogical comment is a logical political response to the system set up as it is.