In its May 31 issue, the Gazette published an article (“MLA's track record less than exemplary” p. 18) regarding Wildrose MLA Jason Nixon's performance as our community's representative, based on an interview with Don Reimer, a former member of Mr. Nixon's board.
While Mr. Reimer is entitled to voice his own opinion, he is not entitled to create his own facts, and the arguments he presents in the article fail to reflect reality on several fronts.
In the interests of setting the record straight, here are the facts.
To begin with, it was Alberta Health Services, not the NDP government, that withheld information about the Sundre hospital from the community and refused to conduct meaningful consultation regarding long-term care at the hospital.
Mr. Nixon went out of his way on numerous occasions to work with the community and the health minister in a non-partisan and collaborative manner to address this very issue. He responded to his constituents' concerns immediately, arranged a town hall to provide for community consultation and input, communicated our concerns back to government and was instrumental in convincing the minister of health to reverse the decision by AHS to entirely close the Sundre hospital long-term care.
It may surprise Mr. Reimer to learn that Mr. Nixon was the one who informed the health minister of the decision from AHS; she and her office were unaware of it until he brought it to their attention.
Mr. Nixon demonstrated his ability to work with the NDP government when he was able to get us a face-to-face meeting with the health minister just over 24 hours after the announcement from AHS. It was evident during our meetings that Mr. Nixon is more than capable of working across party lines.
Secondly, while we certainly share Mr. Reimer's dismay at the state of the provincial economy, his blame is clearly misdirected. Over the past year-and-a-half more than a 100,000 Albertans have lost their jobs and our provincial GDP has retracted significantly. Mr. Reimer's expectations that our MLA can single-handedly hold back these economic forces are frankly unrealistic.
And finally, regarding Mr. Nixon's communication with constituents, he certainly has increased the presence of his office in our community. In addition to his efforts with regard to the hospital, Mr. Nixon regularly speaks out forcefully on issues of importance to our citizens. He makes himself available to constituents one-on-one and attends numerous community events despite the fact that our riding is one of the largest by area in Alberta.
From the perspective of his constituents, those are the facts.
Now, it seems only fair to question the ethics of reporting a story of this nature based on a single source. Clearly Mr. Reimer has an axe to grind; by his own admission he is a disgruntled former board member. Without interviews with officials from the town, counties, the chamber of commerce, local FCSS, or the local schools where Mr. Nixon speaks to Grade 6 students, a story like this is unquestionably too one-sided. Furthermore, publishing a story without allowing the elected official in question adequate time to respond with a comment throws serious doubt on its credibility.
As such, we felt the need to respond, not on behalf of Mr. Nixon, but on behalf of the many people in our community who respect his efforts to represent us inside and outside the legislature.
- Dr. Rob Warren, Heidi Overguard and Paul McLauchlin, Sundre
