OLDS — Over the past 18 months or so, the provincial government has “broken the trust” of Albertans by “saying one thing and then doing another,” according to Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills MLA Nathan Cooper.
Cooper made those comments during a town hall meeting Aug. 30 at the Royal Canadian Legion in Olds. About 20 people attended the event.
"I can tell you that over the past 18 months, the government has done a few things well, a few things not very well and a few things that have completely broken the trust of Albertans,” he said.
“I firmly believe that if the government hadn’t have done that, we would quite possibly be in a very different position today than we are.”
“I don’t want to minimize, in any way, shape or form this evening, the fact that trust has been broken. And much of that trust was broken as a result of the government saying one thing and then doing another.”
He warned that finding a way to heal that broken trust is key to whether or not the United Conservative Party remains in power after next spring’s provincial election.
"I’m of the opinion that the next election and the next year is about whether or not the trust of Albertans can be rebuilt in such a manner that they would return a United Conservative Party to lead the province – or whether or not Albertans will trust an alternative. And in Alberta, at present, the only real alternative is the NDP,” he said.
Cooper said concern about that broken trust has surfaced during the current United Conservative leadership race and that gives him hope for the future.
“I think the fact that we’re having some of this public conversation through the leadership race is actually a really positive thing,” he said.
“Each of the leaders that are running to lead the United Conservative Party certainly are setting out a different vision for what that might look like.”
The key question, he said, is "how are we going to prevent these sorts of things in the future?
“What steps is the government going to take to ensure that trust is rebuilt, and that going forward, the government is going to conduct itself in a manner that reflects the population of Alberta?”
