Cyr addresses Job Loss in the Lakeland Region

Scott Cyr took his time at Legislature’s Question Period to address the job loss situation in the Lakeland region. Stating that many oil & industry companies have pulled back investments due to rising costs.

“Earlier this month, Lafarge Canada announced that they are shutting down their ready-mix concrete operations in Bonnyville-Cold Lake, due to a lack of economic viability,” addressing the Deputy Premier, the honourable Sarah Hoffman, ‘has this Government addressed these concerns with their Liberal-Trudeau friends? And if so, when we will actually get an answer for this [continued economic downturn]?”

Her response, “we are proud to fight for Alberta every day, and we keep pushing the Federal Government to make sure that they keep Alberta as a top priority. We want to ensure that Albertans have strong futures for future generations, and this one as well.”

The Deputy Premier spoke to pipeline approvals, “that’s why we got two pipeline approvals. One is very much on the brink of being able to break our landlock. We have approval to tide water on Canadian coast.” Stating the approval was something the Federal Government, weren’t able to do for nine years.

Cyr shot back with examples of delays on projects, “Imperial Oil’s Aspen Project is a proposed 150,000 barrel per day project. They have now been waiting 4.5 years for the Government of Alberta to give this project the green light. 4.5 years, waiting on a multi-millions dollar, job-creating project.”

A simple question to the Governement, do they actually think this is an exceptionable amount of time and what message is this sending to prospective job creators in Alberta? – Scott Cyr, MLA Bonnyville-Cold Lake

In response the Deputy Premier spoke of the 90,000 new jobs created in Alberta, in 2017, “mostly in the private sector.”

“We know that there are still families that haven’t felt that direct uptake yet and why we continue to push forward,” Minister Hoffman spoke of Canada’s energy stocks rising in April. ‘We’re working with industry and we want to keep moving Alberta forward.”

Cyr spoke of the Federal Bill C-69 and the belief from the energy sector that the bill will hinder any pipeline projects. He questioned the Provincial Government’s ability to express the concerns of the oil & gas industry and to lobby the Federal Government to not move forward with the bill.