Cyr & Blake square off in pair of candidate forums

Two nights of candidate forums in Bonnyville and Cold Lake lead voters one step closer to election day, less than two weeks away. 

The Bonnyville and District Chamber of Commerce and Cold Lake Regional Chamber of Commerce each held forums for UCP candidate Scott Cyr and NDP candidate Caitlyn Blake to field questions on Monday and Tuesday night. 

Each while discussing their platforms took barbs at each other as well: Blake criticizing the state of rural health care and children’s education during the UCP’s tenure from 2019 to today, Cyr lopping blame for the economic struggles in the oil and gas sector and in the Lakeland on the NDP’s reign from 2015-2019. 

Caitlyn Blake opening remarks

“My name is Caitlin Blake and I am running as the Alberta NDP candidate here in Bonnyville-Cold Lake-St. Paul. For those of you who don’t know me, I’ve worked in the MD of Bonnyville for almost 21 years and I children between the ages of six and 12. Above anything else, I am running to help build a better Alberta, for them, and for all of our kids. 

“Through devastating losses to rural health care cuts, to our kids education, and inflation made significantly worse by the UCPs removal of price cap on utilities and insurance. I have come to find that this election is a crossroads for our community. Throughout this forum, you will see that Scott and I agree on many of the same things. We have many of the same concerns. 

“However, it’s important to look at the track record of his party to take inventory of the harm from the last four years. And what we have at stake if it continues. Four more years of ER and OB closures, four more years of rural neglect. In the 2022 budget released in early March, our riding was not included for a single project. Northeast Alberta contributes 8 per cent of Alberta’s GDP, we account for 25 per cent of our investment in the province. We contribute much more than we receive. We work hard to make our province better for every single Albertan. Our industries, whether it be oil, agriculture, or military all provide security for our province. 

“I want us all to go into this election with the knowledge that whoever represents us will feel the pressure of high expectations here at home. I would be honored to be the advocate our riding so desperately needs.” 

Scott Cyr opening remarks

“I am running to be the next MLA for the area. I am with the UCP party. I served as a MLA from 2015 to 2019 as the Bonnyville-Cold Lake MLA. I was blessed with a full term. And during that term, I had become the Shadow Minister of Justice, which gave me a very in depth look at how the entire justice system works, and maybe look to finding solutions to that during that timeframe. 

“I know that for myself, I want to see better law enforcement, I would like to see more accountability when it comes to our criminals. And as I go out and door knock, rural crime seems to be on top of everybody’s mind right now. The next one clearly is access to health care. That one there is clearly a problem. And I will tell you that the last one is jobs and the economy. If we end up with another NDP government, like we did from 2015, and 2019, we can expect every third or fourth house up for sale again. That is what happened. 

“That is the consequence, when our local economy gets decimated by a government that seems to be completely against oil and gas. I know that for myself, I saw a lot of the pain and agony for a lot of my clients because I’m an accountant here. I am an accountant out of the Benjamin Dyck CPA office, which is over by the 7-Eleven. And to see the hardship of the men and women that were in the oilfield struggling with either contracts, losing their jobs, are having to relocate to different provinces, because they could find work in Saskatchewan or BC. But they couldn’t find work in their home province, which is why we ended up with those empty houses. 

“Now, after four years, we ended up with the UCP government. We saw a turnaround in our economy. We see that our local men and women are back to work again, the houses are now moving, we’re seeing real estate agents starting to sell houses again, which is a great sign. It means people are more comfortable than they’ve ever been going out and looking at buying a house or maybe upgrading the family home. This is something that I think we all want to see. But it all can be wiped out with a single election. This is an important one. 

“I’m telling everybody to get up vote. Make sure your voice is heard. I can tell you that for my own nomination. I ended up winning by one vote. One single vote made a difference. My daughter Amelia voted for the first time. She thinks it’s her. I will tell you that for this case, across Alberta, we need to make sure that we’re being out there and participating with the local democratic process. If we don’t, how can we be strictly surprised when we get caught up in another NDP orange crushing him? A crush that continues to be an impact to all of us. 

“In the four short years that they were in government, they racked up over $70 trillion in debt. Our assets equaled our liabilities before and after they were done. They racked up an astounding amount of debt that we have to pay the interest on and our children have to pay that money back. You know what, it all sounds good and all. We’re gonna throw money here, money there. We see that in the federal government. But in the end, all that ends up happening is that we see rapid inflation. They’re printing money like mad, they’re borrowing money as if, as if it will never end. We can’t sustain that. We cannot continue down that road. We need to be looking to balance budgets, lower taxes, and conservative policy.” 

Full videos of the forums will be left here. The Bonnyville one included many questions about carbon capture and foreign investment, municipal infrastructure, post-secondary education, RCMP’s future, trade barriers, child care, regulation, their biggest concerns and best qualities as candidates, education, doctor recruitment, FCSS funding, what to do with budget surpluses, and common ground between the parties.

The Cold Lake forum touched other topics included senior’s pensions, climate change, equalization, and firearms.

Bonnyville forum 

Cold Lake forum  

Also on Thursday night was the forum leadership forum with Danielle Smith and Rachel Notley.