Windsor wants community supported, calls out Wildrose press conference for making High River unmarketable.
HIGH RIVER, AB – Alberta Party candidate Joel Windsor is calling out Wildrose Leader Brian Jean and his local candidate Wayne Anderson for casting High River in a bad light.
On Friday, April 17 Jean and Anderson used Wallaceville, the neighbourhood the Town of High River elected to demolish to make way for any future flood waters, as a backdrop for their party’s announcements regarding the DRP and flood recovery.
On a blog post on his campaign website Windsor offered three alternative locations for a press conference that would have made a much more marketable backdrop for the community.
“High River is rebuilding. It has a beautiful downtown developing, a peaceful well-treed park and campground right beside the downtown area, and a well-armoured river that runs peacefully beside a redeveloping business community. High River is not a building slated for demolition,” said Windsor.
“What people saw as a backdrop in that Wildrose presser was not High River.”
Windsor is upset at Jean and Anderson for choosing to use High River as an emotional ploy to suggest they care for Albertans.
“If they truly cared, they would have never allowed themselves to make empty promises using images that make the town unmarketable.”
Jean promised during the press conference to appoint one of his Executive Council to be in charge of the Disaster Recovery Program to ensure all files are closed quickly.
Windsor called that promise “political bafflegab”.
“Executive Council is just a fancy way of saying Cabinet. There’s already a member of Cabinet in charge, that person is the Minister of Municipal Affairs,” said Windsor.
“Jean and Anderson promised nothing. They said they are standing up for Albertans, but what they are actually doing is getting in their way.”
Windsor also took exception to what he said was the “demonizing” of a local High River company that was given a sole-sourced contract to build portables for schools following the flood.
“It makes no sense to ask a company to do something for free,” said Windsor, adding that while he believes sole-sourced contracts are not appropriate under regular circumstances, he’s glad the contract went to a local company to stimulate the local economy.
“That company didn’t ask the government to sole-source the contract. They just wanted to be able to help out the area, and still be able to afford to run a business again afterward.”
Windsor says he is very pleased with the direction the recovery efforts are going in High River.
“Business should be happy to come back. Certainly there are still a few more hurdles to jump, but we are well on our way, and the local council has the rebirth of this town well in-hand.”
“High River Strong,” Windsor added.