The provincial government is updating Alberta’s approach to homelessness and rural voices will be included in those conversations.
Alberta’s Minister of Seniors, Community and Social Services was on hand in Calgary on Friday, December 20th for the announcement regarding the next phase of planning for the province’s homelessness response.
According to Jason Nixon, they will be bringing forward a new panel which will be taking experts from across the province that work together already with the department to care for the homeless. Nixon – who is also the MLA for Rimbey-Rocky Mountain House-Sundre – notes Alberta’s government will be using the techniques that they have deployed in larger cities to be able to help people.
One of the things they see changing is homelessness is no longer just an issue for just Alberta’s seven largest cities. Nixon highlights the fact that they are seeing concerns all across the province. He says “before I was in politics I worked with the homeless in Calgary, that was my career before politics. If you’d asked us 15 years ago that we would be seeing phone calls from places like Ponoka or Peace River or Rocky Mountain House about homelessness we would have thought that you’d lost your mind because it just was not something anyone was talking about. But the reality – what we’ve seen as a result of things like the inflation crisis and the housing crisis, and stuff around the drug epidemic across the world – it’s impacting now much more than just Calgary and Edmonton, Red Deer and Lethbridge when it comes to homelessness.”
Nixon thinks it is absolutely critical that we are talking about that and, more importantly, bringing rural voices to that conversation because the tools that we have and the communities that we live in are going to be very different then what Calgary and Edmonton have. He adds, we need to bring those tools around the table and work together as a community to solve the problems with homelessness for places that are smaller than our larger cities.
Meanwhile, Nixon offered his thoughts on the recent chaos in Ottawa and the efforts by Premier Danielle Smith to help secure the province’s boarders with the United States. He says “I think Premier Smith stepping up to the plate really quick to be able to communicate things we can do to try to work with the Americans, our largest trading partner, is the right thing to do and also to continue to work together with Premiers across the country to stand up for Canada. So I think with good leadership like that, I think we are going to end up in a good spot.”
Nixon points out that our number one message has to be that Alberta is providing energy to the U-S in a significant way. He says “Alberta is the solution to energy security, not only in Canada but energy security in North America. I think the better we can deliver that message to our American colleagues on the benefit of trade with the province of Alberta and Canada as a whole, the better off we will all be.”
Premier Smith announced a $29 million plan this month to create a new sheriff patrol unit to boost security at the Canada-U.S. border. It was a move followed United States President-elect Donald Trump’s pledge to impose tariffs on Canadian imports unless Canada reduced the movement of migrants and drugs into America.
