Alberta Party - City Center Airport

With a Provincial election looming, any where from within the next few months to a year, some of the old topics are once again coming up for discussion.  The other day, Danielle Smith from the Wild Rose Alliance posted this video on youtube from High Level, pointing out some reasons on why the CCA is so important.

On June 27th, I wrote a blog post (you can read it here)which contains a link to the report created by the Health Quality Council of Alberta which clearly shows that nothing can beat the greatness from having medivac services provided by the downtown airport.

For some time, I've been gently asking the Alberta Party, of which I am a member, to publicly take a stance on this issue. I know this was raised with the candidates during the recent run for the leadership of the party, and I even had a good chat with Glenn Taylor over this issue the night before the leadership vote was done.

Yet... the Alberta Party as an entity, has failed to respond. However a tweet I posted using the #abparty hash tag on July 27th at 9:49:

I hope the #abparty takes the same stand as the #wra does on #ecca. http://bit.ly/pdJ5Ip #yegcc #ableg

did provoke a response from Chris LaBossiere, the current Alberta Party president.

I don't know if this is Chris's personal views, or if they represent the party's view.  He stated:

Gary, I am afraid that you won't see any #abparty on #ecca. It's an issue for #yegcc and the citizens of #yeg to navigate. 

followed by another tweet saying:

Until #ahs ensures safe passage and medivac amenity at @flyeia, medivac stays at #ecca. That's certainly a priority.

 I responded with:

 If medivac is a priority, and it belongs under #AHS, then that makes #ecca a provincial issue. Not #abparty issue? I'm sad.

 and Chris responded back with:

AHS and Medivac is a priority. A DT airport, 1 of 5 in the region, is less so. But alas... we will always disagree on this.

Let me state... I like Chris, he is a decent person. We have never really seen eye-to-eye on this issue, but I like to think there is still a good personal respect for each others views.  After all, the Alberta Party is a party where members can disagree on things without losing respect for the persons involved, and I like that.

SO much has already been said on this issue, repeating the bulk of the logic would be nauseating... Yes, there are alternatives. No matter how you cut it, there is simply nothing else available that will serve the needs of the medivac services or the EPS copters quite like the City Center Airport does.

Any other alternative will result in longer, and potentially dangerous, patient safety and transfer times... with increased costs not only for medical but for the EPS as well.

We are willing to give all of that up... just to make a few extra dollars WAY down the road by getting more taxes from residents who want to live in some form of Taj Mahal?

I'm no financial wizard for sure, but I would suspect that by the time you add up all of the costs of building some inferior service at the EIA, staffing City of Edmonton "employees" outside the city limits, along with the costs of re-developing CCA, and increased costs of Edmonton staff and Edmonton equipment, there will be no magical tax savings for probably a good 20 years or more.

There is also no question, the longer times and "alternate landing zones" will cost lives. It already has... The medical community knows it has and Edmonton City Council knows it has.

I wonder how making some potential money decades down the road is better than saving lives. Don't we owe it to the citizens of this province, and those we serve not only in BC but the NWT ... to examine this issue with some truth, instead of the bull shit City Council used?