Lethbridge-West by-election Alberta Party candidate Layton Vaverka wants to make change in the province. “I see the Conservatives and NDP aren’t really concentrating on the current issues Albertans are concerned about.”
The power engineer says it seems the other parties aren’t looking into the future when it comes to education and energy. “Nobody’s really looking at that future aspect.”
“There’s a lot of technology coming out and we need to look into these technologies, so we can advance our society and give a better education to people. And also help our energy industry out, which brings in a lot of jobs in Alberta .”
Vaverka appreciates the Alberta Party, as a centrist party. “They’re not extreme left or right. With the extreme right, they’re pushing the coal industry. With the extreme left, they forget about our oil and gas industry. I’m that centrist person that likes to look at both aspects. I believe we can use all of our energy. The Alberta Party is really concentrating on education for people.”
Vaverka also understands the energy industry and the technology. “And what we can bring in with that technology. I’ve worked in natural gas and oil and there’s a lot of things with natural gas we can produce that we don’t currently.”
One thing would be methane reforming, which produces hydrogen from natural gas, Vaverka explains. “There’s a lot of aspects in the energy industry we’re not looking at that could provide good paying jobs in Alberta.”
Another issue, according to Vaverka, is making sure Alberta physicians are getting paid properly. “I know the Conservatives went and really affected the rural physicians. I know a physician who was affected by this. He voted Conservative, thinking he would be getting the benefits from them. In the end, he found out they actually hurt him tremendously with income and how hard they work. So, to really get positions back in, we have to go back and look at how we can get these positions paid properly and they’re not overworked.”
As for homelessness in Lethbridge, “Dealing with that is a difficult situation – drugs, homelessness. Mental health is a big part of all of that. To look at those aspects, it’s difficult. It’s something I would have to do a lot of research on and that would be looking at other countries, seeing what they’ve done because we’ve tried many things and it’s just not working,” notes Vaverka. “We could probably find a solution for it, but it’s going to take time.”
Aside from Alberta’s energy industry, the province is really big in the agriculture sector, adds Vaverka. “That’s where I’m looking for the young farmer and trying to get the young farmer back to owning farms and keeping land in Albertans’ hands, not into corporations’ hands. All aspects of all economies do start at the agriculture level. If we can get that back into the young farmers’ hands, your agricultural industry will keep on advancing and moving forward.”
“We could bring in more agricultural businesses. We could bring in more greenhouses and produce a lot of extra food.”
With Alberta’s education system, teachers are getting burnt out and it’s because of the mass class sizes, Vaverka says. “Yes, bringing in more teachers is one solution, but there’s also another solution that could really help assist the teachers and that’s looking at artificial intelligence to assist teaching. If we look at A.I. as an assistant tool, that could really benefit the education system and bring in more job opportunities because you’re going to be bringing in technology companies to look at how can we build a better education system using A.I.”
With post-secondary education, Vaverka says, post-secondary institutions need to be paid and we’ve got to pay our professors. “Inflation has caused a lot of issues.”
“The first thing we would do, if I could get it through, was make zero per cent interest on all Alberta student loans. That would be my first and most important goal, so students could pay off their loans,” adds Vaverka. “With how expensive it is, we would probably look to see how we could resolve that and make sure we could put in the right amount of funding to help drive those educational costs down.”
John Middleton Hope is the United Conservative Party of Alberta candidate and Rob Miyashiro is the Alberta NDP candidate. Lethbridge-West by-election advance voting is on now until Dec. 14. Election Day is Dec. 18.
