What a difference a year makes, in the life of a country and a politician.
This year saw the changing of the guard in Ottawa as Justin Trudeau led the Liberal Party to victory in the federal election in October. In the reestablished riding of Crowfoot-Battle River MP Kevin Sorenson’s fortune at the ballot box remained strong.
“The most important part of the job I have is representing the constituents and it is probably what I find the most satisfying,” he tells The Mail. “It is one thing to represent the government from the cabinet table but when you are in opposition it is a different type of representation. That is the priority. We are also going to hold the government to account. And we’ll see how it goes.
Shortly after the election, Stephen Harper stepped down as leader. Since then, long time MP Rona Ambrose has taken over as interim leader. Sorenson has praise for how she has established the opposition’s agenda.
He sees some really challenging times ahead.
“It was a challenging year, and I think it is going to be a challenging next year as well,” he said. “We have the lowest oil prices we have seen for many years and it is affecting the whole province here. We have a provincial government that has piled on and increased the tax load at a time when they are already under a heavy burden, and now at the same time we have a new federal government.”
He is concerned that there may be consequence to the full slate of changes the Liberal Party ran on.
‘I hope they will back off on some of their election campaign promises. They promises $10 Billion deficit this year, and now it is $12.6 billion and some say it could be $20 billion by the time everything’s said and done. I think they are going to have to see where our economy is, and adjust. It is one thing to have a plan and a strategy, but how the economy goes you have to adjust quickly.”
While their platform had promises of infrastructure spending, Sorenson says until a budget is released he can't say how this would trickle down to municipalities. He sees no problem with spending on the right things.
“I am not attacking their infrastructure program, it is a lot of spending. I am attacking their commitment to increase tax loads on the job creators as well as on every employee. Those are decisions that I don’t think are going to really enhance our economy.” He said.
He said infrastructure spending in a time of low economic growth could be good so long as there is a plan.
“We had some of the largest infrastructure spending, but we also had a strategy to comeback to balanced budgets,” he said.
Despite what he sees as challenge to the economy put up by both the federal and provincial government, he is an optimist.
“Alberta, in spite of a lot of governance issues, we still live in a great province and in the best country in the world,” he said. “We will do what we can to hold this government to account and also work with them when we can. I have worked in opposition before and I know you have to reach out to cabinet ministers and sit down and advocate on behalf of our riding, I am certainly prepared to do that.”
