Drumheller Stettler MLA Rick Strankman, has announced he will be running in the next provincial election.

  Strankman, who has been sitting as an Independent member of the Legislature after leaving UCP, made the announcement Monday evening February 18

  “At the urging of many constituents, friends and family, I have decided to contest the upcoming provincial election as an independent candidate,” Mr. Strankman said in Stettler Monday.

“After nearly seven years as an MLA shackled with party-first priorities, it is clear that Alberta’s party system of government has stripped effective representation and across-the-board best interests from Alberta’s citizens. Running for election and winning office as an Independent will enable me to restore the priorities of all Drumheller Stettler citizens to the front lines of the Legislature and advance their priorities for resurrecting Alberta’s prosperity.”

Property rights will remain one of his priorities, a battle he started as a member of Farmers for Justice in 1995 that resulted in the dissolution of the Canadian Wheat Board.

“The goal now is to entrench requisite property rights for all Albertans,” Strankman explained.

He will also continue to champion a new irrigation project for the Special Areas, along with other infrastructure initiatives, to promote economic development.

Lowering taxes will also be a large part of his priorities. He says tax relief needs to be delivered to the constituency’s young people, families, companies which are both employers and job creators, innovators, entrepreneurs and seniors. Alberta needs a better solution to global warming impacts than a carbon tax.

In addition he says current issues important to Alberta’s young generations need attention, ranging from environmental priorities and improved job creation to targeted advances in education and community development.

“Central to all of these initiatives is a grassroots direct democracy model for input into these, and other provincial initiatives that must respect and reflect the priorities and opinions of all the citizens of Drumheller Stettler. Like all of you, I want your voices heard in Edmonton,” Strankman said.

For the February 21 session of the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology’s 2019 Speaker Series, Dr. Greg Erickson (Florida State University) will present “Faunal Composition,

Provinciality and Paleobiology of a Late Cretaceous Arctic Vertebrate Assemblage Revealed

Through Cross-Latitudinal Comparisons.”

Dr. Erickson’s fieldwork in northern Alaska has produced numerous dinosaur, mammal, and bird fossils, nearly all of which are new to science. These fossils have greatly expanded our understanding of the different types of animals with backbones found in the Late Cretaceous Prince Creek Formation. Comparisons to animals from lower latitudes led Dr. Erickson and colleagues to conclude that the Prince Creek Formation fossils represent a formerly unrecognized, high-latitude community that they named the Paanaqtat Province. They discovered conspicuous growth lines in Arctic dinosaur teeth, and long bones that are not found in close relatives from lower latitudes. Along with growth comparisons, this provides the first data indicating dinosaurs were non-migratory, year-round Arctic inhabitants, and were likely

Endothermic.

Dr. Erickson will discuss the first rigorous testing of polar dinosaur biogeography, life history, and physiology from the Late Cretaceous Prince Creek Formation of northern Alaska.

This presentation will not be live-tweeted or published on YouTube due to ongoing research.

The Royal Tyrrell Museum’s Speaker Series talks are free and open to the public. Presentations are given in the Museum auditorium every Thursday at 11:00 a.m. until April 25. Speaker Series talks are also available on the Museum’s YouTube channel at: www.youtube.com/c/RoyalTyrrellMuseumofPalaeontology.