I've Lived It...

A New Day For Alberta

We are in a new era, and we need a new leadership and governance model.  Albertans are educated, connected and want to be involved ... not shut out. 

The Alberta Party is grounded in the values of true democracy, engagement and transparency ... where our elected officials, including the leader, are accessible, respectful of opinion, and collaborative in solutions. 

The Alberta Party has become a movement across the province – a collection of people who care deeply about Alberta, and who deeply want to be a part of building Alberta.  That’s what sparked our “Big Listen” that has been going around from community to community, embracing ideas from every place, everyone and every age.  The people we’ve been meeting feel a part of it for the first time or for the first time in a long time ... they’ve been asked what they think ... what they believe ... and what they expect.  So simple, but so profound. 

Leadership Style

I’ve had the privilege of serving this province in many capacities over the last decade ... as the Mayor of Hinton, as the Chair of the Rural Alberta Development Fund, as a board member of AUMA ... and my leadership style is what Albertans tell me they are looking for:

 

Wisdom: to handle changing circumstances;

Humanity: to understand the needs of all people;

Respect: to attract people of difference but of character;

Integrity: to get done what is promised;

Courage: to ignite morale and commitment; and

Dignity: to ensure pride and confidence.

Experience: to lead having learned by doing.

But most importantly, my leadership style comes from what I learned best from my parents ... hard work every day, resilience in times of trouble, and to try to inspire everyone you meet.

Experience

Many people are asking how we are going to move from our Big Listen to building policy based on what we have heard and then finally acting on it. This is where I think that I have something unique to offer based on my experience serving in leadership positions with the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association, Rural Alberta Development Fund and as Mayor for Hinton.

In each of the organizations that I mention above we build actions based on having first listened to our constituents and then incorporated what we heard into a business plan, built a budget based on that plan and then acted to institute the plan.

With the Rural Alberta Development Fund I chaired a $100 million fund that we designed to listen to Albertans with great ideas, and then work with them to build a plan to implement that idea and finally fund the idea. We’ve had incredible results.

With the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association as a Vice-President I chaired a sub-committee that had the responsibility to listen to over 1300 members and then develop policy based on what we heard so that we could advocate to the Government to effect change on behalf of every urban municipality in Alberta. Most recently we led an initiative to build Community Sustainability Plans for towns and cities. These CSP’s were built by listening to and then acting on the interests of the citizens that lived in the communities that were involved in the planning.

In Hinton, we have been building policy based on listening to our citizens ever since I was elected to office. During our first community consultation about 8 years ago we had about 150 folks out, during our last round of consultation we had over 1800 citizens engage in the process.

I know that the Big Listen will be effective because I’ve lived and worked it for many years. Authenticity in leadership is based on listening, and then acting. And then of course, being accountable for your actions.

I’ve lived it, I’ve been held accountable publicly for my actions, and I know we can do this together at the Provincial level.