Jack Flaherty was elected to his first term as a Member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta for the constituency of St. Albert almost exactly two years ago. And you can tell that the job suits him. He is comfortable and confident with the subject matter and issues as he starts to put his stamp on the constituency he represents.

When we spoke last year you talked about what a poor job we were doing in this province in funding vocational education. Here we are now and the lack of trained workers in the trades is a daily topic for most business owners. If you knew this was a problem waiting to happen why didn’t the Minister of Education?

Well, of course, that is a very complicated question because the Minister has never answered it. The thing that the Minister has to realize is that he is relying too much on the bureaucracy. School boards have been telling him about this and there are signs that the Minister might – might – be getting the message now. We have been asking that they broaden the curriculum base and he has suggested that he may have a broader base of vocational courses coming in the new year in the schools.

The thing that the Minister still doesn’t tell us about is the whole business of the apprenticeship programme that starts in Grade 11 - RAP - for kids that want to go the vocational route. What concerns me with those kids is that there is no specific money for career counsellors in our schools and I think that is a total inadequacy. You take a kid that starts on the RAP programme and starts out in apprenticeship in high school and he is not getting support from that school that he should get because teachers are so busy.

The other thing that is important is that when these kids get into this apprenticeship programme we don’t know how many of those kids that started in RAP to get into the trades finish the programme. They start in Grade 11 and do two years but then they are out of school and we lose track of them. And I am not clear yet from this minister how many kids complete the programme. I do know that there are many kids that start in that programme to become plumbers, electricians etc. and are not finishing because the companies can’t afford to lose them to finishing the programme.

The other thing that is very important and has to be looked at is school completion. If we do not have a wider choice of programmes in high school we will continue to lose more kids.

I understand there is an issue in your constituency of St. Albert about road construction and transportation. I would think this puts you in a fairly large club around this city these days but what are the issues you are trying to resolve?

There are two. There is a west regional road that is hopefully nearing completion and the important thing with that is that we have to insist and work really hard on getting government dollars to help us confirm that as Highway 2. And I say that because if we don’t do that and St. Albert has to endure the $55,000,000 cost then our tax base would be at risk.

It not only enhances the road system for citizens of St. Albert to come home from work but it looks at the whole question of what is going to happen up north with the new upgraders. If we don’t get the accessibility to that new Highway 2 designation we are going to have a major traffic problem because we are going to have all that trucking and infrastructure that goes through St. Albert and not only will it be damaging to our environment and our roads and the noise factor but it will make the whole area unsafe. So with all this trucking in the future it just makes sense that the government step in and declare that there will be money to include that in the Highway 2 designation so all that traffic goes through on the by-pass to the west of the city.

The second big issue is the extension of the Anthony Henday on the south side of St. Albert which affects the communities of Heritage Lakes, Grandin Park and Akinsdale. Now that alignment was laid out years ago that was going to be followed and it now infringes on the homes – especially on the homes in Akinsdale – and there is an environmental problem, a safety problem, and a noise problem and general issues of quality of life are taken away from the residents.

And there is a second issue. When the government decided on the alignment for that extension they did not provide for enough land for the overpass of that highway. So if we do not have enough land we must try and acquire more land to the south and that brings in the question of the land in the St. Joseph Seminary. So we know that negotiations are going on with the government to take over the lands from the seminary and we hope that they are successful because that would allow for the alignment of the Henday to be moved back further and enhance the quality of life of the residents and allow for enough land for the overpass. And as well the Mayor of St. Albert has made a proposal to provide land to move the seminary.

Like everybody else I am assuming that there will be a provincial election within a year of the Progressive Conservatives choosing their new leader this week. Are you planning on running again and if so was it a difficult decision or did you even consider stepping down after one term?

Let’s put it this way. If there is an election called in the next six months I will be running and we’re working on that right now. So we are getting ready to go.

I’m going to ask you about a federal matter if you don’t mind. I know this isn’t provincial but in addition to being a MLA you are also a citizen so I’m wondering what you think of the decision in Ottawa to define the Quebecois as a nation and what repercussions you foresee?

Well, that is a difficult one for me. My mother was Quebecois, she was born in Quebec. And certainly that meets the needs of that particular province in terms of their heritage and traditions. But then you raise the issue of our aboriginal population. What about the Ukrainian population? What about the Italian population? What about the Chinese? Should they all be recognized? I think we are really raising a number of very significant issues that may have implications for all Canadians that are different nationalities across Canada.

The one thing we talk about, I believe, is the French being one of the founding fathers with the British but it is a very difficult question and I think it is going to cause a lot of aboriginals and nationalities a lot of concerns in the future.

Having lived long enough to watch the country declared bilingual and then later on have that lead to multiculturalism I guess I am a little jaded about all of this so my question comes in the form of a joke. “Does this mean that we are now binationals or are we multinationals?” Personally I want to be a multinational – I hear that’s the way to become rich.