Thomas Lukaszuk represents the constituency of Edmonton-Castle Downs for the provincial Progressive Conservatives. He is part of the new wave of younger Progressive Conservatives who are re-shaping that party even as it continues to hold on to power long past what many consider a normal shelf life for governance.

The opposition was keeping you guys up after your normal bedtime this (past) week. Can you explain what all that fuss was about?

(Laughs) I don’t know if you can logically explain it so a logical reader would appreciate it.

Opposition has the ability to maximize its speaking time on every Bill and on every amendment and they wanted to debate two particular Bills to their maximum. This would mean that we would sit (forever) in the Legislature on these two Bills – there is no limit as to how many amendments they can file, and every time they file an amendment they have two extra hours of speaking. So often they file an amendment replacing a ‘the’ with an ‘a’ for example and they get two extra hours so they can maximize their speaking time.

The government House Leader instituted a closure that basically sets a time limit on the Bill and you have the next four or six hours to debate the Bill and that is all there is. The Opposition was disenchanted with that and filibustered. So what they were doing is they spent 23 hours arguing that they should have more time for arguing as opposed to dealing with the Bill itself.

It has happened before. In our Parliamentary system there is a bit of a loophole in our Standing Orders that allows for that to happen. The rules are good – they are time tested – but when you take them out of context it allows you to do that and we end up working for 24 hours from time to time.

It looks to me – and a lot of other people for that matter – as though this is a session designed by your government to get ducks in a row for a spring election. From that perspective what is the single most important issue that your government is trying to put to bed in this session?

I don’t think there is a single agenda because Albertans are more complex than that. But there are definitely some cohorts that you can group them into. Anything that has to do with growth pressures – I think, is really important.

We’ve been fortunate to have the resources and the economy that we do but along with that blessing came along increased pressure such as increased traffic, shortage of affordable housing, shortage of skilled and unskilled labour which then translates into poorer service that you receive at your local corner store or gas station. And those are things that are palpable things that Albertans experience from day to day.

I know that even though they appreciate the good economy and they know that the alternative is worse they would like to see some easing of some of those pressures, so those are important things. Most of the things that they face are in the municipal realm because the municipal government is closest to the people and deals with the day to day governance of a city. So proper funding and formulas for our municipalities to be able to deal with the infrastructure and the social pressure that they experience is something very important and that is something that we have to address by putting a blanket formula in place.

So now, as you know, the Premier has initiated an initiative that I am part of. I am sitting on this committee allowing the Capital Region to work together and share their resources and expenditures together which will allow for a more equitable distribution of pressures. And that is important to Albertans.

Public transportation is one of those issues and also the balance between environmental concerns and progress is something that is at the forefront of Albertan’s minds. They want us to be good stewards of the environment while maintaining a healthy economy. And those things don’t have to be mutually exclusive. You know, neither end of the spectrum is ideal but there is a balance somewhere in between.

You currently sit on something called the Alberta Foreign Offices Workforce Committee. Can you take a minute and explain what this committee is attempting to accomplish?

Sure. Alberta is one of four provinces in Canada that actually has its own foreign trade offices. The others are British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec. These provinces have realized that even though the federal government is doing the best it can with its consulates and foreign missions that service is pan-Canadian and not particularly geared towards any province on the economic development side.

So provinces that have very specific industries like British Columbia with lumber or Alberta with petrol or Quebec and Ontario with manufacturing have realized that they need to supplement that generic service that the federal government provides with more targeted approaches to marketing the province abroad. Alberta has twelve offices throughout the world that do just that. They market Alberta. They are the linkages between Alberta businesses and foreign businesses and between Alberta post secondary institutions and other universities. They create partnerships between academia and businesses throughout the world.

These offices have been established for a number of years and the geopolitical situation of the world continuously changes and so every once in a while we need to review where they are and see if we need to close them or keep them where they are or open more and I have been charged with the task of re-doing these offices and checking their efficacy and recommending how we should proceed with them in the future.

When I hear the opposition on TV these days they seem focussed on the message that the Conservatives have become tired and arrogant after 36 consecutive years in government. How do you, as a party, respond to a criticism like this?

Well, first of all I am a big supporter of Oppositions. I think every government needs an Opposition. The problem we are having in this province is that we don’t have any constructive Opposition that would aid the government in making better laws and then implementing them more effectively.

You know the 24 hours where we had all the members of the Legislature sitting there could have been used to debate some matters of substance and matters of importance. That time was wasted – and I know some Opposition members will argue that it was not a waste of time but was to prove a point – but we don’t get paid for proving points. That is what the media does. We are there to make laws and be constructive so we need constructive opposition.

Now, calling a government tired is hardly constructive unless you come up with alternatives and put them on the table and say ‘this is our plan’. I have yet to see one.

I don’t believe this government is tired. This government had a massive injection of new MLA’s in the last election. In the coming election we are going to have another 30-40% turnover. They are running under the banner of the same political party but these are new people. None of the people that were with Mr. Lougheed are around any more. I am 38 years old I hardly consider myself tired.

So you can’t blanket criticize any party that way. You can criticize their policies. If you were to say that the Progressive Conservative Party’s policies are outdated and no longer relevant with today’s electorate then that kind of argument I would consider worth a rebuttal but to say that a government is tired means nothing.

Our average age is probably lower than the opposition. Our representation of the cultural groups in Alberta and both genders is definitely more reflective of what Alberta is than the three Opposition parties. We are in touch with all parts of Alberta – large municipalities, small municipalities, rural Alberta and I know that our members are engaged in their communities quite heavily.

It is difficult to argue an argument that is not substantive in itself.

Which is, of course, why it is a good argument for the Opposition to start.