Miyashiro, Nenshi feeling optimistic about campaign

By Alejandra Pulido-Guzman - Lethbridge Herald on November 30, 2024.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDapulido@lethbridgeherald.com

As the byelection for Lethbridge West MLA quickly approaches, NDP candidate Rob Miyashiro talked to media about his campaign in the company of Alberta NDP leader Naheed Nenshi on Friday.
 “Campaign is going great. Our signs are up all over the Lethbridge-West constituency. There is a sea of orange and we’re excited about the next few weeks of this election,” said Miyashiro.
 At just 19 days way from Election Day Miyashiro’s campaign has distributed 1,300 lawn signs and over 100 large signs for people to place on their yards to show their support for the NDP candidate.
 Miyashiro said that part of his campaign efforts has been focused on getting his supporters to vote as soon as the advanced voting stations open and to avoid waiting until the last minute to vote.
 When asked about the tabulators’ ban and how that may impact the byelection Miyashiro said the provincial government did something nobody asked for when they decided to ban them.
 “They’re feeding into conspiracy theories about voting machines. These aren’t voting machines, these are tabulators. You don’t do the voting on the machine, you do the voting on a card, you put the card into the machine and it counts them,” said Miyashiro.
 He said it is going to take a lot longer for them to finish doing the count now and the city just announced yesterday that it’s going to cost twice as much to run the municipal election.
 Miyashiro added that for the next municipal election it might take five to 10 times longer for them to get the results to the public in Lethbridge, because they have to work in teams to hand count everything.
 “It’s something that this provincial government is doing to make life more difficult for people in Lethbridge and no one asked for this,” said Miyashiro.
 To this, Nenshi said that if the NDP was to be in government next election there is very little of Bill 20 if anything at all they would keep.
 “I’m not sure any of it should be kept. It doesn’t respect local elected officials or the fact that they were elected and that they should be able to make decisions about their elections. So absolutely we will return power back to the municipalities should we form government,” said Nenshi.
 When talking about the upcoming byelection, Nenshi said that due to the Canada Post strike residents of Lethbridge-West will not be receiving their voter’s card, but he wanted to remind everyone that they will not need them to be able to vote.
 “Don’t worry, you don’t need the card, but you can go to Elections Alberta website or over to NDP website, plug in your address and figure out where you can vote,” said Nenshi.
 With the recent recommendation made by city administration to city council on Wednesday about a 2.24 per cent increase in property taxes to pay 2025’s $4.1 million Lethbridge and District Exhibition operating costs, when asked how he would advocate for Lethbridge West residents in the matter if elected, Miyashiro said there is something residents need to understand first.
 “Municipalities are not allowed to run a deficit and I think people need to understand the position that they are in right now. They need to make some hard decisions about how they’re going to continue with the operation of the Lethbridge Exhibition and balance that out with how they’re going to come up with the funds to continue to do that,” said Miyashiro.
 He said the solution is not that the Provincial government steps in and provide a bunch of money, because then they run the risk of doing that for every municipality that has any kind of financial issue.  
“I think that what the municipal government here is doing is that they’re looking at several options and hopefully the best one will be an outcome that we can all live with. And if it’s an increase in property taxes, they have to pay it too,” said Miyashiro.

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