Alberta Party candidate believes riding needs a different choice

By Al Beeber - Lethbridge Herald on December 5, 2024.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDabeeber@lethbridgeherald.com

Layton Veverka wants to give voters in Lethbridge West another choice when they vote in the Dec. 18 by-election to fill the seat left vacant on July 1 by NDP incumbent MLA Shannon Phillips.
A newcomer to politics, Veverka is running against the NDP’s Rob Miyashiro and UCP’s John Middleton-Hope because he doesn’t believe those parties represent the views of centrist voters.
A power engineer, husband and father of one, Veverka has lived in Lethbridge for more than a decade. He came to Alberta – the home province of his mother – to attend school after growing up south of the border in Montana and he stayed in Canada.
A power engineer, the 30-something Veverka strongly believes in the future of artificial intelligence and is a supporter of both non-renewable and renewable energy sources.
Veverka said he got tired of watching what the NDP and UCP were doing to the province so “I wanted to get involved because I’m kind of that centrist person where I believe in oil and natural gas and solar and wind. And I want to be able to use all the resources we have available in Alberta,” said Veverka.
Veverka works in the oil and gas industry and is involved in what’s called the reforming of natural gas to produce hydrogen.
“I’d like to see more of that in Alberta where we can take natural gas and produce it into blue hydrogen and then you could actually make steel from it. But we’re not looking at that. Sweden’s already doing it,” said Veverka.
Blue hydrogen is created through a process known as steam reforming which “brings together natural gas and heated water in the form of steam. The output is hydrogen but carbon dioxide is also produced as a by-product,” says website http://www.nationalgrid.com
And while that carbon dioxide output may be a concern to some, Veverka believes carbon capture systems are working well.
The process produces that hydrogen at lower temperatures which Veverka says means hydrogen could be produced cheaper for steelmaking “if we could ever build a steelmaking plant here.”
The candidate says the province has iron ore and the coal industry isn’t needed to make steel.
“I know the Conservatives and the NDP aren’t looking at our resources and what we can do with them,” he said.
“The UCP’s obsessed with coal and I’m just really against that. Natural gas is clean,” added Veverka.
The candidate says education is also important for the Alberta Party. He believes AI could be a valuable tool in assisting teachers and students.
“Since the UCP keeps cutting our teachers’ budgets and creating larger classroom sizes, we need to come up with a tool to help the teachers. And that’s what I want to look at,” said Veverka who also wants to attract tech companies to the province.
He has talked to teachers who have told him they need help with computer systems and need to get students more involved with AI so they understand there are dangers with it.
“There are a lot of benefits but we have to be careful of the dangers so I want to get it in the school systems where we can teach kids about the dangers of artificial intelligence, about the dangers of social media and also show them the benefits of that.
“We don’t really have an educational program that really helps students with that,” said Veverka.
Veverka also wants to see a zero per cent interest rate put on the Alberta portion of student loans.
“We can provide that as a province, that’s not that difficult to do. I’m not saying free loans.”
He says a stable source of energy is important and in southern Alberta nobody is talking about that, he notes.
“Why doesn’t Lethbridge have a small power plant of some sort, a stable power plant?,” he asked, referring to Coaldale and Medicine Hat which do have them.
“I want to talk to the municipalities and see how we can help you get your own power plants, put the power plants in the municipalities’ hands and that way they can produce energy.”
“If we can stabilize our energy grid, people in Lethbridge would also have stable energy prices.”
While Veverka was invited to Tuesday’s candidates debate at the Lethbridge Public Library, he is unable to attend.
Veverka approached the Alberta Party about running for the party.
“I just want to do better for the Alberta people. I know it’s possible, someone’s got to speak up and say something and use the knowledge they have.”
And while Veverka says some people think he’s going to split the vote, support for the Alberta Party would show other parties people are looking for a change.
“This is the message we need to send – this is your chance to vote for a change and to get the UCP and the NDP to start doing their jobs.”

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