By MO CRANKER on April 1, 2019.
mcranker@medicinehatnews.com@MHNmocranker
A new candidate has entered the ring in Cypress-Medicine Hat.
Terry Blacquier, who has worked in the oil and gas industry for more than 30 years, will be running for the Alberta Advantage Party in Cypress-Medicine Hat.
“I’ve been thinking about this for months,” he said Saturday morning. “I’m just not happy with where politics are right now and I’m not happy with where things are going.
“I think it comes down to, the more I heard Jason Kenney speak, the more I wanted run – I don’t trust Jason Kenney and he seems to be going back on a lot of the things he originally ran on.”
Blacquier says he has always been a Wildrose supporter.
“I saw we didn’t have an Advantage Party candidate down here and decided to run,” he said. “I tell people to think of us as Wildrose 3.0 but without the traitors.
“I don’t like Kenney and I just don’t feel like Rachel Notley has our back when it comes to standing up to Ottawa.”
Blacquier is a well site consultant and a drilling supervisor and he says jobs and the economy are his main concerns leading into the election.
“The key issue is jobs – jobs and the economy,” he said. “Everywhere I go I see a lot of my buddies have their businesses being carted off to auctions and I’ve seen family businesses closing in the economy.
“We just need to get people back to work so people can have disposable cash.
Seniors issues as well as agriculture are important as well, Blacquier added.
“How we treat our pensioners has to change,” he said. “I think they’re overlooked and they can hardly make ends meet as is, we need to stop adding more and more taxes to them.
“As for agriculture, I think farmers and ranchers need to be consulted before we make changes to how they work.”