With being projected to be the next MLA for the Grande Prairie-Wapiti riding, Ron Wiebe says he is beyond grateful for the support of the community. The Peace Country businessman says he had an incredible team and amazing volunteers who brought everything together.
Since Monday night’s election results, Wiebe says he is honoured and humbled to receive the trust of the electorate.
“You know it is different than a business but we are here to serve the people and so that is what I plan to do,” Wiebe says. “It is still about people and it is still about delivering results, so those things transfer very well.”
During his election campaign, Wiebe says one of the things he found is people are very genuine and they tell you what’s on their mind. One of the main concerns he heard during his conversations was regarding healthcare and he says he believes there is still a lot to be done.
“What I told people at our town halls, – is we will know we have arrived on healthcare once people start to notice. Once the wait times get shorter, once they have the knee surgeries and all those backlogs get cleaned up.”
“Everyone knows walking into the hospital there is room for improvement, and again it is usually not with our frontline people, its as a government once you get a number of layers you need to figure out a way to get beyond the silos and get a way for people to talk to each other, so we can serve the people better.”
He adds when Albertans start to notice a difference, then we know we have arrived at a solution, but until then there is still work to be done.
Looking towards the future, Wiebe hopes to know and understand all the needs Grande Prairie – Wapiti constituency have before he goes to Edmonton, but otherwise he does not have a whole lot of high expectations outside of getting the job that needs to be done, done. The incoming MLA says he will be looking towards his predecessor Travis Toews for mentorship during this journey.
Back in April, Wiebe was appointed by Premiere Danielle Smith as the UCP candidate for space left by then Finance Minister and Grande Prairie-Wapiti MLA Travis Toews. Wiebe received 75.7 per cent of the vote, while NDP candidate Dustin Archibald received 20.3 per cent and Independent Party of Alberta candidate Brooklyn Biegel received four per cent.