Dear friends,
This spring has presented many unexpected challenges for our community.
Undoubtedly these have been difficult times, both financially and emotionally, for many of us. I want to assure all of my constituents that our government is considering every possible step to support Albertans as we look towards economic recovery.
Mental health is an important part of our wellbeing. As a government we have invested $53 million to boost mental health services in communities across the province. Information on public health guidelines, resources for coping, and supports for individuals and businesses in Alberta can all be found at alberta.ca/covid19.
I would also like to recognize all of the healthcare professionals, essential workers, and volunteers who are working tirelessly for our community through this public health crisis.
Thank you for all of your hard work in these truly difficult times.
Our government is listening to rural Albertans and making significant investments to recognize the unique challenges of providing health care services in rural Alberta.
Recently, our government made changes to physician compensation in rural areas, including removing the cap on incentives through the Rural, Remote and Northern Program, increasing rural on-call rates, and freezing rural and family medical liability rates at $1,000.
Also, the anticipated changes to the complex modifier will not proceed.
In addition to that, we have introduced a program to pay for 20 young Albertans from rural communities to attend medical school in exchange for working in rural communities for three years.
These new investments will help recruit and retain physicians in rural areas of our province and ensure all Albertans have access to quality healthcare.
I am pleased to share that our government has launched a new program to create well-paying jobs in these challenging times.
The Site Rehabilitation Program is providing grants to oilfield service contractors to perform well, pipeline, and oil and gas site reclamation.
The program, which is expected to create 5,300 direct jobs for Albertans, will lead the cleanup of thousands of sites here in our province.
Applications for contracts by service companies opened in May, and are helping get Albertans back to work during a period of unprecedented challenges for the oil and gas industry. This program comes in addition to our province鈥檚 job-creating investment in Keystone XL and the loan to the Orphan Well Association.
Our government is looking ahead to economic recovery and getting Albertans back to work in these challenging times.
As always, it is my honour to serve as your MLA.
Martin Long
MLA for West Yellowhead
