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Jean says local PCs turned their backs on seniors

File Photo: Wildrose Leader Brian Jean (right), and Fort McMurray - Wood Buffalo candidate Tany Yao at the Willow Square location on April 10, 2015. Bradley Karp / AFTERNOON REPORTER)

(File Photo: Wildrose Leader Brian Jean and Fort McMurray – Wood Buffalo candidate Tany Yao at the Willow Square location on April 10, 2015. Bradley Karp/AFTERNOON REPORTER).

The leader of the Wildrose Party is pointing to words of two local MLAs and calling it “hypocrisy at its worst.” Brian Jean says Fort McMurray’s PC candidates turned their backs on seniors when the province moved the site of the long term care centre to uptown.

“They let us down to protect their political party from criticism,” Jean says in a news release. “They knew the Parson’s Creek deal made no sense for Fort McMurray. They openly said so, before they became MLAs.”

Jean points to an email sent from his Fort McMurray-Conklin opponent Don Scott, when he was an RMWB councilor. In the Jan. 10, 2012 email, Scott writes the decision to move the centre to Parsons Creek was done against the wishes of seniors. But today, he said a facility uptown was just an alternative while the province tried to get the Willow Square site from Ottawa and Jean who was an MP at the time.

“If he really wanted to see progress on that property than he should have aggressively got that property transferred to the province. I wrote him letters, we had meetings. Before he quit on the region he just didn’t get it done,” says Scott.

“I consider that a major failure on his part, in the region. What we ended up getting as a province is we ended up spending $16 million transferring money from the provincial government to the federal government. That money would have been better spent here in the region,” he adds.

The Wildrose says Fort McMurray-Wood Buffalo PC candidate Mike Allen is also a hypocrite. Jean noted a statement Allen released in 2012. The former RMWB councillor said he was disappointed to find out the location of the facility was changed without  consulting seniors. In an interview this afternoon, Allen acknowledge his 2012 promise to have the downtown Willow Square site ready for an Aging in place facility. He said there’s a reason why it took three years to get it.

“It’s been increasingly frustrating to have to continually respond to a situation that was created by the inaction to our previous Member of Parliament Brian Jean. At the end of the day you can not develop on land you don’t own. We do have correspondence from the Minister of the Municipal Affairs of the day in 2012, saying we’re prepared to transfer the land as soon as we get it,” said Allen.

Jean says Wildrose MLAs have the freedom and ability to advocate for their communities through free votes in the legislature and an open environment. Allen is schedule to speak with MyMcMurray on this issue this afternoon.