A long-time City resident has been named the Wildrose candidate for Red Deer South. Norman Wiebe, a financial planner, said he has enjoyed the campaign so far.

“I have really enjoyed door knocking. I love engaging with the public. I’ve found that that has been my favourite part of it,” he said. “I’ve gotten a fair amount of positive support. A lot of people like the Wildrose message and on the other end of it I’m hearing that people want any party but PC.

“A lot of people who considered themselves Conservatives – they’re starting to realize that the PC Party is conservative in name only and that we are the conservatives. More and more people are seeming to become more aware of that.”

According to his web site, Wiebe stated, “As a business man I want to see our economy grow and thrive. I don’t want to see it choked by bad government regulation and wasteful bureaucracy. I understand that we need to manage and regulate things for the best interests of our citizens, but we must keep government small and cost effective. As a member of the community I want to see us have excellent standards for health care and senior care, as well as top-notch education opportunities. We have the capability, we have the right people, and we just need to make sure that they are supported the right way.”

He added the Wildrose has five pillars that they are campaigning on.

“Budget being number one, healthcare, education, democratic reform and the rural issues – that aren’t necessarily a big thing for Red Deer residents, but there are some landowners and farmers that do live in Red Deer too,” he said.

Meanwhile, Wiebe said he has a long-time interest in politics.

“I’ve been following politics for some time because I think it’s important that we all take an interest and know who and what we are voting for,” he said. “When I was younger I was voting PC of course, being a conservative-minded young man. I actually left the PC Party because they started losing the adherence to what I thought was fiscal conservatism – we saw an increase in cabinet, an increase the number of deputy ministers and salaries were going up. I was a little disgusted with that so I left.”

Wiebe then joined the Alberta Alliance Party which then eventually merged with the Wildrose Party.

As a Wildrose supporter for a number of years, Wiebe said this election was the time to become a candidate for the party.

“I’ve been looking for quality candidates for a long time and we had a little bit of a hiccup last fall with the Wildrose and some of the people they were disillusioned, but what they didn’t understand was 11 people left us, but that doesn’t mean the other 23,000 changed their political ideology. At that point it was becoming more apparent that I would put my name forward as a candidate.”

efawcett@reddeerexpress.com