I will lay out my four major stances for those of you who don't know me. 

 

My name is Jodie Gateman and I have put my name forth as a nomination candidate for the UCP party in the riding of Cardston-Siksika.  I was born and raised in Southern Alberta.  My husband and I have four children and operate an agriculture enterprise (grain & cattle farm) in Mossleigh, Alberta. I am a lifelong learner with a Ph.D. in Education. I have served on the Provincial Executive board and been involved in politics for as long as I can remember.  I'm seeking the nomination to represent and advocate for the people of Carston-Siksika.  Below are the top four items I think are paramount.

 

1. First and foremost, personal rights and freedoms cannot be lost and never again can this overreach happen where the government has taken those liberties and rights guaranteed to us.

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2. We must have a smaller government with more transparency and a solid recall policy. If people aren't doing their job, they get taken out of the field. Plain and simple. 

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3. Agriculture. Education. Rural Representation. I am a farmer's wife on a 4th generation farm. We're seven years away from our Century Farm & Ranch award; clearly, we are sustainable, yet agriculture is always portrayed as the villain. 2% of us feed the world, knock us out of the picture and guess what? Nobody's eating. If nobody's eating, many other issues don't matter.

 Education is near and dear to my heart; it's what my degrees are based in. It is the pinnacle of our future and our children's future. Parents and schools should be a partnership, not a guessing game. Choice, communication and access are critical.

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Urban communities can often overpower the Rural areas based on sheer population alone, but people fail to realize that items that work in the city may not work in the rural areas and vice versa. We must have that rural voice be represented and not cast aside just because the cities have the numbers. They are two separate voices that need to work together, but at this time, urban areas are steamrolling over rural voices, which is unacceptable. 

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4. The AHS system needs to be revamped entirely. Alberta citizens deserve better than the healthcare system they have. We have 175 ICU beds for a population of 4.6 million people... read that again. We've had two years to adapt and get things rolling, and the fact that necessary changes haven't been made in that timeframe solidifies that AHS needs to be stripped down and reworked to give Albertans a better health care system. 

 

​I believe that the government's complete overreach and trampling of rights and freedoms must be no more. We must put in place rules, so this can never happen again. Never again do we sacrifice our personal liberties, and never again does this happen to our province, families, businesses and citizens.