Blake James Pedersen (born February 9, 1965) is a Canadian politician who was an elected member to the

Legislative Assembly of Alberta The Legislative Assembly of Alberta is the deliberative assembly of the province of Alberta, Canada. It sits in the Alberta Legislature Building in Edmonton. Since 2012 the Legislative Assembly has had 87 members, elected first past the post f ...

, previously representing the

electoral district An electoral (congressional, legislative, etc.) district, sometimes called a constituency, riding, or ward, is a geographical portion of a political unit, such as a country, state or province, city, or administrative region, created to provi ...

Medicine Hat Medicine Hat is a city in Southern Alberta, southeast Alberta, Canada. It is located along the South Saskatchewan River. It is approximately east of Lethbridge and southeast of Calgary. This city and the adjacent Town of Redcliff, Alberta, R ...

. He was born at Gull Lake, Saskatchewan. He was first elected in the 2012 provincial election as a member of the Wildrose Party caucus. In the spring 2013 sitting of the

Alberta Legislature The Alberta Legislature is the unicameral legislature of the province of Alberta, Canada. The legislature is made of two elements: the lieutenant governor of Alberta, lieutenant governor (representing the King of Canada),. and the Legislative A ...

, Pedersen put forward Motion 510 to restore a competitive tax credit system for film industry labour costs, which was supported by the Progressive Conservatives, NDP and Liberals. Motion 510 was the first Wildrose motion to ever pass in the Alberta Legislature. The proposal in Pedersen's motion would replace the current system of awarding grants to film companies through the Alberta Multimedia Development Fund with a tax credit that would enable all companies to recoup a portion of their production costs. Pedersen was born and raised in Gull Lake, Saskatchewan, on the family ranch. Following graduation from Gull Lake High School, he moved to Vancouver as a drummer with a band, but returned to Gull Lake a few months later and entered the work force with a local oilfield services company. Experiencing his first of many boom and bust cycles, after one year of employment Pedersen participated in a 10-month agricultural exchange program to Australia with the International Agricultural Exchange Association. Upon his return to Canada, Pedersen returned to the oilfield services industry, and in 1999 became a small business owner. On December 17, 2014, he was one of nine Wildrose MLAs who crossed the floor to join the Alberta Progressive Conservative caucus. Pederson stood for reelection during the 2015 Alberta election but was defeated by NDP's

Bob Wanner Robert Edward Wanner (born April 25, 1949) is a Canadian politician who was elected in the 2015 Alberta general election to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta representing the electoral district of Medicine Hat (provincial electoral district), ...

, finishing third. In November 2017, it was reported that Pedersen had since joined the Alberta Party, and was seeking a seat on the party's board of directors.

Electoral history

References

Wildrose Party MLAs Living people People from Medicine Hat Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta MLAs 1965 births 21st-century members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta {{Alberta-MLA-stub