It was a chat with some of Alberta's decision makers, in an intimate venue and event, getting as close as face to face, one on one talks.

Doug Horner (Minister of Transportation), Ted Morton (Minister of Energy), and Jack Hayden (Minister of Tourism) were front and centre, talking to approximately 70 members of the Chamber of Commerce Wednesday afternoon at the Woods at Woodside.

"Every time we do this tour, we learn something new" claimed Horner, the first speaker of the afternoon. "We find out things from community leaders."

Horner had the big news of the afternoon, in the form of $2.8M in funding for local transit.

"There's been a little bit of growth since the 80s" said Horner, a comment that garnered a few chuckles from the audience, but one that outlined his recognition of the changes Airdrie has seen, and the forward thinking the community is becoming known for.

"The City of Airdrie is going to use the funding for a variety of public transit improvements. Some of the funds are going to be applied to the cost of purchasing three buses, several community shuttles, as well as capital improvements on the bus garage and maintenance facility."

Horner pointed out that GreenTRIP's $580M program across Alberta was designed to not only to help municipalities create environmentally friendly transit programs, but to help connect Alberta's communities together.

Ted Morton was next at the mic, and started with his support on the GreenTRIP initiative, but soon got into the Keystone XL Pipeline issue.

"(The pipeline) was caught in US political syndrome, hardball politics between a Democratic President, and Republican Congress, that's the bad news," according to Morton. "The good news is that political hardball ends after November. We remain very optimistic that once we're past this, there'll be bi-partisan support for Keystone."

Jack Hayden batted clean-up before the room got to mingle with the Ministers.

"Pleasure to be here," excalimed Hayden. "Feels kinda like being home."

Hayden recalled his time spent in Airdrie and growing up in Calgary, while talking about a family farm located in the area for the past 101 years, starting with his great grandparents who settled in Alberta.

"Airdrie has always been known as one of our central hubs for agriculture, and has produced some good things for the province over the years."

Hayden went on to point out that Liquor and Gambling have taken over Natural Gas as the Province's main revenue generator this past year.

"Tourism arguably is our third largest industry in the province, this past year we were around $5.5B," claimed Hayden. "And we employ pretty close to 100,000 people, and it's an area we're expecting a 20% increase."

Other spots inside Canada and the United States are the two main tourist dollar creators, with Great Britain, the Netherlands, Germany, and Japan following in that order. The numbers and origins surprised the Minister, due to the current recession the world is experiencing.

 "People around the world are dealing with shrinking economies," says Hayden. "The biggest pressure that we face is due growth in the province of Alberta, and what a wonderful problem to have. This year, we'll probably have 100,000 more new Albertans move into Alberta, and we'll still be short of people for the jobs we have available. We have a crisis on our hands, but it's a crisis that's born from success."

Soon after Hayden finished, the group had a chance to sit with the guests, one on one, to get a better sense of what is going on in our area, but to also voice their concerns as well.