Airdrie-Cochrane MLA Peter Guthrie expects the spring sitting of the Alberta Legislative Assembly will be extended into the summer.

Wednesday was Day 13 of the spring sitting and it once again focused on taking immediate measures to address COVID-19, further pushing back priorities established by the Kenney government prior to the global outbreak.

"We have to get over this hump first," says Guthrie. "We have to make sure people are taking this seriously, and that we follow all the protocols being asked of us so we don't place heavy demands on the health care system."

Vital next steps are in the works to help the economy when the pandemic is behind us.

"We do need to be planning and to be ready for when people are out and about to introduce stimulus in order to get the economy up and running again. Those preparations are ongoing right now."

"We are going to have to look at all kinds of projects to stimulate our economy to get people back to work."

That includes projects in the resource and construction sector, and launching projects already in the system, like roads, seniors homes, and public facilities.

"We're looking to take any of those shovel-ready projects that maybe we have planned over the next four years and move them up to current. To me, what's happened here over the last couple of weeks has brought that even more to light."

Guthrie says they also need to be working at supporting commercial projects by removing roadblocks so they can move forward as quickly as possible.

He hopes the historical drop in the world price of oil, caused by a squabble between Russia and Saudi Arabia and further impacted by the pandemic, will encourage Canada to work together to protect its energy sector and focus on becoming self-sufficient.