NIPAWIN — Five out of six of the candidates running for the federal election to represent the riding of Prince Albert attended an event by the Nipawin and District Chamber of Commerce where they met local voters.
Kerri Wall with the Green Party was not in attendance.
Kelly Day – People’s Party of Canada
Day stated she wanted to end supply management on dairy and eggs; end equalization, which ensures that all Canadians have access to a similar level of services from their provincial government; wants to critically look at immigration; and be opposed to “political correctness”.
“Right now in the law we define hate speech as the incitement of violence, the incitement of things that are a little bit beyond what would be subjective,” she said. “This is where the problem comes from. Myself, I like to treat everybody with respect, do I believe we can legislate that? No, I don’t.”
Day promised to repeal Bill C-16, which amended the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code to add protections for gender identity and gender expression, for those who are transgender.
An example Day gave was that she wants female sex offenders to be put in male prisons if they are transgender.
“We are not promoting hatred, we are not promoting division, we are not promoting segregation, we believe in Canada we are welcome to be whatever we want to be.”
Day said her stance on immigration is to reduce immigrants legally accepted into Canada. The numbers she hopes to achieve is accepting between 100,000 to 150,000 per year, and differentiating between “economic migrants” and others.
“We also want to make sure that we’re interviewing people when they come. We want to prevent issues that are happening in the U.K., France, Sweden, where we’re having terrorism and issues where values are causing lots of cultural incidents.”
The People’s Party of Canada opposes any type of carbon pricing, including the carbon tax.
Estelle Hjertaas – Liberal Party
Hjertaas is a lawyer with Legal Aid in Prince Albert.
“I’m very proud of the accomplishments we made over the last four years, particularly of the 308 commitments we made last election,” Hjertaas said. “Ninety-two per cent of those are completed or in process — I think that’s the best record of any Prime Minister.”
She discussed how crime is an issue that she wants to address by addressing root causes. To do this she intends to support the Canada Child Benefit and investments in mental health.
Hjertaas promised to continue supporting federal infrastructure funding to the region. She used the wastewater upgrades and treatment plans the federal government sent funding to throughout the region as an example of how the Liberal Party is currently supporting local infrastructure.
“We invested also in paving and repaving hundreds of kilometers of pavement, which is significant. And places like Tisdale got funding for a new garbage dump, they want to do composting.”
She also promised having high speed internet in place throughout the region.
“High speed internet in rural communities is either not there or very slow. It’s not great,” Hjertaas said. “We are promising an additional large amount of funding to make sure that gets done.”
When asked about the canola trade dispute, Hjertaas said it was unfortunate to be caught in-between a dispute between China and the United States, but the United States is Canada’s “longest and strongest ally.”
“We have not allowed China to bully us in that position, because they want us to essentially ignore Canadian and international law that we have to follow,” she said. “That’s the problem with dealing with a country that’s a dictatorship and is not following the law. They can do those things.”
Hjertaas said that the Liberal Party will continue to not intervene in the criminal trial of Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies.
Randy Hoback – Conservative Party
Hoback is the incumbent for the riding.
“This election is about you, it’s about what we can do to help you get by, what we can do to help make life more affordable for you and your family,” he said.
Hoback said that if elected, the Conservative Party plans to go after criminal gangs.
“We used to have mandatory minimum sentences for repeat offenders, the Liberals got rid of that.”
He also promised to reduce foreign aid from the federal government and build a relationship with veterans.
He said he would not tax the rich or corporations, because it would cause them to move out of country.
“We’ve seen that in Saskatchewan. How many years has Saskatchewan and an NDP government chased all our smartest and brightest,” Hoback asked. “You got to be competitive internationally. We’re an exporting country, so if we’re not competitive internationally we don’t got jobs here.”
Harmony Johnson-Harder – New Democratic Party (NDP)
Johnson-Harder is a Cree Métis woman from Saskatchewan.
“What I really love about the NDP Party and what it means to me is bringing back those values Saskatchewan has had for many, many years from the CCF to the NDP,” she said. “Saskatchewan had built this nation with universal healthcare, and all these social programs that we are proud when we are in the international world of what we have to offer Canadian citizens.”
Johnson-Harder said she wants to continue this legacy by introducing pharmacare, expanding post-secondary education, and making education accessible without barriers.
“The Canada that I fell in love with as a student was one of diversity, one of inclusivity, and one that really prided itself on the world stage for peacemaking and we were the world leaders.”
Johnson-Harder spoke to the party’s climate change plan which includes creating at least 300,000 new jobs building the clean energy future across the country, ending oil and gas company subsidies, banning single use plastics as well as making it easier to get and use Canadian-made zero-emission vehicles by making them more affordable, and build a network of charging stations across the country.
“People are always asking, ‘How are we going to pay for that? How are we going to pay for that?’ That’s through closing tax loopholes, and as Randy [Hoback] said, being accountable for taxes. Who is holding the corporations and the billionaires accountable in taxes? Nobody is.”
This brought Johnson-Harder to the NDP’s official platform of bringing a tax on the multimillionaires, with fortunes above $20 million, alongside tougher enforcement to stop tax evasion both in Canada and off-shore. Over a 10 year period this is expected to generate $70 billion, starting with $5.6 billion in 2020 to 2021 and growing to $9.5 billion by 2028 to 2029.
Brian Littlepine – Veterans Coalition Party of Canada
Littlepine has been an educator since 1988.
“The Veterans Coalition Party, it was started by a veteran for Canadians. In Canada, because we’re diverse, we come from all different kinds of backgrounds, that makes up the coalition,” he said.
Littlepine spoke up against partisan politics during his introduction.
He promised to repeal Liberal changes to the Canada Summer Jobs program that required organizations to attest that neither the job nor the core mandate of the organization opposed human rights, including those related to access to abortion. That concerned churches that have declared a position against abortion.
“One of the major things I had really wanted to talk about was something, a decision that was made I think last year, that affected many people in Western Canada, even Ontario and that’s small businesses could not apply for student funding if they had Christian ideals, Christian values.”
Littlepine also promised to reduce the pay of all Members of Parliament, provide clean drinking water to Indigenous communities, strengthen employees’ rights in the workplace, repeal carbon taxes, repeal the United Nations Migration Compact, review Canada’s refugee policies and reduce overall taxes.
