Humboldt chamber brings issues to candidates during election forum

Fitzpatrick also encouraged everyone to get out and vote.

“It’s not just about watching. It’s about going out and voting and putting your mark down. That’s where the magic happens,” he said.

Here are some highlights from the evening:

Kelly Block (Incumbent) – Conservative Party of Canada

On Canola trade disputes with China: “Conservatives have been relentless as her majesty’s loyal opposition in advocating for our agricultural producers and others when it comes to standing up to the communist government of China. To be clear our argument our quarrel is not with the people of China, but a Conservative government will negotiate new agreements with free countries that safeguard workers rights and the environment rebalancing our trade priorities away from countries like China and towards the Indo-Pacific and Africa.”

On questions from constituents that have given you pause: “Certainly the pandemic, the impact that it’s had on our country, on our province, on our communities on our families that’s been one of the overarching questions. And people are concerned about the lockdowns which has given me pause because I know that you know it was our provincial government that declared a state of emergency and, therefore, they are responsible for the restrictions and reopening plans, and so there’s a lot of conversation that needs to be had.”

Micheal Bohach – People’s Party of Canada

On debt management: “This is the time where we need to start looking at trimming stuff back. Foreign aid, we spent $5 billion last year in foreign aid with another promise of $1.4 billion over the next four years. If we’re not taking care of people in our own backyard, why are we spending money like that? We need to start pulling back on these things, or the CBC and the $1.065 billion that goes into funding that. These are things that we need to cut back on big time. It’s got to be intelligence got to be responsible.”

On taking action on Truth and Reconciliation recommendations: “This goes right back to the very start of promises that we’ve made, down to essentials. And I can’t stress this enough, things that we’ve promised, things that are basic necessities, I think before we start getting ahead of ourselves, we need to go back and say, let’s get focused on drinking water. There’s communities with no power. We need to work with these people to get them at least up to the basic necessities of life.”

Shannon O’Toole – New Democratic Park of Canada

On why Canada is having an election: “Elections are important because we do have these things to solve and elections are an important part of our democracy so we just carry on it and go through it but I think that the ambitions of the prime minister for his own means is unfortunate, and it’s not the right time and it’s not the right reason to have an election.”

On labour shortages follow the pandemic reopening: “This province happens to have what I believe is still the lowest minimum wage, and I don’t blame folks who went through the torrents of a pandemic and have lost people and were afraid of losing their own lives, not wanting to go back to a job where, frankly, employers don’t care whether or not they can make their bills and the rent and their groceries. So I think we have to look honestly at how we treat workers and how we pay workers.”

Diane Pastoor – Maverick Party

On assisting and augmenting small business development and expansion: “The Maverick party believes that Canadians have a right to fair and equitable treatment, including all business owners, large and small. As we know the lockdowns have harmed our small businesses, and they’ve lost billions of dollars while the big box stores and Amazon have increased their wealth by the same amounts. Western Canadians do not need more levies and taxes. In fact the Maverick Party is firm on the issue of amendments in our constitution to stop or re-formalize the equalization payments. We cannot continue to send our hard earned money to the east.”

On requirement for people to be vaccinated for universal protection: “The Maverick Party believes in the rights of individuals as enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights. Everyone has a right to life, liberty and security of a person. So getting a COVID shot is a personal choice made by the individual, and there’s no government that should ever make it mandatory. It’s inciting hate and intolerance, and even by our own Prime Minister, and it’s unconstitutional. He’s allowing international travellers coming in testing positive for COVID while punishing and locking down Canadians and it’s unacceptable. This pandemic has become more about power than it has been about science. And we believe citizens should have a choice for what to put into their bodies, especially an unproven vaccine.”

Cherese Reemaul – Green Party of Canada

On mental health supports: “We believe in localized-culturally focused programming for mental health. For example, here in Saskatoon, our Saskatoon police force has community support officers now on their role, which should not be happening. We believe that police force should stick to police work and those kinds of resources should go to community based organizations to provide community support.”

On the most important issue a new government should address first: “If I were to be in government tomorrow I would call for an immediate ban on importment of foreign oil into Canada. And then the other thing I would seek to engage Ottawa in is redefining what is green because they have a very specific image about what is green. And whereas the Green Party of Canada does support carbon tax, we acknowledge that this is just a temporary measure. It’s a stop gap, it’s a band aid, it’s not really a solution. What we really would like to do is carbon removal.”

–

becky.zimmer@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @bex_zim

by Becky Zimmer

Humboldt chamber brings issues to candidates during election forum

What's Trending