News File Photo
Medicine Hat-Cardston-Warner MP Glen Motz discusses the 2025 Federal election result with former Medicine Hat mayor and current Coun. Ted Clugston at the CPC campaign headquarters in Medicine Hat on April 28. Motz was elected as MP for a fourth time in the 45th General Election.
zmason@medicinehatnews.com
Glen Motz, MP for Medicine Hat-Cardston-Warner, is not satisfied with the way things went in 2025.
Motz doesn’t believe Alberta has much to show from this year’s federal policy.
He says that even the memorandum of understanding, which Premier Danielle Smith points to as the beginning of a new era in Alberta-Ottawa relations, is a hollow victory.
“I applaud Premier Smith. I think she is doing our province well in a lot of fronts and pushing for some things to get energy. The development of the energy sector in this province without federal interference is critical. And I give her all kudos for that,” he said in an interview with the News on Wednesday.
“However, Carney is not going to build a pipeline. We live in a dream world if we actually believe he’s going to build a pipeline.”
Motz highlighted the Conservative motion, defeated in parliament last week, that borrowed language from the Alberta-Ottawa MOU to try to fortify the federal government’s commitment to getting a pipeline built in Alberta.
The motion asked members to support the construction of “one or more pipelines enabling the export of at least one million barrels a day of low-emission Alberta bitumen from a strategic deep-water port on the British Columbia coast to reach Asian markets.”
While this language echoes the wording used in the MOU, the Conservative motion added: “including through an appropriate adjustment to the Oil and Tanker Moratorium Act, while respecting the duty to consult Indigenous peoples.”
The motion was voted down 196 to 139.
“Again, I applaud Alberta for pushing hard for it, but an interprovincial pipeline is directly in the purview of the federal government. It is their responsibility to make it happen, but you can’t have that if they don’t repeal the legislation they have that stands in the way of development.”
Motz pointed to Bill C-69 as one example of legislation that is obstructing the goals outlined in the MOU. Bill C-69, sometimes referred to under former premier Jason Kenney’s nickname, the ‘no more pipelines act,’ requires environmental assessments to precede new major resource projects.
Motz says that the issue constituents bring to his office most often is cost of living.
“Affordability remains the top Canadian issue, certainly,” he says.
Motz says 85 per cent of Canadian households have reported food expenses increasing over the past year. He wants to see government take action on grocery pricing.
While there is no tax on “basic groceries,” Motz says taxes like the industrial carbon tax impacts grocery prices by hitting producers and distributers with additional costs.
He also says that consumers don’t always notice that some groceries, considered snack foods or candy, are taxable. Foodstuffs excluded from zero-rating include potato chips, cheese platters, and fresh salads. Some foods, like granola bars, can also be taxable depending on packaging and the number of units in a box.
Motz would like to see taxes like these ones amended or eliminated.
“Food prices continue to climb and climb and climb,” he said.
“These are some things Conservatives have asked the government to put in their budget and make happen.”
Motz is not satisfied with the Liberal government’s actions to address the cost of living crisis so far, and he says it will remain the focus of his advocacy heading into the new year.
“We will continue to push for affordability issues, and holding this government to account, and taking the issues from the people in this riding to Ottawa, the energy sector, ag sector, the tariffs and the impact it has on local industry and business. We will continue to try to get the government to change direction on those things.”
