Report from Ottawa: Canada needs stronger leadership; Liberals not on the right track
By Medicine Hat News Opinon on October 5, 2018.
While I always trying to remain positive and provide a balanced column, I firmly believe it is necessary to be honest about the realities Canada faces. The reality is that Canada is on a very dangerous path and facing serious issues. Canada needs leadership that can make the hard decisions to keep our country on the right track. It’s clear the current Liberal approach of virtue signalling and empty promises will not get us there. Canadians were hoping that the prime minister would recognize this and start to demonstrate real leadership on getting the big things right. Things like the economy, trade, border security, rising taxes and growing debt. However, instead of a summer of redemption, Canadians got Justin Trudeau’s summer of failures. It started with illegal border crossers. Trudeau appointed a new minister in charge of border security to fix the mess he created, but the Liberals still have no plan on how to stop the flow of people illegally entering the country. And just a few weeks ago, new data was released showing the problem at the border is causing major delays and backlogs throughout the entire immigration system. Next came trade. After failing to ratify the Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal in the spring, the prime minister flatly rejected Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer’s request to work this summer to ratify it. Thanks to Liberal missteps on international trade, Canada was on the outside looking in when Mexico and the United States agreed to a new NAFTA deal without our input. Then, the carbon tax. This summer, Trudeau quietly cut a special deal for big polluters allowing them to pay a lower rate, while families and small businesses will pay the whole amount on everything from groceries, to gasoline, to heating. Meanwhile, both Alberta and P.E.I. have pulled out of his carbon tax plan. And now, the Trans Mountain pipeline. With the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion on the brink of collapse, Trudeau spent $4.5 billion in taxpayer money to buy it from wealthy investors. After promising Canadians he would get it built, the pipeline is now on hold due to a court ruling. On jobs, we learned that Trudeau’s high taxes and overregulation could cost Canada more than 600,000 jobs over the next 10 years if Canada continues to plow ahead with policies that chase away investment and discourage growth. On ethics, yet another Liberal minister, this time former Fisheries Minister Dominic Leblanc, was found guilty of breaking conflict of interest laws when he intervened in the granting of a fishing licence to a company with family and Liberal Party ties. These are major failures with consequences that affect the safety and livelihoods of millions of Canadians. Canadians need a government that puts their needs — jobs, safe communities and opportunity- ahead of their politics. In 2019, Canadians will get their say of what our government should be. Glen Motz is MP (Conservative Party of Canada) for Medicine Hat-Cardston-Warner. 12-11
