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People's Party of Canada Andrew Nelson believes the economy is the No. 1 issue for Medicine Hat-Cardston-Warner constituents in the upcoming federal election.
jappel@medicinehatnews.com@MHNJeremyAppel
The hard-right People’s Party of Canada has a candidate in the Medicine Hat-Cardston-Warner riding for October’s federal election.
Andrew Nelson, a retired construction superintendent, says he was a member of the Conservative Party of Canada until late 2018, but became disillusioned with the party under Andrew Scheer’s leadership.
The People’s Party was founded last year by Maxime Bernier, the runner-up to Scheer in the Conservative leadership race, after Bernier left the Tories due to a spat with party leadership on trade and immigration policy.
“The Conservative Party, in my opinion, is like the old Liberal Party now,” Nelson said. “They’ve just gone further and further left until they’re not even conservatives much anymore.”
On immigration, Nelson – himself an immigrant from the U.K. – strikes a hard line, yearning for the time when all of Canada’s immigrants spoke English or French.
“I’m pretty upset at what our government has done in allowing people to come in who are just sidestepping all of the procedures. Many of them just don’t even intend to ever integrate into Canadian society,” he claims. “We need to get things back to the way they used to be.”
Nelson directed his ire against the asylum seekers entering the country irregularly from the U.S., although asylum applicants go through a separate process from prospective immigrants.
“Nobody should be trying to change Canada to suit their own way of life,” Nelson said, claiming that “a lot of groups” are attempting to do this, without specifying who.
“A lot of people now are getting citizenship through translators. I want to put a stop to that.”
Besides immigration, Nelson says he departs from the Tories on gun rights and the equalization payment formula.
“We think that property rights need to be entrenched in our rights in Canada, and we need to show respect for legal and law-abiding citizens that have gone through the process, done things legally and now the government’s thinking that they want to confiscate private property,” said Nelson.
His major gripe with the equalization formula is that Quebec is a net recipient of equalization payments, which are collected through income taxes from all provinces by the federal government and redistributed to “have-not” provinces to ensure residents across the country have equal access to services, regardless of where they reside.
“They’re certainly not a have-not province, but because of the way the system is set up, they will always take that money and be in that situation,” Nelson said.
He says that although Scheer’s struck some similar notes on these policies, he doesn’t believe the Tory leader is sincere.
“He’s pretty weak and he seems to backpedal a lot. He’s gaining a bit of traction now on a number of issues, but those issues will fade away and he’ll be back to the way that he was,” said Nelson.
“Maxime is just a stronger leader and he’s not willing to compromise about what being a Canadian is and what being a Conservative is.”
The Conservatives received 70 per cent of the vote in the 2017 byelection that sent MP Glen Motz to Ottawa, but Nelson says he’s in the race to win, dismissing potential concerns he could split the right-wing vote.
“We’re not trying to split the vote. We want the vote,” said Nelson. “The Conservative Party now is trying to split the vote with the Liberals and they’re welcome to that.”
