Incumbent MLA Glen Motz speaks to voters at an open house in his campaign office Thursday night. Local candidates have weighed in on the rising cost of living on how their party's plan to stand up for Canadians..--NEWS PHOTO BRENDAN MILLER
bmiller@medicinehatnews.com
Although divided by party lines, local candidates for the three major parties in the upcoming election say change is needed at the federal level to address rising cost of living across the country.
Incumbent Glen Motz of the Conservatives held an open house Thursday evening to connect with local voters and answer questions from reporters. Without sugar-coating the issue, Motz claimed the country will be “completely destroyed” if Canadians elect another Liberal government.
“We cannot have another fourth term with them,” said Motz, who says Canadians can’t afford to pay any additional taxes as the price of housing and food continues to increase.
Motz, running now in his fourth election in the Medicine Hat-Cardston-Warner riding, says the Conservatives are focused on bolstering the nation’s energy sector and promoting the use and sale of Canadian energy within domestic borders and abroad.
“We need Canadian energy. Why are we buying oil from Russia and Venezuela and in the Middle East when we have enough to supply Canada?,” he said. “We need to get refineries built and pipelines built and get our product to markets across the globe.”
The incumbent MP says throughout his campaign voters have been saying they are looking for a change in federal leadership and says this year has seen the most engaged voters in all four elections.
“Some of the elections in the past, people didn’t even know there was an election. There is no doubt about it this time,” explains Motz. “Long before the writ dropped for the election, we had people lining up to volunteer.”
Jocelyn Johnson of the New Democrats says her party is focused on providing economic stability amidst global trade volatility and spoke about the importance of local procurement, more infrastructure investments and a partnership between Ottawa and municipalities to boost local economies.
She also says Canada has to focus on looking to expand its international trade partners with other nations who will respect trade agreements.
“We are becoming a lot more self interested in the sense of our defensiveness and our protection of our local economic interest,” says Johnson.
Johnson is running in her second election as the NDP candidate, a Hat-native who now lives in Edmonton. She says the NDP is calling for national unity and leadership to prevent regional alienation.
“We want to see leadership that pulls us all together, and has a national strategy, rather than that divisive sort of dialog that we’ve been hearing for a very long time, particularly from our Conservative party.”
In terms of affordable housing, Jocelyn says the federal government needs to develop a stable plan of secured, predictable funding that will allow contractors to develop housing without the uncertainty of the current affordable housing and subsidized housing plans.
“We’ve seen that totally drop off a cliff (federal investments) over the last several years. I think the national share of the health budgets and affordable housing budgets historically have been much larger than they’ve been more recently. I think there needs to be sort of this re-normalization of some of these key places where the government can put investment dollars.”
Tom Rooke of the Liberals says he believes Canadians are fighting for their sovereignty and that leader Mark Carney is the best candidate to stand up for the country this election.
“That’s one of the reasons why I let my name stand to be a candidate and to be a Liberal candidate,” says Rooke, well-known in the community for promoting a number of local charity drives, as well as serving as a public school board trustee for more than 12 years.
Rooks says Carney’s business background and experience with the Bank of Canada makes him the ideal candidate to be able to negotiate new trade agreements with nations other than the U.S.
“After yesterday (referring to sweeping tariffs introduced by President Donald Trump) this changes global trading dramatically and I think Carney and the Liberal Party will be able to fit into that,” says Rooke.
Although noting that it’s not normally within Ottawa’s jurisdiction, Rooks says if elected he would be able to voice the concerns of rising housing and rental costs in Medicine Hat to leaders.
“Then I can go to my caucus, and I can go to my people in power, and I can say, ‘Listen, we haven’t had anything here for years. So here’s what the farmers need, what the ranchers need, here’s what the people in Medicine Hat need’.”
Canadians will hit the polls April 28.
