Federal Conservative Party Leadership candidate Pierre Poilievre in Battleford Tuesday for a voting party/meet and greet held at the Lions Club. (Shown lower left) Battleford Mayor Ames Leslie gets an autograph from the hopeful. (Angela Brown/battlefordsNOW staff)

By Angela Brown

2022 Conservative Leadership Race

CPC candidate Pierre Poilievre visits the Battlefords

Aug 2, 2022 | 2:16 PM

Candidate for the Federal Conservative Party leadership race, Pierre Poilievre, visited the Battlefords Tuesday as part of his cross-country meet and greet.

He stopped in at the Lions Club where party members had a chance to meet him and cast their ballot for the candidate of their choice.

The Carleton, Ontario MP, who has Prairie roots, wants to see more done to make life better for Western Canadians.

“The Trudeau government has attacked Western energy and farming with his anti-pipeline and anti-fertilizer policies,” Poilievre said. “People need hope that those policies will reverse, and I will reverse them. I’m going to axe the carbon tax, approve major natural resource projects and reverse the mandatory cutbacks on fertilizer so that our farmers can produce even more nutritious and environmentally-responsible food.”

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Poilievre added getting rid of the carbon tax will also help deal with climbing inflation.

“Instead of producing more cash, we should be producing more of what cash buys, to grow more food, produce more energy, and build more homes,” he said. “To do that we need to get the government gatekeepers out of the way and let farmers farm, builders build and energy workers produce. That’s what we’re going to do.”

To further help Western interests, Poilievre noted he’s going to “bring fairness to all Western Canadians, fairness in equalization and fairness in representation in the House of Commons.”

Beating crime

Tackling crime is also one of the his targets.

“We all believe in rehabilitation for people who make a small mistake and want to get back and contribute to society. But those repeated violent offenders who do crime again and again, have to go behind bars,” Poilievre said. “Trudeau’s soft-on-crime policies have led to major spikes in crime on our streets and we need to toughen the laws for the repeat violent offenders, keep them in prison so that our communities are safe.”

Poilievre also wants to see an end to the federal government’s vaccination mandates for travelers and cross-border workers. He added that truckers are the least likely people to spread a virus because “they are alone in a truck, all day.”

“This mandate on them that they have to quarantine for 14 days after coming back to Canada which is impossible when you’re delivering urgent cargo, they are out of a paycheck and we’re down workers,” he said. “We need to get rid of these dumb restrictions that don’t exist anywhere else in the world so that Canadians can get back to work and our economy can get back working.”

Many of Poilievre’s promises focus on increasing Canadians’ freedoms and removing government “gatekeepers.” He also hopes to help Indigenous communities in this way also.

“We should allow First Nations to develop resources where they so choose. We should give them more control over their lands and their money so that they can bring business opportunities that will generate paychecks for their people and resources for their social programs.”

On how he will be able to deliver on all his promises if he doesn’t get voters from Ontario and Quebec, Poilievre isn’t too worried. He added he’s confident he will overcome Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in the next general election.

“I’ve been elected seven times in Ontario in a big-city riding. So I can do that again,” he said. “I can win this election hands-down against Justin Trudeau. I beat Liberals in a big Liberal city like Ottawa, and I will beat Trudeau in the general election to come.”

Local reaction

Area farmer Konrad Martynes took in Poilievre’s talk and said he hopes the candidate can do more for the agricultural industry.

“The main thing I’m concerned about is the carbon tax. Now we have a proposed reduction on our fertilizer. That’s very concerning to me,” he said. “And the carbon tax is insane. It’s costing me tens of thousands of dollars.”

Battleford Mayor Ames Leslie who also attended the local Meet and Greet said it’s good to see candidates coming to the Battlefords, adding that he appreciates what Poilievre has to offer.

“I liked the fact that he is going to truly try and make a Canada for the middle class,” he said. “Today, we have reliance on oil and gas and he is going to look for ways to maximize that – both on the environmental side and on the profitability side for Canadians. I think it’s the right approach to take.”

Conservative Party members have until September 10, 2022, to vote for one of the five candidates running in the leadership race on now. The other candidates include Scott Aitchison, Roman Baber, Jean Charest, and Leslyn Lewis.

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Angela.Brown@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @battlefordsNOW