REGAINING HIS FOCUS
New Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer says he’s ready to win back seats across the Okanagan
James Miller, valley editor for Okanagan Newspaper Group spoke with the new federal Conservative leader Andrew Scheer, during his three days in the Okanagan Valley, earlier this week.
The interview took place Wednesday at The Penticton Herald’s office. The following are highlights from the 20-minute, oneon-one interview.
OKW: Why the Okanagan? SCHEER: (It’s) not just because it’s colder everywhere else. Throughout every Parliamentary break week, I try to get to a different region in Canada. The last time I was here was the end of the summer. I met with a lot of people in the region Chambers of Commerce, local business owners, people who have jobs in different industries. So I thought it would be a good time to come back and reconnect. We have a few seats in the area we hope we can win back. I’m here to show that this area is important to the Conservative party, listening to the concerns and representing them in the House of Commons.
OKW: You have been critical of Justin Trudeau’s approach to Canada’s relationship with the Donald Trump administration. If you were prime minister, how would you handle it differently?
SCHEER: I’ve been critical of how Justin Trudeau has responded to a few issues. When we go down to the United States, the Conservative party presents a united front. I led a delegation of Conservative MPs in February and we were all there to support the government and protect what we already have internationally. Here at home, I’d be happy to explain to Canadians what a Conservative government would do but outside and when we were in Washington, I thought it was important to show Canadian unity for such an important issue that transcends party lines. When it comes to trade, there’s a challenge with this current U.S. administration and I admit it would be tough for anybody. Whoever is prime minister would have some real challenges. The president doesn’t look at trade in a philosophically-consistent way. He’s looking at it with a sector-by-sector lens, all with the metric of a trade surplus or a trade deficit. That’s not a cohesive way to look at a trading relationship. You can have trade deficits that are not a particular problem. For example, Canada has a massive trade deficit on citrus fruit, but it doesn’t really bother us as a country because other countries produce those goods better and more efficiently. What I do think that was missing was early on in the administration the current Liberal government should have really engaged with a wider group of allies throughout the United States finding common cause with business owners who hire two, three, four hundred people in swing U.S. states. To help them make the case for free trade with Canada. That’s what the Conservative government did with Buy American. We didn’t just go down and talk to officials in Washington, we spread it all throughout the U.S. and found those factories, those employers who create jobs in the U.S. thanks to trade with Canada. It started happening, the Trudeau government started doing it but a little too late, really not until last summer from what we can tell. They should have been doing that earlier, and more of it.
OKW: Where does your party stand on the pipeline?
SCHEER: We believe that getting oil and gas off of rails and onto an environmentally-friendly method of transportation like pipelines is very important. They are the most efficient way to transport energy. It’s costing Canadians. We’re getting a bad deal from only being able to sell to one customer. We’re taking a huge discount by just getting one price from the U.S. We need more access points to other markets. We believe that when there is an independent, science-based, objective analysis that gives a stamp of approval that there’s been proper consultation. When that approval is given, the pipelines should proceed. It’s disappointing that Justin Trudeau killed Northern Gateway purely for political reasons, a project that would have opened up deep water access points to Asian markets. It would have given us a whole new set of customers. It would have given Canadians from all across the country a better price for our natural resources. He killed it based on political considerations, and not based on science. It had received the approval from that independent board. Ignoring the concerns of First Nations communities all along the way that were going to benefit from that project. (He was) only listening to a very vocal group of people who were opposed to it. So we would absolutely support the construction of these pipelines and ensure that they actually do get built.
OKW: Do you support the Liberals’ efforts on reconciliation with our First Nations communities?
SCHEER: It was our government that apologized for the residential school system and put the compensation behind it, compensating survivors of the residential school system as well as family members who had a difficult life because a parent went through that system and suffered because of it. We started to do a lot of great work on that. Absolutely, we’d look at ways to continue that. We’re going to have a series of policies in the next election that deal with improving the quality of life both on and off reserve for First Nations Canadians.
OKW: How would you approach Canada’s climate action plan, given the reluctance of some provinces to comply?
SCHEER: It’s not about the reluctance to comply, it’s about the refusal to accept a federal carbon tax, something even the Liberals can not attach a number of how much greenhouse gasses would actually be reduced by. We’re being told it’s going to be $50 a tonne but there’s no indication of how much emissions will go down. They don’t have the data on that. We do know it’s going to cost Canadians a lot of money. We do know they’re collecting a tax on a tax. We asked the prime minister and environment minister and they don’t have answers. It’s just a tax for the sake of a tax. Our environmental program will speak to 10 new ways to reduce emissions. The previous Conservative government achieved that while growing our economy without using a new tax. I don’t allow Liberals to get away by calling it “a price on carbon.” A price is something that the market arrives at based on supply and demand and you have a choice on whether or not to pay it. When a government sets a cost, forces you to pay it, and collects the revenue — that’s a tax and nowhere has it been proven that a carbon tax actually reduces emissions. It makes us less competitive. Talking about NAFTA, it’s important to keep borders open for trade, but if our country is not competitive, if we’re not having investors clamoring to get into Canada, wanting to open up to expand, it won’t matter, we’re going to lose a lot of opportunities to other countries that are not imposing a carbon tax on their population.
OKW: Kelowna-Lake Country was considered one of the most winnable ridings in the country (for the Conservatives) and the Conservatives didn’t win that riding. What went wrong and what does your party intend to do to win the riding back?
SCHEER: There were a lot of areas around the country the Conservative party had held for many years and we lost them, clearly. In the last election, we weren’t offering a vision of the country that was resonating with enough Canadians. I think we did a great job of retaining our vote. If you look at a lot of the seats we lost, we actually increased the votes we got in a lot of those places. I’m not entirely sure if that’s specific to Kelowna, but in many areas that we did lose seats, we actually increased our share of the vote. But, clearly there was a movement where there was polarization where people got together and voted against us and we lost some of those seats. I think the key for the next time is to show the alternative — what a positive Conservative vision would mean for Canada ... when you contrast that to what’s going on now with Justin Trudeau. He’s playing politics of divisiveness, he’s pitting one group of Canadians against another. We saw that with the attack on small business — very negative, demonizing language, casting a whole group of entrepreneurs and hard-working risk takers who create jobs in our communities as being tax cheats. We see it more and more with our identity politics. What Conservatives are going to offer, is when we lower taxes and balance the budgets, it’s not just about numbers on a page — it’s about benefiting people, making sure that people like me, when I was 20, I got a job with a small business. I had that opportunity because the private sector creates those jobs. To win those seats back, we’ll have great candidates and a series of policies that will make life more affordable in a very practical way with a positive vision of what the future of Canada can be.
OKW: Penticton was also considered a safe riding, although it did add the Kootenays, which is traditionally NDP territory. The riding went to the NDP. Again, what went wrong in Penticton and what do you have to do to win it back?
SCHEER: People who voted for other parties who may of had an image of the party, when you look at the issues, whether it’s improving the quality of life for First Nations people, we brought in meaningful educational reform that were really designed to assure First Nations students were getting access to a real, quality education that can let them go on to post-secondary. We did a lot of great work, but I don’t know if we did a good enough job talking about it in a positive way. I think we focused on some negative things in the last election that obviously didn’t work. I think for voters who voted NDP in Penticton, I think they have to look and say, “What do we get for that?” Now we have a member of Parliament in Ottawa who is voting to raise taxes on small businesses, who is advocating for a carbon tax. Every proposal the NDP has would have a devastating impact on our economy. It’s Conservative MPs, like Dan (Albas) who are fighting against the new tax proposals, who are listening to the concerns of the constituents and who recognize that all the government spending in the world won’t make a difference if you don’t have a dynamic free-market economy and a private sector that’s growing and creating those jobs. That’s what Conservative MPs understand. That’s how you make sure that governments have the revenue to pay for social programs for the most vulnerable and have that compassion inside of things which Conservatives always have, but sometimes we don’t lead with that. Part of my message is to show it’s Conservative policies that address things like moving low-income Canadians into a higher bracket because it’s giving them more access to skills training and better jobs jobs in the future, a better quality of life.
OKW: You’ve been leader since May 27, 2017, what do you consider to be your greatest accomplishment during the short time that you’ve been party leader?
SCHEER: When in Opposition, a lot of times you measure your successes by what you’ve prevented the government from doing. I really do think that when we look back at what the Liberals were proposing — to raise taxes on small business — it was massive and it was comprehensive and they were not backing down. This was not just a conversation starter, they actually tabled the regulations and draft legislation. Our members of Parliament, were not only working very hard in the ridings they held, Dan (Albas) travelled all across Canada as a small business shadow minister. We did not just work in the 97 ridings we held, we went out into dozens and dozens of ridings to help amplify the backlash of Chambers of Commerce and small business owners and people who work in small business, who were concerned about their job. Watching how the Liberals were doubling down throughout September, October and into early November and then watching them to repeal what was basically a signature, landmark piece of their budget, pull that back. That was a great accomplishment. Literally hundreds of thousands of jobs have been saved thanks to our ability to make the Liberals abandon their terrible idea.
OKW: Sometime leadership campaigns can divide a party, or at the very least, create hard feelings. There were 16 people seeking the leadership. Is the federal Conservative party united?
SCHEER: Absolutely. I believe the key reason why I won was because I made the appeal to Conservatives that we have to focus on the common ground that we share. There are a lot of different kinds of Conservatives. Everyone joins the Conservative party for different reasons, but there’s a lot that we all overlap on whether you’re a fiscal Conservative or social Conservative or foreign policy Conservative or a Democratic reform policy Conservative. There are a few basic principles that we all share. My pitch to members was let’s drop some of the more divisive proposals and focus on that common ground. People who backed other candidates, Maxime Bernier, Erin O’Toole, Lisa Raitt or Michael Chong, I offered enough of the fundamental principles that they joined the party for. We have so much common ground and that’s what we’re doing in caucus every Wednesday when we talk about issues. We look for that common ground. Maxime Bernier has a private members bill to bring more transparencies into corporate subsidies, that’s a great policy that our entire caucus supports. That’s the key to being a successful leader, keeping a caucus moving that’s united. Always search out that common ground. I do really get the sense from our caucus meetings every Wednesday that it’s working.
OKW: Do you pay attention to polls? SCHEER: It’s hard not to. They get so much attention, but I try always not to get too caught up in the good polls and not get too dismayed by the bad polls. One thing I can guarantee is that they will change between now and the next election. There will be weeks and months when the polls will go up and the polls will go down for myself and for the Liberals. What’s important for me is the fundamentals behind the polls. When you look beyond “who would you vote for if the election was held tomorrow?,” the numbers around “would you be open to voting for the Conservative party?” and right now the polls collectively are showing our accessible voter base is the biggest it’s ever been since, I believe, the coalition crisis of 2008. More of our people are open to voting for us because of my style, my approach, my authenticity and my genuine desire to tell people is resonating. Now the key is to put policies in the window that are just not opening to voting Conservative, but to make the decision to vote Conservative.
OKW: Who was your own political idol? SCHEER: As I was getting interested in politics, there were a few great examples of politicans who have a principled set of Conservative values, but express it in a positive way. Ronald Reagan in the U.S., Margaret Thatcher in the U.K., living in Saskatchewan, of course Brad Wall has done a great job to show how Conservative policies aren’t just good for the economy but they’re good for society. They do allow a more compassionate society.