O’Toole campaigns in the Peach City
Amid intense speculation about an impending federal election, Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole touched down in Penticton on Wednesday as part of a 12-day, campaign-style tour across the three western provinces.
O’Toole, who was set to meet with small business owners and representatives from the tourism and wine industries, is on the road selling his fivepoint Canada Recovery Plan.
Although short on details, the plan includes big promises like restoring one million jobs lost during the pandemic within one year; sending more money to the provinces to improve mental health care; strengthening government accountability and transparency; winding down COVID relief programs and spurring the economy to help get Ottawa’s fiscal house back in order; and building the country’s capacity to develop and manufacture vaccines.
On the signature million-jobs pledge, O’Toole said part of the plan will focus on the resource sector and eliminating “some of the laws and ideological blockages brought in by the Liberal government and supported by the NDP,” along with targeted incentive programs to help small- and mediumsized businesses recover and grow.
“The economic-job creation focus of our plan is the first pillar and it’s going to be relentless. I want Canada to be the top destination for talent and investment,” said O’Toole.
His visit to the Okanagan on Wednesday coincided with the Bank of Canada releasing a relatively cheery economic forecast that predicts 6% growth in 2021 and 4 1/2% in 2022.
The central bank also predicts inflation will rise to 3.9% in the third quarter of 2021 and stay in that range due mainly to spending associated with the economy reopening, before falling back to the target level of 2% in late 2022.
O’Toole said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s “spending spree” on COVID relief programs is helping drive inflation, which he believes is a bigger problem for the economy than the Bank of Canada admits.
“I’m talking to small- and medium-sized businesses all the time… and everyone I’ve talked to says suppliers are putting up costs,” he said.
O’Toole, who’s on his first national tour since being elected Conservative leader in August 2020, is also out selling his party’s environmental plan, which was released this spring.
The plan commits Canada to meeting its Paris Agreement climate targets by 2030 and floats the idea of funneling the carbon tax people pay on fuel into individual savings accounts they can draw on to help live “a greener life.”
More details of that plan will also come out during the election, which O’Toole believes could start as soon as mid-August given Trudeau’s announcement of a new governor general and the “ferocious pace” at which the prime minister committed billions of dollars to big infrastructure projects during visits to B.C. and Alberta last week.
“I hope people see that for what it is,” added O’Toole.
“This is the most scandal-prone, corrupt government I’ve seen in my lifetime and (Trudeau) is hoping to use COVID as an excuse for an election, whereas I think it’s all about how we recover.”
On that note, O’Toole sang the praises of Helena Konanz, a former Penticton city councillor and current Conservative candidate for South Okanagan-West Kootenay.
Konanz, who finished a close second to New Democrat incumbent Richard Cannings in the 2019 election, “is an example of what we need, which is a passionate person who has an understanding of the needs of small businesses,” said O’Toole.