Conservatives focused on bigger picture
Scheer says better vision of Canada will help win back local seats lost in 2015
Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer doesn’t have a definitive answer on why his party lost one of the safest ridings in Canada in the last federal election.
“There were a lot of areas around the country the Conservative party had held for many years and we lost them, clearly,” Scheer said, Wednesday. “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.”
Scheer ends a three-day tour of the Okanagan Valley today.
In 2015, Liberal Stephen Fuhr, a political newcomer, defeated three-time Conservative incumbent Ron Cannan by more than 4,000 votes in Kelowna-Lake Country. The Conservatives also lost South Okanagan-West Kootenay to Richard Cannings of the NDP.
Scheer didn’t specifically speak to how the party intends to win back those two ridings, instead he focused on Canada.
“The key to 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 off another. We saw that with the attack on small business — negative, demonizing language, casting a whole group of entrepreneurs who create jobs in our communities as tax cheats.”
This is Scheer’s second visit to the Okanagan since winning the party nomination in May 2017.
He began Wednesday with a breakfast meeting with the Kelowna Chamber of Commerce followed by a meeting with Westbank First Nations officials and lunch at the Gasthaus on the Lake in Peachland. He toured Penticton in the late afternoon and concluded the evening in Oliver at a public rally.
He concludes his Okanagan tour today with a breakfast meeting with the Penticton and Wine Country Chamber of Commerce.
“I try and get to every region in Canada. I was here at the end of last summer and I thought now would be a good time to come back and reconnect with people. We have a few seats in the area that we’re hoping we can win back. I’m here to show that this area is important to the Conservative party and listening to people’s concerns and representing them in the House of Commons.”
Scheer fielded questions on a number of topics relevant to B.C. On the Kinder Morgan pipeline, he said the Conservatives are in favour.
“We believe that getting oil and gas off of rails and onto an environmentally friendly method of pipelines is very important,” he said.
“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 get it to market. It’s disappointing that Justin Trudeau killed Northern Gateway purely for political reasons.”
To read Scheer’s full interview, see coverage in the Okanagan Weekend on Saturday.