MITCHELL MACDONALD
CONNECTION: VOLUNTEER FOR TEAM TRUDEAU IN GLACE BAY
At first glance, Mitchell MacDonald seems a typical 21st century teenager sporting a T-shirt and neatly-combed brown hair.
But this modest-looking young man is also a keen volunteer for the federal Liberals in his hometown Glace Bay, driven by an urge to defeat a Conservative Party he says is backward-looking.
“It’s the hateful and vile social views,” said MacDonald of Tory leader Andrew Scheer. “I just don’t understand how a leader who’s 40 has views that are still stuck in the 1950s. I just don’t understand how he can do so little on the environment and blatantly ignore the science and the carbon tax that science has proven to work.”
MacDonald pointed to Scheer’s stance on abortion and LGBTQ+ rights as examples of what he sees as Tory regressiveness. This week, a video from 2005 surfaced showing Scheer voicing opposition to marriage equality.
He said his own party supports both women’s rights and the LGBTQ+, while protecting the economy and overseeing consistent economic growth while fighting climate change.
MacDonald decided to join the federal Liberals thanks in part to his neighbour Geoff MacLellan, who serves as government house leader for the provincial party.
MacDonald attended his first Liberal meeting in 2017 and after meeting other party members decided to get involved.
His local MP is Liberal Rodger Cuzner, who was first elected in 2000, the year MacDonald was born. The riding of Cape Breton-Canso has long been seen as a Liberal bastion.
However, with Cuzner now retiring, the Conservatives are eyeing a chance to take the riding come Oct. 21, even as MacDonald and his fellow Liberals rally to keep them out.
The Tories are playing up recent controversies such as that surrounding Trudeau’s handling of the SNC Lavalin affair.
This saw attorney-general Jody Wilson-Raybould, principal secretary Gerald Butts and former cabinet Jane Philpott leave his government. The prime minister was found to have improperly pressured Wilson-Raybould over a deferred prosecution agreement regarding SNC Lavalin’s contracts in Libya, occurring just before the 2011 revolution.
MacDonald said while such matters were challenging, he was confident the Liberals will have “the upper hand,” against Scheer, “once people see the way he is.”
“We need to elect another Liberal majority government on Oct. 21,” said MacDonald. “We have the choice to continue to move forward under Justin Trudeau, or backwards under Andrew Scheer.”