Back to the Hill
Twinning of Highway 104, Boat Harbour cleanup among priorities as Fraser heads back to Ottawa
NEW GLASGOW, N.S — Now that the dust has settled on the federal election, local MPs are packing their bags for Ottawa.
Among them is Central Nova’s Sean Fraser, who kept his seat in a decisive electoral win over his chief opponent, Conservative candidate, George Canyon.
For Fraser, who first rolled into Ottawa on the 2015 Liberal party wave that swept Atlantic Canada, Monday’s win is a little sweeter than the last.
“In some ways, this one is more rewarding because it demonstrates to me that we didn’t just win an election, but the community that I grew up in is a lot more open-minded than I think people gave them credit for when they labelled it a safe conservative riding,” said Fraser in an interview.
Since the 1970s, Central Nova has been almost exclusively a Conservative seat, and Fraser’s win on Oct. 21 makes him the only Liberal politician in the region to win the seat in two consecutive elections.
“We beat a good opponent who was focused on taking this seat from us,” said Fraser, crediting a dedicated campaign team for making a Liberal win in Central Nova possible.
As Fraser returns to Ottawa, his No. 1 priority is to see major projects which started during his first mandate — including twinning of Highway 104 and the Boat Harbour cleanup — completed.
“The funding is secured. What I want to make sure we do is that we see those projects through,” said Fraser, who has a pile of projects that the people of Central Nova have sent him back to Ottawa with. “I really want to advance a transit system in Pictou County,” he said. “There’s some work already underway to date and I’m hopeful that the federal government is going to be helpful to establish a fixed-route system in Pictou County.”
Fraser also talked about the need to build off of the $4.1 million in federal funding to better access high-speed internet
for people living in rural Pictou County, and a number of initiatives currently incubating through Pictou County’s new Regional Enterprise Network and Ignite Labs.
Along with plans to rejuvenate
the deCoste Performing Arts Centre, repairs to small wharves and a new farmers market for New Glasgow, the list projects filed under “local” on Fraser’s intray is substantial.
As for “national,” Fraser says he is committed to securing an agreement to transfer $6 billion toward strengthening public health in Nova Scotia with emphasis on family doctor recruitment and national pharmacare.
“Transferring this money has got to be a top priority because every second door I knocked on over the past four months, our health-care system, and more specifically access to family doctors, has been a top issue,” said Fraser.
“Another major issue for people locally is to advance a serious plan to fight climate change,” said Fraser, touting the national party’s commitment to net zero carbon emissions by 2050, home-energy retrofits and the plan to plant two billion trees.
“I want to make sure we get this right; we cannot afford to ignore one of the most pressing problems that the world is facing.”
An area where his work on national policy intersects with local issues that hits home, Fraser said, is in implementing changes to EI sickness benefits. He said the issue was brought to him by Westville resident Kathy MacNaughton and made its way into the Liberal party platform.
“Now that we’re through this election I want to make good on my commitment to Kathy and get this done so fewer families have to go through the torment that she experienced when she lost her husband and didn’t have the financial support her family needed to get by.”