Former Essex MP seeks nod for seat in Calgary
Former Essex MP Jeff Watson wants to run for office again — only this time in Calgary. Watson, the federal Conservative member of Parliament for Essex from 2004 to 2015 — when he was defeated by the NDP’s Tracey Ramsey — left Ontario for Alberta with his family the year after he lost his seat.
On his Facebook election page Wednesday, Watson posted a video saying he hopes to return to politics, this time with the new United Conservative Party headed by Jason Kenney — who Watson has helped over the last year. “I’m excited to announce that I’m running to become the United Conservative Party’s candidate for MLA in the new electoral district of Calgary-Peigan,” Watson says in the video.
“As a Conservative member of Parliament nearly 12 years, I served alongside Jason Kenney and Stephen Harper, helping them deliver over 400,000 Alberta jobs, cutting taxes 180 times, including lowering the GST to five per cent, building four pipelines and approving Northern Gateway to move even more Alberta oil to foreign markets, and fighting successfully every Liberal and New Democrat attempt to impose a job-killing carbon tax that will kill our energy sector.”
Watson makes no mention of Essex where he held office, nor Windsor where he was born, nor even Ontario. The 47-year-old former autoworker, who has also worked in marketing, says in the video he travelled across Alberta over the last year to help unite the Progressive Conservative and Wild Rose parties to create the United Conservative Party in that province.
He also says that defeating Alberta NDP Premier Rachel Notley in 2019 is essential for what he calls Alberta’s comeback.
He says Notley has badly mismanaged Alberta’s economy.
“That is the steep price of inexperience,” he says in the video, dressed in a plaid shirt. Instead, he says he can make the “tough choices” to put Alberta on the right track, which requires the “tested, proven Conservative experience” that he has. Though the party ’s nomination meeting date has not yet been set in Calgary-Peigan, Watson encourages supporters to join the United Conservative Party right away, and vote for his candidacy when the time comes — since he’s “job-ready Day 1.”