Harding working to get PPC policies in the spotlight

Lee Harding hopes that the policies of the fledgling People’s Party of Canada can draw grassroots support just the way the Reform Party did when it began on the prairies in the 1980s.

Harding was acclaimed as the party nominee in the Cypress Hills Grasslands Constituency back in June and has been sharing the PPC message ever since.

He recollects his own first opportunity to vote in a federal election, where he was drawn to the policies and ideas the Reform Party.

“I’m just the one doing that again. Twenty six years later here I am the candidate with the upstart party. And I think a lot of people will do what I did and say ‘I don’t know what chance this has, but I believe in it and I want to see it grow’. And we could carry the day.”

“So I really believe that if our message is presented to everyone, that we will win this seat. And that is the challenge.”

“We’re starting from scratch. At the same time, that adds a certain amount of authenticity that the other parties don’t necessarily have because we have to get out and meet people.”

Harding said he clearly see there is considerable opposition to the Liberal Party direction across the province.

“The biggest thing out there is that people don’t want Trudeau back, and they will breath a collective sigh of relief when he’s not the Prime Minister. The challenge for myself and for our party is awareness because we are not getting the same amount of coverage as the other mainstream parties, even though our message is very mainstream for someone in Southwest Saskatchewan.”

“The Scheer Conservatives have made a strategy to basically stand for a minimal amount of things, and just be not Justin Trudeau. And there’s some people that are craving for something more.”

One of his biggest issues is with a flawed equalization policy which penalizes the west.

“Equalization. This is an issue that has bothered the west for a long time, for here for 12 years and in Alberta forever. And the Conservatives aren’t changing that, and in fact they created the system that we have.”

He noted that People’s Party leader Maxime Bernier has been saying equalization is inherently unfair to the provinces that pay in because of their loss of revenue.

“So why would a province develop the resources and lower their taxes to spur their economy, only to know that if they did so they would get less money from Ottawa? So the fairness and the incentives that are there really make it a bad policy.”

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