Candidates share platform ideas during Forum on September 8
Five of the seven candidates running in the Cypress Hills Grasslands Constituency took advantage of an opportunity to share their party platform ideas during an All-candidates Forum hosted by the Swift Current and District Chamber of Commerce.
The September 8 live streamed event featured candidates fielding a dozen questions during the near 90 minute event. Participants were incumbent Jeremy Patzer of the Conservative Party of Canada, Maverick Party’s Mark Skagen, Alex Mcphee from the NDP, People’s Party of Canada candidate Charles Hislop, and independent Maria Lewans. Neither Mackenzie Hird from the Liberal Party or Green Party of Canada candidate Carol Vandale participated or had a representative present on their behalf.
And while it was not a debate format, the candidates had plenty of opportunity to share their ideas and platforms in the evening of diverse questions.
While the full forum can be viewed via Youtube at youtu.be/tsoqkxnvuws, the Booster is presenting the answers of the candidates regarding a few of the highlight questions. that. And we would continue to work with the provincial governments and try to work with them to help them deal with this health crises. Because it is a sickness.”
Maria Lewans, Independent - “We live in a society that’s very judgemental and very bullying,” she said. “We live in a very broken society. And I would like to eliminate money. We don’t need money. Communities used to exist without money. They didn’t have money but they had community and they cared about each other. And we need to learn how to care about each other again. I think we need a lot of healing in society, and once we learn to do that, a lot of these problems are just going to take care of themselves.” “I think we all have to realize the importance of not judging others, and just accepting where everybody is on their journey.”
Alex Mcphee, NDP - “Opioids kill 17 Canadians a day, so this is a killer in our communities that’s almost comparable to COVID. The NDP has pledged to declare a public health emergency as soon as we’re in office because that’s what this is. It’s an emergency affecting our most vulnerable. Personally something that disturbs me is a double standard that we hold on users of supervised consumption sites. Because right now we’re all debating the merits of vaccine passports and proof of vaccination. And we’re all having this discussion about our Constitutional rights and how this all fits together. If you want to use a supervised consumption site in Alberta for instance, you don’t have that choice. The Conservative government there has just implemented proof of vaccination already and they’re being treated as second class citizens.” find self worth in labels. I think to try to tell somebody there’s something wrong with them and try to change them, I mean that’s just a sign of neurosis. We just need to accept people as they are and stop trying to change them.”
Charles Hislop, CPP - “I believe that we should not be trying to convince people to change who they are. We should embrace who they are. We shouldn’t be convincing them to change their bodies, or change who they are, we should be supporting that. And if there’s a therapy that somebody wants to do, or if they want to do any type of conversion therapy, that we should wait and help that person up until adulthood when they’re mature enough and they can make the decision for themselves. We should just have a neutral support system that isn’t going to persuade them either way, but help them work through their problems that is going through their mind and accept who they are. Or figure out who they are if they don’t know.”
Jeremy Patzer, Conservative - “The Conservative Party will also move to ban conversion therapy. If this exact same bill was tabled in the House of Commons again I would still oppose it. Because the bill as it was written, there’s no medical institution in the world that uses the definition that the Liberals came up with. It’s our job as parliamentarians to look at bills and look at them through the practical sense as they are written. There were clarifications that they tried to put onto the Justice Department website. The simple amendments that we were asking for was to include those clarifications on the website into the bill so that the bill would provide absolute certainty and clarity. If the Liberals would have done that I would have voted in favour of the bill. But they didn’t do it. So as the bill stands I can’t vote for it.
Mark Skagen, Maverick - “I would not support that bill as it currently sits either. I agree with Mr. Patzer in that regard. Having the Liberals decide what is or isn’t conversion therapy doesn’t sit well with me.”
“The idea that we have to just go along with everything the Liberals say or we’re somehow anti-gay is just not true.” a lot simpler. We would also work to fix all the relationships that Justin Trudeau has gone and ruined.”
“We would also work on getting our products to port more efficiently, building pipelines and freeing up the railroad to help efficiently get our grain to market and our other products.”
Maria Lewans, Independent - “We’re going to stop trying to feed the world and just figure out how much we need to plant to feed this area. We’re going to restore nature, we’re going to plant wild strips at a time until we create the perennial food system…and then we can all just hunt and forage and be happy.”
Alex Mcphee, NDP - “Me and the other prairie candidates have been asking for a comprehensive regional platform for prairies, especially regarding the recent drought.” “What I’ve heard from constituents particularly is the cost of transpiration in this drought is excessive. Small producers are having a really difficult time competing for limited freight to ship feed from the East because what the province is producing this year is not sufficient. And it’s soaking the people who are already worse off the worst. So I would be interested in pushing two big railways in this country to pitch in.”
Mark Skagen, Maverick - “The Maverick’s have a plan. The Maverick’s would like to see the railroad doubled across Canada. It’s ridiculous that the railroads still has a single line system after 100 and some years. It takes hours and hours and hours to go anywheres on the railroad because the two way traffic that’s on one track. We would like to double that up so we can get our products to market. We would like to expand our markets. We would also like to see income averaging. The nature of farming is they have good years and bad. We’d like to spread the good years over the bad years. And see some income splitting again so farmers can share their profits in a good year with their spouse.”
Jeremy Patzer - “One of the easiest ways to alleviate the backlogs on the oil rail line is actually we need to build more pipelines as well. There is a lot of oil being transported on the rail lines. If we can get more pipelines built to get our oil to tidewater, that’s going to free up rail so we can ship more grain out to port that way to help free up some of the backlogs.”
“We’re also going to make sure that we work with the provinces when it comes to environmental policy so that provinces have more control over that. So that that way it’s not an Ottawa knows best approach to how we deal with the environment, because as we all know that’s having a major impact on our farmers as well.”