Scaling back foreign aid to near zero, building pipelines as fast as possible as restructuring the equalization payment formula are some of the things the People’s Party of Canada is promising, and candidate for Red Deer- Mountain View Paul Mitchell is all in with that platform.

The former member of the Reform Party says the PPC’s are using about 85% of the old Reform playbook, something he says was extremely popular in Alberta during their heyday in the 90’s.

How do you plan on getting more money for Canadian families? 

“Well that’s a top priority for myself and for the People’s Party of Canada. Economically, we need to have the private sector flourishing, and we need people earnings need to stay in their pocket. It’s not up to Ottawa to empty out their wallet. We’re going to cut taxes rather dramatically in this country. First thing that we’re going to do, from $0 to $15,000 in income there will be no income tax. $15,000 all the way to $100,000 will be a flat tax of just 15%. For those that are earning over $100,000 the additional dollars only, will be taxed at the flat rate of 25%. So the income taxes will be dramatically lowered and also we’re scrapping the carbon tax and not replacing it with anything like the Conservatives are planning on switching over to a cap and trade program for heavy emitters. So we’re just getting rid of the carbon tax, and for those that are able to save some money and make some investments in whether it’s in another property or a business or some stocks and bonds, we’re eliminating the capital gains tax, because that’s double taxation, and you already paid income on it the first time around why should you pay tax again and again and again? So out of principle we’re against any kind of double taxation we’re against that, and so the capital gains tax needs to go. 

And so we’re going to also tell you how we’re paying for some of these tax cuts. Sometimes you get promises but here not backed up by where the money is going to come from. The two primary areas where we’re going to find funding for these tax cuts are two programs that we don’t agree with. The first one is corporate welfare. So in Canada, we give usually between $5 and $7 billion a year to large corporations like SNC Lavalin, Bombardier, Blackberry recently got about $40 million, and they said they didn’t even need it. But the reality is, $5-7 billion is a lot of money and it’s going to these companies because, generally speaking, they have paid lobbyists and it’s the job of those lobbyist to empty out your wallets and funnel the money through Ottawa back to their companies, rather than funding large corporations with paid lobbyists we want to give a tax cut to Canadian families. Secondly, we’re going to get rid of some of Justin Trudeau’s foreign giveaways.

Every year, between $5-6 billion are given away to foreign countries. Just this year alone the Trudeau government gave about $2.3 billion to African countries to fight climate change and about a quarter billion to central and south American countries to fight climate change, and they even have some very very controversial programs that they didn’t really tell Canadians about, but they’re spending about $600,000,000 on sexual health, which is sort of code word for foreign abortions. So there are many different programs across the world that are currently funded by Canadian taxpayers that are not a higher priority for our citizens, and generally speaking they weren’t consulted about them, so we will cut the taxes of Canadian families rather than continue on with foreign giveaways that are not approved of by most of the Canadian public. 

Canadians are saying they care a lot about the environment. What issues do you see as having the biggest impact on the environment, and how do you plan to address it? 

“The carbon tax is gone. The carbon tax is more about government control and taking resources from one area and shifting it over to the government. It’s not really about the environment. Now, let’s talk about the two different aspects of the environment. First of all, traditionally, the environment was about having clean water, clean soil, clean air, and those are things that definitely are a high priority of all Canadians. We would work with programs to ensure that we have the highest international standards when it comes to those type of priorities. Right now in Canada we have several remote communities and First Nation communities where they have toxic drinking water. How can we be giving billions of dollars away to foreign countries to fight C02, when we have toxic drinking water for Canadians?

Our priority will be to fix that type of a problem because that’s a true environmental program and we are going to put our Canadian citizens at the top of the list for getting the type of help that they need. We don’t want people living in an environment where they have a toxic environment, so that is not acceptable and we are going to clean that up and we will spend money on that.

Now the other side is the C02 issue. So first of all, if you ask any farmer or someone who has a garden or greenhouse, they’ll tell you that C02 is essential for plant growth. We wouldn't have any of our agriculture sector without C02. So it is not a pollutant. It is not an environmental issue. It is a naturally occurring gas that helps plants to grow. And unfortunately it’s now been labelled as the enemy, sort of a public enemy, as if it is causing all of the environmental ills of the world, and that’s not the case. Now there is climate change, it’s always occurring, but what is the effect of C02 on climate change? It’s quite minimal. Even if you believe the United Nations own figures, which are surrounding the UN Paris Accord, what they say is that the global cost to implement the UN Paris Accord will be $100 trillion by the end of the century. So over a trillion dollars a year globally and our portion of that from Canada is billions. What do we get at the end of 80 more years of spending more than a trillion dollars a year? Well, according to their own numbers, it 0.3 degrees Celsius change, and that’s if everyone cooperates and quite clearly that’s not happening right now. We don’t want to prioritize that type of an issue. C02 is maybe something we can look at, but right now the climate emergency hysteria that is being forwarded by all of the traditional parties is getting out of hand. We have kids growing up thinking that the world is going to end in a few years, and we even have national leaders saying that. 

Elizabeth May of the Green Party suggested that if we don’t end our use of oil and gas by the next election that there’s going to be some sort of a doomsday scenario. That’s highly irresponsible, and I would think that the Conservative Party might want to deal with this issue a little bit more responsibility, but they have jumped on the bandwagon in a very serious way, and what they are doing is they are now saying that the Conservative Party of Canada is actually going to be more green than the Green Party… they (Conservatives) are saying that they have ten times as many pages of commitments and almost three times as many total commitments as the Green party to reach these Paris Accord targets. So how is it that the Green Party is being out-greened by the Conservative Party on the C02 issue? It’s pretty confusing, and that’s why my opponent Earl Dreeshen, he has to support this plan, and the reality is this plan directly targets our oil and gas sector. It labels our oil and gas sector as public enemy number 1, and that’s why the Conservative Party is going to bring in this cap and trade program on our heavy emitters. And this program also transfers tax dollars out of Canada to foreign countries. 

So I think it’s highly irresponsible what the Conservative Party is doing, and we’re not going to play that game. We’re going to deal with real environmental issues, clean water, clean soil, clean air, here in Canada, and not spend billions of dollars on a boondoggle like the UN Paris Accord. That’s what it always used to be, [clean air, clean water, clean soil} it’s only in the last couple of years, and I’ll tell you why it’s happening to: the other parties have done extensive polling and when the “climate emergency” was declared, it was a known fact that women voters rate climate change as a 7.8 out of 10 for voting preferences. So, surprise surprise, as we enter in towards an election year, guess what becomes the number one issue with the Liberals? Climate change. And the others have bought into this program, but they’re not treating Canadians with honesty. There is not a climate emergency here in Canada. I live in Didsbury, we had two frost warnings in August. This “global warming” is not as advertised, that’s something that the Conservative party came up with about the Liberals as “not as advertised,” but this whole issue and the Conservative party, the way they’re dealing with it, it’s all not as advertised.” 

How do you plan to manage the healthcare needs of our ageing population?

“First of all we need to prioritize our seniors over, for example, illegal border jumpers. Right now, in this past year we’ve had tens of thousands of people crossing at places like Roxham Road, and they’re immediately eligible for twice the max benefit of a Canadian senior. So how is it possible that someone breaks the law, has never stepped a toe in the country before, and they’re being handed free housing, free services, everything that they need to get by, whereas I run into many seniors and also disabled veterans that have been treated very poorly and are trying to just scrape by on a very very minimal amount every month. Let’s just take a look at someone like a disabled veteran. I ran into one the other day and after 15 years of service he was given a $10,000 lump sum payment to live on. So, quite clearly, that is wholly inadequate. That program actually took place in 2006 when Stephen harpers government phased out a very good pension program that used to exist. So that program was phased out and then it was a disaster. In 2015, they slightly rejigged the system to make it a little bit less bad, but only our party is really willing to deal with this issue.

We have 44 veterans running as candidates for the People’s Party of Canada, and we are going to make a fair system for our disabled veterans and older veterans so we’re going to reinstate the Fair Disability Pension that was in place up until 2006, we’re going to make it retroactive back to 2006 and any lump sum payment that was given would count as a prepayment toward the pension that these veterans have earned and deserve.

How do you plan to address any shortfalls in our healthcare system, such as a lack of services and facilities in Central and rural Alberta? 

“I’ve been door knocking every day for months and this is the issue that comes up over and over again at the door. You wouldn't believe how many disaster stories that I’ve heard and I’ll just tell you a couple that really illustrates the point and bring it home. So I was down in Cremona and I knocked on a door and was invited in. Normally the person would come and great you at the door, but that didn’t happen that time. So I went in and I turned the corner and there was a lady who had no legs. She had gone into Red Deer hospital with a problem and she was in desperate need of some help, and they just couldn't find out what was wrong, they couldn't help her, the services weren’t there, and within a month she lost both of her legs. That is not ok.

One of my volunteers who was door knocking with me the other day, he went in to Red Deer hospital with severe abdominal pain. He sat around all day, had to go home, went back the next day in even worse condition. Was sitting around an hour after hour after hour, and it was getting so bad that he decided to just pack it in and drive down to Calgary. So he got to Calgary and within an hour he’d seen a doctor, and within two more hours he was undergoing surgery. He was within a few hours of having an absolute disastrous on his hands. SO here in Central Alberta it’s happening over and over again. I know that they are trying their best, but if you go into Red Deer hospital they'll have people lined up[ in the halls, I've had people stuck in bathrooms, and it’s just not good enough. If you go there with a heart problem, you’ve had a heart attack, they can’t even help you, they’ll have to send you down to Calgary or Edmonton. 

In Canada, we’re one of the top countries in the world, how is it possible that we have such a disastrous failure when it comes to healthcare. We are going to take the GST tax away from Ottawa and hand it back to the provinces as a dedicated health care fund, and that will make a huge difference. Now here in Alberta, it will likely result in an increase in healthcare funding by about 25-30%. So that is one thing that will give the Kenney government a lot of flexibility on how they can deliver the services in a more efficient way, and also get the wait times down and hopefully it will make a huge difference here.

But there is another element to the health care issue, and that is innovation of the system. Right now in Canada we have something called the Canada Health Act that really proscribes many types of innovations that have worked well in other countries. So if you take a look over at Europe, every single one of those countries has universal healthcare, but their wait times are much lower than ours. Why is it that we can’t copy some of the things that have worked very well for them? Why is it that certain types of alternative medicines are completely forbidden in Canada? Now the administration of healthcare is a provincial issue, so we’re not going to tell the provinces what they have to do, but we want to do is take the handcuffs off of the provincial governments so if they want to cherry-pick certain very good ideas that are working well in other parts of the world so they can help their people and increase levels of services and get wait times down, we’re going to authorize that, we’re all for that. The combination of using the GST tax as a dedicated healthcare fund and allowing the types of innovation that are working very well elsewhere, I think that it’ll make a big difference.”

What services do you think should be created or enhanced to address our major social issues, like homelessness and unemployment? 

“Our whole economy has been suffering terribly under this government. It’s almost as if they are doing everything possible to increase the problems of Alberta, and unfortunately our current members of parliament are not really fighting hard enough to get our issues moved forward. So for our economy, we need to get Alberta back to work and this is going to be something where we offer something that none of the other parties are going to offer. First of all, when it comes to the equalization system, in Canada, provinces that are hurting are supposed to receive equalization, and yet here we have Quebec, who is receiving $13billion in equalization this year, and they’ve got a raise! Last year it was $11 billion. So even though they are doing well relative to us, they are receiving $13billion and we’re paying. How is that possible? That is a completely unfair system.

The reason that it’s happening that way is because of something called the equalization formula that determines who gets what. And the equalization formula is unfortunately rigged. They take all of our oil and gas revenues at full market value, and yet they do no treat Quebec's hydroelectricity in the same manor. What we want to see first of all, is a fair equalization formula and it’s very easy to achieve. A lot of people think you can’t do anything about equalization because it’s in the Constitution, but the reality is you can only get rid of equalization by making a constitutional change, but to change the equalization formula, which determines who gets what, is super easy to do. You only need a cabinet decision, you don’t even need to pass a bill through the House of Commons. Cabinet meets every Wednesday. In one day, you can have a fair equalization formula for Alberta. So when it comes to some of these issues, imagine what we could do with a fraction of that equalization money that Quebec is receiving. It would make a huge difference in Alberta.” 

How do you plan on supporting Alberta’s core industries, such as oil and gas, tourism, forestry, and agriculture, and what major infrastructure projects do you see as a high priority for our area? 

“The oil and gas sector is the driver for the entire Alberta economy and we need to get Alberta back to work immediately by imposing pipelines and we’re the only party that will do this. We know that Justin Trudeau is not in favor of pipelines, so let’s just compare what we’re wanting to do versus the Conservative Party. First of all, there is two points of agreement that we have with the Conservative Party, and that’s repealing Bill C-48 and C-69. We agree on that. But as a long term solution they’re proposing what they call an “energy corridor”, which sounds great, until you ask a couple interesting questions like, ‘Where is that going to go? And how long is it going to take to have an energy corridor?’ And that’s where the whole thing falls apart, because they don’t have any clue where the energy corridor will go, and they also think that it’ll take at least 8-10 years to negotiate the corridor itself because you have to deal with every single province, every single landowner, aboriginal groups, everyone all across the country from coast to coast, and they all have to agree and we know how difficult that is. So even if they’re able to somehow over the span of 8-10 years negotiate this corridor, it’s still an empty corridor, there’s still no pipeline in it. So now we’re looking at years more too actually put a pipeline into the energy corridor. So it’s a 2030 solution at best, and Alberta cannot wait 10+ years to get its solution to our problem with pipelines.

And that’s why we are going to use section 92-10 of the Constitution to impose them. What is section 92-10? It is a provision in our Constitution that allows for nationally important projects to become an exclusive federal jurisdiction. By naming a pipeline under that provision, and we’d start with the Trans Mountain Expansion and then use it for future pipelines as well, they become an exclusive federal jurisdiction, and that is very important because that means that other provinces that are not cooperative, for example British Columbia or Quebec, they cannot block them and they will also not be blocked in the courts because the Constitution is the highest law in the land it trumps everything else, so that is the only way to really get shovels in the ground.

When Andrews Scheer, the Conservative leader, says that he is going to get a deal with Quebec and he doesn’t need to impose pipelines. Who exactly is he negotiating with? 100% of their MLA’s and their Premier all say there is no social acceptability for pipelines in Quebec. So I don’t know if he’s trying to get a deal with the guy that he’s buying poutine from at the restaurant, but he’s certainly not dealing with any of the legislators that are in Quebec at the moment. Now our leader Max, he has said in French, and he said it many times, that he’s going to impose pipelines. He doesn’t give one story here in Red Deer or Lacombe and then another story back in Quebec and the same thing goes for our party. The local Conservatives will probably say all kinds of nice things about oil and gas, but I guarantee you that their Conservative compatriots that are running for office in Quebec are not saying those same things. But every single candidate for the People's Party of Canada from coast to coast is fighting for pipelines and fighting to reduce the equalization.

We’re not pandering to different groups and to different regions; we have a unified policy across the country because we want to unite this country. We don’t believe that diversity is our strength as Justin Trudeau says, and we don’t believe that diversity is the product of our strength like Andrew Scheer says. We believe that unity has to be our strength, that's why we can’t sell different things that are the exact opposites in different parts of the country. We have to start treating all Canadians with fairness and respect, and that’s what we’re going to do.”