The country is starting the week with a new political era underway in Ottawa, with Mark Carney sworn in as Canada’s new Prime Minister after the Liberal leadership race.
“It is good Canada finally has a Prime Minister,” said Portage-Lisgar M.P. Branden Leslie. “The lame duck Prime Minister Trudeau we've had in place for the past two months during incredibly tumultuous times for Canada has been, I think, a poor partisan decision that put the interests of the Liberal Party of Canada over that of Canada.”
Leslie does not trust the move
One of the new P.M.’s first moves, through an Order in Council, was to remove the consumer carbon tax from fuel.
“His first action was something the Conservative Party of Canada has been calling for many years, which was to get rid of the carbon tax,” he noted. “However, I am very untrustworthy of sneaky Mr. Carney, because he did not get rid of the legislation.”
With Parliament currently not sitting, the legislation implementing and governing the carbon tax has not been repealed.
“He used an order to reduce the size of the carbon tax to zero, but if you can lower it, you can also raise it,” said Leslie. “I think my deep concern is, if for some reason Canadians give the Liberals a fourth term, the carbon tax most definitely is going to come back higher and faster than ever before, because Mr. Carney has been a passionate believer in the carbon tax, not only in Canada but around the world, for several decades now.”
Carney pledged to end the consumer price during the Liberal leadership race, and said he would bolster the industrial price paid by big polluters.
Some Conservatives accused Carney of signing a fake document Friday, because only an order-in-council signed by the governor general could adjust the regulation. Tyler Meredith, a political adviser who previously worked for the Liberal government, says what Carney signed is called a "record of decision" that leads to an order-in-council. The document signed by the governor general was then completed and published online on Saturday.
Expecting a Federal election soon
M.P.s are slated to return to Parliament March 24th, but Leslie fully expects an election will be called before then.
“My expectation is we are going to be into an election relatively soon,” he said. “Mr. Carney, I think, has obviously a strong background in finance as the Governor of the Bank of Canada and Governor of (the Bank of England), and I think he has said and believes many things he is attempting to somewhat hide from in terms of, I would say, a zealot nature towards climate change, and a failed track record in terms of Britain and their financial lack of success during his tenure there.”
Leslie says he, and the Conservative party, will be highlighting some of the history of Mr. Carney over the next couple of weeks, as Canadians more than likely head into an election campaign. He added, his team is in the midst of setting up election campaign offices in Winkler and Portage, and they will be ready on day one whenever the election is called.
Leslie made the above comments after a Border Security Town Hall he hosted in Altona Saturday afternoon.
- With files from Candace Derksen and The Canadian Press -