The 100 Mile Free Press asked each candidate of the Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo riding a series of three questions for this week’s federal election coverage. The first question: What makes you the best candidate? The second: What issues in the South Cariboo need attention and how would you address them? And the third: How will you balance the needs and challenges of large communities in comparison to small rural communities throughout the Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo riding? Candidates were given 300 words or less to share their responses. To ensure fairness as best we could, we’ve cut responses down if they went over 300 words.
What makes you the best candidate?
I have a firm understanding of how science works and am not prone to magical or anti-science thinking. I’ve dedicated many years to researching and understanding numerous public policies and am accustomed to advocating for the positions that best help the working class. I also have a long history of working within democratically organized institutions like the different unions I’ve been active in, as well as my time as an executive and President of the Kamloops and District Labour Council representing its 13,000 members in our area, which is the largest democratically organized NGO in the Kamloops area. I know what it means to represent people, and to also be held accountable to those people, and to carry out the democratic will of membership and constituency.
What issues in the South Cariboo need attention and how would you address them?
We need to stop exporting our raw products and begin having value-added products made here. We also need take back control of our resources and workplaces, through democratization, and remove the corporate profit model from interfering with people’s needs and rights to decent wages and a sustainable environment.
How will you balance the needs and challenges of large communities in comparison to small rural communities throughout the Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo riding?
The democratic will of all communities needs to be respected, and full democracy needs to be implemented. We need to end the decision-making authority, in both Ottawa and Victoria, which forces smaller communities to accept whatever policy is dictated to it by either the Prime Minister or Premier. This authoritarian streak we find in Mr. Trudeau’s reign must be extinguished and replaced with the authority of the citizens who actually live in the communities impacted by these various government policies, especially in circumstances where the government is clearly acting on behalf of corporate interests and against the interests of local residents.
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