One week out from THE EQUITY’s Conversation with the Candidates federal election event, and less than three weeks out from the election, we are sharing in-depth interviews with the five people vying for the Pontiac-Kitigan Zibi seat.

Each candidate was given the same word limit to answer our questions. The first three questions as well as the last question were put to every candidate, while the fourth, fifth and sixth questions were tailored to each candidate. Answers have been edited for clarity and length.

Q1: Why do you think you’re the best candidate to represent this specific corner of the riding, between Luskville and Rapides des Joachims, at the federal level?

I’m the one that’s lived here, basically have had my boots on the ground since 1982. And I don’t mean that I was just a static individual. I was engaged within the community, within the business community, contributing to the economy of the Pontiac. I’ve also contributed and volunteered my time freely to government service agencies, to the Chamber of Commerce. I’ve raised a family here, ran three businesses here, currently running one, all that were successful businesses that generated money for the Pontiac, put money into the economy of the Pontiac, employed people in the Pontiac, provided a product for the people in the Pontiac. I believe in those 43 years that I’ve been here, I’ve seen a lot and heard a lot, and I think that I’m very much in sync and in tune with the general population. But more importantly, I may not have been born here, but I plan on dying here, and I want to see for the rest of my days here, this place prosper. This place has so much potential and I want to see it grow.

Q2: Workers in the MRC Pontiac earn on average $36,300 a year (according 2022 data from the Government of Quebec). What do you believe is the best strategy to promote economic development and bring more jobs to this region?

We need more people here, because more people creates more businesses, more businesses creates more jobs. We’re in this situation where the people that do have jobs have to go outside the province or outside of the riding to get a job in Aylmer or Hull or go over to Renfrew County or go to Ottawa. So what we have to do here is create more businesses. If we have more businesses within our confines we’ll have more jobs, we’ll be employing local. So how do we do this? We have to inspire entrepreneurship by getting people to feel more confident, that they have more disposable income, that they’re willing to take a venture to make that first step to become an entrepreneur.

I don’t think we should be throwing a lot of money toward government programs. The solution is to empower people to start businesses. The only way we’re going to do it is to have businesses here, and then they will employ people. We have so much potential. We see growth in agritourism. We’ve seen a rejuvenation of some of our resource businesses that have fallen to the wayside in the past. We need people here, and the only way they’re going to be here is that they don’t feel compelled to go outside the area.

The Pontiac, it’s like the old saying, we’re hewers of wood and carriers of water. We’re just the very basic resources like wood and water, and over the years there’s been many attempts to do transformations where you weren’t just cutting raw wood, and it was going to a pulp mill or sawmill. But the problem with those were they were too big of projects, and depended on so much government subsidies, and they weren’t local people involved.

If we’re going to get a big factory in here that’s going to employ 500 people, it’s going to be like a man from heaven [came] down from the skies and [gave] everybody a job. We can’t think that way. We have to empower people to take the first step to be an entrepreneur to hire one, two, three, four people. And five years from now those people, they’ll grow exponentially to five, 10, 15, 20 people.

Q3: Aside from economic development, what would be one concrete change you’d like to make for the Pontiac region of the riding that would significantly improve life here?

The healthcare system. Everybody’s talking about that, and it’s been more and more of an issue for sure. The PPC has three points for healthcare. The first would be to encourage public and private service delivery. Secondly, we would replace Canada health transfers with a permanent transfer of tax points that would give an equivalent value to the dollar. This would then give provinces a stable source of revenue. If the federal government replaced these health transfers, this is money that could be divided up between the provinces and territories and go directly into the provincial coffers to fund healthcare. So that would give Quebec, which is one of the bigger provinces, a good stimulus for sure, and this wouldn’t really be costing the taxpayer anything.

So that would be another thing, immigration would be severely curtailed [under the PPC]. We’re talking about a moratorium on it for at least a year and just to let everything catch its breath.

We read every week how CISSSO’s cutting jobs, and they’re slashing so many million dollars a year. So, yes, after the economic side, there’s definitely the social side, and on the social side it’s healthcare that would be the biggest priority.

Q4: Your platform is based in large part on the issue of interprovincial trade. Can you tell me what the biggest barriers to interprovincial trade are for people living in the Pontiac, and how you as an MP would overcome them?

Labour mobility regulations need to be lifted. A guy told me he’s a contractor in Fort Coulonge, and he’s telling me, Todd, I’ve got a few houses to build. And he says, I can get a carpenter from Pembroke that’ll come over, but he can’t come over because he doesn’t have a CCQ competency card. Doesn’t matter if it’s in healthcare, in teaching, in construction, if you’re a professional, an architect or an engineer, your seal or stamp is not recognized from one province to the other.

I’ve talked about how it infringes on alcohol producers. In this riding we have seven alcohol producers. None of them can take it across the border because of protectionism. But hey, bring in beer from all over the world, bring wine in from all over the world. But don’t sell a bottle of Quebec wine in Ontario. So we’ve got to lift up these interprovincial trade barriers. I’m passionate about that, and if I was elected as MP, I’d be up there in Parliament every day talking about that, because I do not trust the Liberals to get it done. Any riding that’s on a frontier, every MP should be passionate about this. What the PPC would do first is appoint a federal cabinet minister for internal trade.

Q5: Your party promises to phase out the supply management system that gives predictable and stable prices for dairy, poultry, and other producers in the Pontiac and across the country, in exchange for a slightly higher price for consumers. What is your stance on supply management?

I agree 100 per cent with the party line. I know it hasn’t made me some friends here, you could well imagine, but we’re a party of principles. If we ended supply management, the average Canadian family would save almost $500 on their grocery bill. Why did the dairy producer, the poultry producer, why are they guaranteed a gauge price? Why are the beef farmers not getting that? Why are the vegetable producers not getting that? Why? Strong lobbyists, strong special interest groups. Who paid for it? The consumer. The price of products is way too high. By phasing out supply management we’re going to eliminate protectionism, we’re going to phase out quotas.

Q6: The PPC often speaks about individual freedoms. We heard this a lot through the COVID-19 pandemic, when your party gained popularity by claiming the government’s public health policies were infringing on individual freedoms. Could you define what individual freedom means to you?

For me, individual freedom is freedom of expression, freedom of speech. We’ve seen the last several years how speech can be curtailed. We even see how the government is curtailing speech. You can’t say this, you can’t say that. Everything has gone to the complete extent of being politically correct. Freedom doesn’t mean that you have the right to block a rail line, block a highway. It doesn’t mean that you have the right to pull down a statue. Freedom means that you can freely express yourself without retribution.

Q7: What’s one of the most important things you were taught by your parents, or somebody else who had a big influence in your life, that you would bring to the job of MP?

I had the fortune and benefit to work with my father for about 30-some years. My father was a good mentor for me, and one thing he always told me was, “always get back to a person with their questions.” When we had a construction business, he told me, “if you’re going to be late, phone the person before they phone you. Be proactive. If somebody asks you a question, give them an answer, because when you don’t, you are giving them an answer, and the answer is no.” I try to live by that rule.