Caleb Nickerson
SHAWVILLE Dec. 1, 2017
On Friday afternoon, local conservatives and curious members of the public got a chance to meet Conservative Party Leader Andrew Scheer during a meet and greet at the Lions Hall in Shawville.
THE EQUITY got a chance to ask Canada’s youngest federal party leader some questions before he addressed the crowd of about 40.
This was Scheer’s first time in Shawville, part of a national tour he has been doing since winning the party leadership on May 27. He became a frontrunner after the withdrawal of bombastic candidate Kevin O’Leary, going on to oust Quebec libertarian Maxime Bernier 50.95 per cent to 49.05 per cent in the 13th round of voting. He took the reins from interim leader Rona Ambrose and former Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

“I’ve been visiting literally every province, I’ve even been to one of the territories, trying to do a mix of large centres, you know, bigger cities, but also some of the areas that are off the beaten path so to speak,” he said. “To hear some of the local issues and hear how the national issues are playing out locally.”
Scheer has been dubbed by many to be “Harper 2.0”, due to both being Western MPs with similar stances on policy. When asked how he differs from his predecessor, he was adamant that the Tory’s loss in the last election had more to do with marketing than legislation.
“I think in general, when it came to policies, how the party handled big issues, from foreign affairs, from national security to the economy, that Candians were generally satisfied with the job we had done,” he said.
“That’s something we recognized in the last election. We didn’t do a good job of connecting with young people or perhaps, speaking to them,” he added. “So we’ve taken a look at everything from policy to tactics, everything from what we say to young people to how we say it to them. There are a lot of young people who aren’t watching typical TV broadcasts, who are getting their news from a variety of sources, who want to go beyond just the policy and know more about the person as well.”
He asserted that young people would be attracted to the party’s fiscal policy.
“I think that young people should support Conservative principles because when deficits go up, when taxes go up, they will be facing those higher costs for the rest of their lives,” he said. “I’m confident we’ll be able to be competitive among younger voters this election.”
The day before Scheer’s visit, a group of survivors of mass shootings were on Parliament Hill to urge the Trudeau government to follow through with election promises to tighten gun control, including more stringent background checks for restricted weapons owners and increased record-keeping by firearms suppliers.
“I’m a hunter and a firearms owner myself so I understand the issues that really upset law-abiding firearms owners,” Scheer said, when asked about the kind of firearms policy he would support.
He stressed the importance of decriminalizing what he called “administrative errors”, where gun owners accidentally let their paperwork lapse and are left open to criminal charges. A provision to give gun-owners a six-month grace period when their licenses expire received royal assent in 2015, and came into effect on Nov. 30.
He also said that there needs to be an objective classification for firearms in Canada, adding that certain rifles are restricted based on their looks, while nearly identical models remain available to the average gun-owner.
After finishing his interviews with the press, Scheer was introduced to the crowd of about 40 by Pontiac Conservative candidate Benjamin Woodman, who took the opportunity to announce the birth of his second child.
“It’s less than half of what our party’s leader has,” Woodman said, referring to Scheer’s five children. “So I still have some work to do to catch up.”
Scheer told the attendees that it felt good to get outside of the “Ottawa bubble” even if he was still within an hour’s drive. He thanked everyone that was a party member or volunteered for the campaign.
It didn’t take much time before he was back in question period mode however, and blasted the federal government for launching what he called an “unprecedented attack” on small-business owners.
“It was the rhetoric that was really alarming, wasn’t it?” he asked rhetorically. “It was the idea that they were calling people tax cheats, that they were saying that many people set up companies just to avoid paying higher taxes. You’ll remember Justin Trudeau and [Finance Minister] Bill Morneau saying that many people were able to afford to pay tax planners to set up fancy accounting schemes to lower their tax burden.”
Scheer himself has $75,000 invested in several real estate limited partnerships, a legal investment deal that lowers the tax burden of the investor. Unlike the finance minister, Scheer reported his nominal interest in these partnerships before becoming leader.
Scheer said he learned the value of small-business owners when he worked as a waiter in order to pay his tuition. He said the governments should work to build people up in order to achieve equality instead of tearing people down.
“Prosperity is contagious, we can all succeed together and we shouldn’t play the politics of identity and divide one group of Canadians against another,” he said.
After the leader was done with his speech, there was a short time for attendees to get their picture taken with Scheer.