REGINA - The People’s Party of Canada will be represented by Peter Bruce on the ballot in Regina-Wascana.
Bruce has been a longtime party activist, having worked on election campaigns in various roles, serving as financial agent for their Electoral District Association and serving on the board and eventually leading it. But this is his first time that he has stood for election for the party to Parliament.
This election period has seen a whirlwind of activity for Bruce, from having to order signs and brochures to rounding up volunteers. He calls it a “real learning experience.”
“It's been a wild ride, but it's been good,” said Bruce in speaking to us at the Harvard Media studios Tuesday. “There's been a lot of encouragement. I've met lots of wonderful people canvassing.”
As for why he is running, Bruce points to the reasons why he joined the PPC. He said it is “because I felt that Canada was going in the wrong direction.”
“I felt that the national government was getting too big, too intrusive in people's lives, and that their agenda did not reflect the needs of Canadians, and the values of Canadians.”
A number of issues stand out for Bruce in this campaign. One of them is addressing the tariff issue and President Trump.
“My belief is that we should be focusing on the things that we're weak in, that need to be strengthened,” said Bruce. “For example, scrutinizing immigrants coming to the country. The U.S. is complaining to us about the fact that, over their border from Canada, they've been catching people with very dubious records that should have been caught coming into Canada.
“Also, we're not keeping up with our NATO commitments, our armed forces, is dramatically underfunded. We need to have a strong defense position.”
He believes the tariffs are “the American president's way of saying, look, we don't owe you a lifeline just because you never built one for yourself.” He also calls it “really destructive towards Canadians to have reciprocal tariffs against the United States.”
“I don't believe in a tariff war. I think that's a bad decision. But if we put on reciprocal tariffs to American goods coming into Canada, we're going to be hurting Canadians a lot more than Americans are being hurt by the tariffs that they're imposing on our exports to them.”
Bruce is also concerned about government spending, which he says is “out of control.”
“This last budget that was brought in by the Liberals, a $62 billion dollar deficit, that's just way out of control. We need to balance the budget. We need to cut back on the size of government. Just in the last 10 years that the Liberals have been in power, the size of the Federal Civil Service has increased by over a hundred thousand people. That's something like a 30 plus percent increase.”
Bruce blasted Liberal leader Mark Carney’s platform, which “rolled out a spending plan that just blows the $62 billion dollar deficit right out of the water. It's just outrageous.”
He is also skeptical about Carney’s talk about making Canada an energy superpower.
“But he also talks about we got to keep 80 percent of our fossil fuels in the ground, of our resources in the ground. Well, there's just no way we're going to become an energy superpower without developing oil and natural gas, without building pipelines across the country to deliver that…. Mr. Carney has no explanation of how he's going to make us an energy superpower on just wind and solar. I mean, windmills and solar, they don't produce enough energy to produce more windmills and solar panels, let alone run an industrial economy.”
He also is skeptical of the Conservative platform.
“I just heard today, Mr. (Pierre) Poilievre say that for every three civil servants who voluntarily retire, we're only going to replace them with two. Well, that's going to take an awful long time to reduce the size of the civil service to where it needs to be. The Government of Canada isn't running in its own lane. They're trying to do things that are meant for the provinces to be doing, you know, and the things that they're supposed to be doing — like immigration, passports, national defense — they're doing very poorly now. They should stay in their lane and focus on what they're supposed to do and do it well. Let the provinces develop their resources. It's in our constitution.”
On crime, Bruce had this to say.
“The People's Party, and myself, believe in straight justice. If you commit a crime, you pay the price. Law enforcement and justice should be focused on protecting the public. Rehabilitation of criminals, while important, has to take second place to preserving public safety. People need to be able to walk around and know that it's not likely something bad's going to happen, but if it does, it's going to be dealt with promptly. We've got to stop this catch and release thing. There's too many dangerous people being let out onto the street.”
He is also concerned about affordability issues including the cost of housing. On that note, Bruce believes a lot of that pressure in the housing market “as a result of mass immigration.”
“We're bringing people into this country in such large numbers that we can't integrate them fast enough. Our institutions can't deal with them fast enough.
They're putting pressure on the educational system, the schools, the healthcare system, the housing market. A lot of these people, they're not being vetted properly. They have to be properly vetted. We need to have a moratorium on immigration until we can assimilate these people, until the housing market stabilizes, until the educational and healthcare systems can accommodate them.”
For the remainder of the campaign, Bruce said the people on his campaign team are going door to door with flyers, getting out the word about the PPC and “making sure that people know we're here, we're staying here.”
“I'm hoping that our message is getting out there, that people understand us a little better, that we're not just a flash in the pan. We're here to stay. We're part of the political landscape of Canada now.”
