ESTEVAN - Scott Aitchison, the MP for the Ontario riding of Parry Sound—Muskoka, who is now running for the federal Conservative Party leadership, visited Estevan for the first time on July 15.
"This big sky country is beautiful. It's breathtaking," Aitchison said after the drive from Regina into the southeast.
Accompanied by Souris-Moose-Mountain MP Robert Kitchen, who is his fellow party member and friend, Aitchison drove out to look at the Boundary Dam Carbon Capture and Storage Facility and then was joined by some local people for a meet and greet at the Days Inn.
Kitchen said he tries to use any chance to showcase and promote the CCS technology so that people from all across the country would realize the value of the innovative Estevan facility. And Aitchison was indeed impressed with it.
"It's amazing. It's absolutely amazing. And the whole world should know about it. And to me, it's an example of how Canada cannot only meet our own targets for reducing their carbon footprint, but help the world ... I think we need to see it as an opportunity, these inventive, innovative minds that live right here in Estevan," Aitchison said.
"Estevan, solving carbon problem the whole world over right here, we can figure it out. I think it's important for our political system to celebrate those things that are going on in Canada, not just exacerbate differences of opinion that exist between us to sort of win votes, but to call the country ... Canadians are ready for less rhetoric and more solutions, and more focused on solving the problems they face."
Aitchison said that as a potential leader of Canada, he thinks CCS "needs to play a much bigger role across this country and helping us meet our targets, but also, as part of the tools that we can use to help the rest of the world meet their targets."
"One of the reasons the provinces came together originally and created the federal government was to create a stable federal system that could focus on really important things like helping to build markets for our products around the world," Aitchison continued his thought.
"They are not doing a very good job of that right now, because they're too busy meddling in provincial jobs. And so I think it's time to get back to focusing on what it was created to do in the first place, and live up to the commitments that the provinces have built so many programs on."
As an example, Aitchison brought up the healthcare system, which he said is failing people in many communities across the country. He noted that part of the reason for that is it was built on a promise from the federal government that they would pay 50 per cent of the costs but have never lived up to that promise. As other examples of the federal government's broken promises, he brought up housing and the Canadian military.
"We keep meddling as a federal government to buy votes in provincial responsibilities. And we deliver mediocre services as a result. There are provinces that are fiscally strained, some of them are on a path to bankruptcy because they can't afford to do all the things that the federal government has promised they would do. So we need to get the federal government out of a lot of things that they're meddling in, meet the provinces where we met them in the late 60s and created a system, fund our health care system, and then the federal government should be focused on things that it was meant to do, like create export markets for our amazing products," Aitchison said.
He also noted that Conservatives should work as an engaged team and that's his goal as a potential party leader. Commenting on the disqualification of another Conservative leadership candidate Patrick Brown, Aitchison said he was disappointed by this news.
"I think it's yet another example of a leadership race that has been somewhat embarrassing for the party. It started out with what you would perceive as the front runners being pretty vitriolic and calling each other names and some pretty nasty emails. That's precisely what's wrong in our party right now. Liberal attack ads have been writing themselves for the last several months. And they're continuing to do so. So it's disappointing. But again, it's one more reason why I think it's important for me and my campaign to continue doing what I'm doing, talking about ideas, presenting solutions, and not getting caught up in that garbage," Aitchison said.
Aitchison is now travelling across Canada, campaigning and meeting with the electorate. He said he sincerely believes that there is more that unites Canadians than separates them.
"It's a fantastic way to see this country. And it's confirmed for me what I believed all along that there's a lot more that unites Canadians than divides us, despite our divisive political system and the rhetoric that you hear from political parties, both liberal and conservative. And it's confirmed for me that I'm running in this race for the right reasons and doing it the right way, and talking about ideas and presenting policy ideas that will generate solutions for the problems we face every day, as opposed to just taglines or calling somebody else name. So I am proud of it. And it's resonating with conservatives," Aitchison said.
