People’s Party leader Bernier won’t pander, promises ‘nothing special’ for Manitoba

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This article was published 22/08/2022 (759 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

People’s Party of Canada Leader Maxime Bernier visited Winnipeg Tuesday morning in an effort to garner political and financial support for his party.

Bernier spoke at length about the PPC’s values, which include ending mandatory vaccination, restricting immigration, preventing late-term abortions and increasing the autonomy of provincial governments, allowing them to implement policies without federal support.

“What will we do for people living in Manitoba? Nothing special. We won’t have a special policy to pander to you… I want to give to your provincial government more autonomy,” Bernier said. “We at the federal government must be there only for national infrastructures (and) for banking.”

When speaking on improving health care in Manitoba, Bernier suggested eliminating federal health-subsidy programs and returning GST taxes to provincial governments.

In response to the housing crisis, he suggests restricting immigration across the country to prevent “wealthy refugees” from crossing the border and inflating house prices.

Bernier defined his brand of politics as “true conservatism that appeals to voter intelligence rather than emotion.”

“The Conservative Party of Canada is intellectually and morally corrupt,” Bernier said, before calling Tory leadership candidate Pierre Poilievre “the flavour of the month.”

Roughly 50 people attended the event, which was held at the Park West Inn in Charleswood.

Winnipeg was the last Manitoba stop in Bernier’s Western Canada campaign tour.

The campaign’s purpose is to gather volunteer and donor support and find new candidates to represent the PPC in local ridings, said Mark Masse, a party spokesperson.

There were 78 PPC candidates in the 2021 federal election, including four in Manitoba. Masse said that all previous candidates have agreed to run in the next election, scheduled to take place in October 2025.

According to Elections Canada, 841,000 people supported the PPC during the last election, earning the party nearly five per cent of the total vote.

Donors raised about $3 million in 2021, and the PPC spent $1.8 million on the election campaign, Masse said, adding the current number of members is approximately 30,000.

“We will launch a candidate-selection process in the coming months. We want to make sure we have candidates everywhere if an early election is called,” Masse said.

tyler.searle@freepress.mb.ca