The Conservative Leader in the House of Commons says he “can absolutely advocate for a united Canada,” but won’t specifically condemn a possible referendum on Alberta separation.
“I’ll leave it to provincial premiers to handle what’s going on in their province,” Andrew Scheer told CTV Question Period host Vassy Kapelos, when pressed on why he wouldn’t explicitly say a referendum on separation is the wrong path.
“I’m not a resident of Alberta, I’m a resident of Saskatchewan,” Scheer added, in an interview airing Sunday. “That’s not something that our premier has been talking about, but I can certainly advocate for a united Canada.”
Support for a referendum on separation appears to be gaining steam online in recent weeks. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s government, meanwhile, tabled legislation last month to reduce the threshold for a petition to trigger a referendum. The legislation, if passed, would both reduce the number of signatures required and extend the time period for signatures to be collected.
Smith told Kapelos in an interview on CTV Power Play earlier this month that her government will not be putting a vote to separate on a ballot. However, she said, her government “will respect the democratic process” and include the question on separation on a referendum ballot next year, if a petition meets the threshold.
Conservatives won the vast majority of seats in both Alberta and Saskatchewan in last month’s election. When pressed on whether it’s incumbent on his party to do whatever it can to dispel the idea that separation is the solution, Scheer said the “quickest and best way” to counter Albertan alienation and quash the push for a referendum is by repealing a series of Liberal bills.
“I think it’s incumbent on Canadians to work towards that united Canada,” he said. “That’s certainly what our party is going to do.”
Namely, he said, he wants to see the Liberals repeal bills C-75 and C-5, both of which amended the Criminal Code regarding bail reform and mandatory minimums, respectively.
Scheer and the Conservatives also want to see the Liberals “completely eliminate” both the consumer and industrial carbon taxes. One of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s first acts in office was to reduce the consumer carbon tax rate to zero.
Plus, Scheer said he wants to see the end of Bill C-69, which many Conservatives have dubbed the “no more pipelines act.”
“There’s some really easy stuff that they can do that would get the approval of (the) House of Commons, that would be to undo the terrible Liberal policies from the previous Parliament,” Scheer said.
When Parliament returns for the start of a new session on Monday, Scheer will serve as Conservative Leader in the House of Commons after party leader Pierre Poilievre lost his seat in the election.
“What I would say about that (referendum) topic in general is that we have to understand why people in Western Canada are upset,” Scheer said. “They’re upset because their way of life has been attacked. They’re upset because they have had to have that salt in the wounds, the insult to injury.”
Scheer also said the “best course of action to preserve national unity” is to elect a Conservative government.
“I can absolutely advocate for a united Canada,” Scheer said, when asked whether he can both condemn the use of a referendum on separation and push back against the Liberals in the House. “I can absolutely encourage people in Western Canada to work with us in the Conservative Party, to get those bad Liberal bills repealed.”
Carbon tax ‘a latent piece of legislation’: Government House Leader
Government House Leader Steven MacKinnon also joined Question Period this weekend to discuss government priorities ahead of the return of Parliament.
While Carney set the consumer carbon tax rate at zero, its legislation remains in place. Kapelos asked MacKinnon whether the government plans to introduce legislation to repeal the controversial tax.
“Look, that will have to be done eventually,” MacKinnon said. “It’s a latent piece of legislation. I don’t know if you’ve seen the statutes of Canada. There are a lot of laws on the books that either aren’t applied or are simply ignored.”
When pressed repeatedly on whether the Carney Liberals will go as far as to repeal the law, MacKinnon insisted the consumer carbon tax is “not part of the climate change policy mix for this government.”
With files from CTV News’ Brennan MacDonald
