Lethbridge MP Rachael Harder. (Supplied by The Canadian Press)

By David Opinko

Year-end interview with MP Rachael Harder

Lethbridge MP reflects on 2019 election and how Canada should move forward in 2020

Dec 27, 2019 | 12:25 PM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – With 2019 quickly coming to a close, Lethbridge’s Conservative MP believes a lot needs to be done to get the city and the country back on track.

Rachael Harder says she and her colleagues spent much of this year traveling across Canada to learn what the people wanted, needed, were concerned with, and what made them feel hopeful for the future.

“71,000 Canadians just lost their jobs in the month of November – that’s 71,000 households that are impacted. That’s a big deal. My hope would be that we see that and that it shakes us a little bit because we should be doing better.”

While the latest report from Stats Canada came after October’s federal election, the incumbent thought this year’s jobs numbers would have been a strong-enough indicator that something needed to change.

This is in addition to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau being found guilty of two ethics violations in his first term – first for accepting gifts from the Aga Khan during a vacation to his private island in the Bahamas in 2016 and later for pressuring then-Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould to not prosecute SNC Lavalin for fraud and bribery charges.

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Harder hoped that Canadians would have held Trudeau and his party accountable and not put them back into office for a second term with a minority government.

“A very scary message was just sent to him, and that is Canadians just said it’s ok if the Prime Minister doesn’t have an ethical standard, it’s ok if he doesn’t have a moral compass, it’s ok if he breaks the law in order to get his way and that’s a really sad message to send.”

She believes that most Canadians agree with the policies and ideologies the Conservative Party was pushing for in the election, which is why they ultimately won the popular vote.

At least one of the issues, however, might have just been in the way they were communicated to the public.

“I think we could have been better communicators when it comes to our environmental platform, when it comes to our desire to see the economy boosted, when it comes to our desire to see life become more affordable for Canadians, when it comes to our vision for the nation as a whole and unifying our country from coast-to-coast.”

Instead of centering much of their campaign around party leader Andrew Scheer, Harder thinks it might have been wise to put a larger spotlight on some of the local candidates as well.

Going forward, the Conservatives will have a couple of major tasks at hand.

One will be to find a new party leader after Scheer announced his resignation from the post earlier this month. The other will be to hold the Liberals accountable as the official opposition.

She also wants to see Ottawa try their hardest to get Canadians back to work.

“In order to do that, we need the Liberal government to scrap Bill C-48, we need them to scrap Bill C-69, which is currently holding the energy sector hostage. We need to see the Liberal government cut back on red tape and we need to see them cut back on taxation and we need to see them encourage investors to come into our country.”

For Alberta specifically, Harder says the government needs to do more to support the agriculture and energy industries.

As for herself, Lethbridge’s MP tells LNN that her commitment to her constituents will be the same as it was when she was first running for office in 2015.

“I want to listen incredibly-well to the constituents of Lethbridge, I want to make sure my door is open to them and that they feel heard. The second thing is, I want to make sure I’m acting as a strong voice advocating on their behalf in our nation’s capital and making sure that I’m communicating the things that are the most important to them.”

In the 2019 federal election, Harder secured her second term as a member of parliament by winning approximately 65.6% of the votes in the Lethbridge riding.