ATHABASCA — A former pharmacist who hails from Clandonald 39 km northeast of Vermilion is vying to represent the Lakeland riding by bringing a libertarian flare to the federal election race.
Ann McCormack is representing the People’s Party of Canada (PPC) and leader Maxime Bernier, a former Conservative cabinet minister under Stephen Harper and she is taking the Sept. 20 election very seriously having travelled to many locations in the large riding including Athabasca at least once.
“My parents were interested in Alberta politics specifically and so I've always been kind of exposed and interested in politics,” she said in a Sept. 2 interview. “And then I heard Maxime Bernier speak maybe two years ago in Red Deer and then again in Lloydminster last March and I guess what made me really interested in his policies was the phrase ‘radical decentralization of government.’”
McCormack explained taxes get paid to Ottawa, but taxpayers have little to no say in how those tax dollars are spent; they can go to foreign countries ahead of prioritizing services and programs in Canada and Bernier and the People's Party wants that to stop.
“The next policy that really felt timely to me trying to get kids ready for school and all the rest of that was the People's Party of Canada COVID policy and it is so different from the Liberal, the Conservative or the NDP federal policy,” said McCormack.
The PPC policy is about informed consent and not making health policies on a one issue and rejects coercion and discrimination, she said.
“It is insane that a federal party would have a policy on one health issue like this, it just blows my mind, because this is so unusual but here we are,” she said. “This is the state we're living in right now that COVID is drawing its own policy.”
McCormack also noted the PPC platform includes firing the chief public health officer of Canada, Dr. Theresa Tam.
“(The PPC) wish to repeal vaccine mandates and regular testing for federal civil servants and workers in federally-regulated industries,” said McCormack. “So, that's really big too because it trickles down to private business.”
Regardless, McCormack says government has no business interfering with private businesses.
“The other aspect is this mandatory masking on school buses,” she said. “If you cannot wear a mask, it is not up to your school board to override the doctor's recommendations for not wearing a mask.”
The party's other policies include revamping the equalization formula to make it fairer for all provinces; repealing Liberal gun legislation and targeting criminals; balancing the budget in one mandate and then cutting taxes; growing the oil and gas industry; ending the federal government's interference in provincial health spending; encouraging investment and productivity to stimulate the economy; and standing against what it sees as intrusions into the realm of Canadians' free expression rights.
As for the controversies surrounding Bernier and many of his comments surrounding what he coined as “extreme multiculturalism” and his climate change denial, McCormack has no issue with him. The PPC will work toward reforming refugee and immigration policies in Canada and rejecting what it sees as alarmism in the climate change discussion.
“There's kind of a libertarian notion that we are entitled to our own opinions and that's just fine, I'm not bothered by his view of (teenage climate activist) Greta Thunberg at all,” she said.
“I don't think that integrating into Canadian society is a racist thing at all. I'm proud to be Canadian, I'm proud to be an Albertan and people coming here seem to want that as well. That doesn't mean you forget your roots or that you're not proud of your ancestry or that you don't work to preserve your own cultural practices or your language at home, but you do work to build a strong Alberta, a strong Canada and I don't think that's a racist thing at all.”
