Portage-Lisgar MP Branden Leslie welcomed the holiday season break from government duties, but he didn’t step away without using the opportunity to meet with constituents in his riding.
Leslie held his annual Christmas open houses Dec. 13 at his Winkler constituency office and then Dec. 14 at his office in Portage la Prairie.
The overriding theme of his message and what he has been hearing from his Conservative supporters is there have been a lot of promises made by the Liberal government but very few of them have been delivered on so far.
“We have tried our level best to hold the government’s feet to the fire on what the priorities are,” he said. “Frankly, the government achieved extremely little this parliament … their own legislative agenda was extremely light.
“The government didn’t put forward a lot of ideas and a lot of policies. Particularly coming out of an election, when we were going to build faster and better than ever before,” Leslie said. “We are not seeing the results of that, and we’ve been holding the government to account for their failures, for delivering a whole lot of promises to Canadians … nothing has changed.”
Leslie said the open houses offered a great opportunity for him to connect with constituents one-on-one and hear their questions and concerns.
“It’s a good way just to connect with people … hear what’s on folk’s minds.”
He noted he was particularly hearing a lot about Bill C-9, which is aimed to amend the Criminal Code and address hate propaganda, hate crime and access to religious or cultural places.
The legislation amends the Criminal Code to, among other things, repeal the requirement that the Attorney General consent to the institution of proceedings for hate propaganda offences, create an offence of wilfully promoting hatred against any identifiable group by displaying certain symbols in a public place, create a hate crime offence of committing an offence under that Act or any other Act of Parliament that is motivated by hatred based on certain factors, create an offence of intimidating a person in order to impede them from accessing certain places that are primarily used for religious worship or by an identifiable group for certain purposes; and create an offence of intentionally obstructing or interfering with a person’s lawful access to such places.
Leslie said they see this as a highly unnecessary change to the Code and something that could potentially be an “attack on freedom of religious expression that’s been hotly debated in Parliament.”
He sees another overriding issue that is of the most concern to most everyone now:
“The biggest issue is the cost of living,” Leslie said, citing how familes are “seeing the costs increasing at grocery stores … how high prices are of pretty much everything, how wages are continuing to stagnate.
“People are making the best of it, and a region like ours, they’re still incredibly generous,” he added.
Leslie also briefly commented on being in Opposition as well as having recently had a couple Conservative MPs leave to sit with the Liberal government.
“Obviously, some extenuating circumstances with a couple of individuals who felt the need to cross the floor to the Liberals,” he said. “I can tell you I am not going to be one of those individuals. I would be surprised if there are any more. In my view, our team is very united.
“I certainly would rather be in government,” he noted. “I am confident that Canadians are going to see past the results of the government that we have had in place for the past nine months here. We continue to focus on issues that people care about.”
