It was a productive year, said Cathay Wagantall, MP for Yorkton-Melville. She has been able to open up communication between herself and the constituents and industry in the riding, and believes it has been a good year for representing the area as a whole.
Policy-wise, she鈥檚 happy to see the removal of the value attestation for the Canada Summer Job program, and hopes that means there will be new interest in it and more applications for funding in the area.
鈥淲e鈥檒l see where that goes, but that was definitely a step in the right direction.鈥�
She鈥檚 also happy to see that the government has pulled back on plans to collect banking data on Canadians.
鈥淚 have had a lot of calls from individuals in the riding, very concerned about being asked more information at their bank... Very good to see that they鈥檝e put a hold on that, at least for the time being, though they did, through TransUnion, gather 15 years of credit information from October of 2017 to January of 2018 prior to this particular effort going forward... A big concern there is that Canadians should be able to give consent for that data being gathered by the government.鈥�
Right now, Wagantall is focused on the economy, and is concerned that Canada is not as competitive, and she is concerned with the amount of red tape required for government jobs, as well as concerns about how steel and aluminum tariffs will affect Saskatchewan.
鈥淲e have steel and aluminum companies within our riding that are impacted by the tariffs coming into Canada and with the product going out of Canada into the States.鈥�
Another concern for Wagantall is the proposed carbon tax, and she has listened to people in the riding and believes it鈥檚 not the right direction to go.
鈥淓nvironment is really important to the people in my riding, no question. But going forward, they feel that the carbon tax, first of all, won鈥檛 be productive because to have an impact the way a carbon tax needs to have it would have to be at least $200 per tonne, not at the levels they鈥檙e suggesting... They prefer to see what we鈥檝e done in the past as Saskatchewan people, and that鈥檚 continue to use incentives.鈥�
Rural infrastructure funding is a major concern for Wagantall, and she said that going around the riding, she sees that there is money needed but it鈥檚 not getting to communities, and applications are expensive and difficult. Unless something is done, there are small communities that could be facing a water crisis as their infrastructure needs repairs, for example.
Her focus on immigration is around the temporary foreign worker program, specifically finding that the businesses that apply are not able to get the people they need, and she hopes that improvements can be made to the program. With no border, illegal immigration isn鈥檛 an issue here, but legal immigration is not moving like it needs to in order to meet needs.
In 2019, Wagantall will now prepare for the next election, happening in October. That preparation means she will spend her time away from the House of Commons travelling around the riding, trying to reach as many of the communities she represents as she is able.
One thing she is not concerned about is Maxime Bernier鈥檚 People鈥檚 Party. She believes that the platform is 鈥渋nteresting,鈥� noting that a focus on small government is really just a Conservative idea repackaged, but she questions the priority placed on immigration as an issue.
鈥淟ess immigration, to me, isn鈥檛 the key. The concern to me is fair and responsible immigration. Whatever Canada can do Canada has always wanted to do. That鈥檚 the difference to me, we need immigration policies that work, and don鈥檛 undercut those who are trying to get into Canada the proper way.鈥�
She also questions the motivations behind the party鈥檚 creation.
鈥淭his is an individual who made this decision because he wasn鈥檛 happy with the outcome of the leadership race. It was very tight, but Andrew Scheer is our leader, and he鈥檚 doing a great job reaching across Canada. This isn鈥檛 the time to give Justin Trudeau a hand up, I鈥檓 sure the Liberal Party is very happy with it.鈥�
.JPG;w=120;h=80;mode=crop)
