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Yellowhead

Meet the candidate: Gerald Soroka, Conservative Party of Canada

Oct 11, 2019 | 3:52 PM

The new Conservative candidate in the riding of Yellowhead will have to fill the boots left by Jim Eglinski, who is retiring after serving two terms as a member of parliament.

Gerald Soroka, a lifelong resident of Evansburg, says he wants to see the country and province get back to work

“I don’t care if it is oil, gas, forestry, agriculture, we’re struggling in each one of those areas. This means building pipelines, and the Conservatives want to look at getting rid of all imports such as oil and gas from Saudi Arabia,” he says. “Once we can get our economy back and going, that’s where you can easily afford a lot more of the technologies.”

On climate change, Soroka says his party won’t put a tax on carbon, but they won’t let heavy emitters get away with it penalty-free.

“We want to make sure that the people or the big companies that exceed the limits that we have, that they have to invest in technology to lower their emissions,” he says.

“We want to make sure there’s a green home tax credit… we also want to look at reducing plastics by harmonizing standards… and the last thing is taking our technology global; we want to export the knowledge base that we have in Canada here because we know CO2 doesn’t recognize borders.”

Asked about Canada’s trade situation, Soroka says there needs to be a hard look given to trade within our own country and not just what we’re doing with other nations.

As for the justice system, he says the courts need more judges.

“Currently there are vacancies that we need to address, and that is part of our plan. The other thing we want to start looking at is making sure we have enough peace officers and police officers to go and investigate crime, as well as work on our gang-related crime,” he says.

“We talk about gun control; it doesn’t help that we are regulating the honest person with more barriers to purchase a gun when 80 per cent of the guns coming into Canada are from the United States and are all illegal. That’s where you want to strengthen our border security to stop this from happening, as well as have stiffer fines and prison time and a minimum of five years for anyone that is caught basically bringing in illegal guns.”

Also on Soroka’s agenda is ensuring adequate mental health care, and being part of a government that promotes unity, not separation, whether it’s Alberta or Quebec.

“Canada is a great country and we want to make sure we can build it together as a whole country,” he states. “As for people talking about Brexit, you know that’s going to be out there, but it basically comes down to the animosity that people have right now with our federal government and that is why we need a change.”

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