By Sheldon Spackman

Red Deer-Lacombe

Meet the candidate: Laura-Lynn Thompson, People’s Party of Canada

Oct 16, 2019 | 6:00 PM

The Red Deer-Lacombe candidate for the People’s Party of Canada (PPC) says it was a fight against gender fluid ideology being taught to children that brought her into politics two years ago.

Author and professional international speaker Laura-Lynn Thompson says seeing children from Kindergarten to Grade 5 learning about it made her upset and put her on the path to politics.

“When I discovered that there were dozens and dozens and dozens of transgender books with ideologies that I don’t personally ascribe to, nor do millions of people in this nation want their children taught that, I began to fight that,” she explains. “I then became targeted by sex activists, LGBTQ activists and they called my work. I was a national television show host and they called my work incessantly.”

The end result, says Thompson, was eventually being let go from her job.

“I knew that freedom of speech, freedom of conscious, freedom of belief and religion were under fire,” she exclaims. “I then went to the Conservative Party, the only party I’ve ever voted for since I was 18 and I offered them my services and they rejected me. I heard that it was because I had spoken about these things and they, it’s not that they didn’t agree, but the social terrorism that comes at you, they didn’t want that.”

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After twice being rejected by the Conservatives, Thompson says she was left with no choice but to seek other ways to run in this election.

“I thought I would go independent,” recalls Thompson. “Somebody said, ‘What about Max Bernier?’ and I said, ‘Well, he’s a Frenchman, I don’t know if we can trust him! So I got to talk to him and he understood and he personally believes that free speech is under fire.”

Thompson says Bernier believes all Canadians have a right to their beliefs.

“That there shouldn’t be one predominant group that thinks that everyone else must conform to their belief or be socially terrorized,” adds Thompson. “So he ran me as a candidate and I went up against Jagmeet Singh (NDP Leader) in the Burnaby-South by-election that was earlier this year. We did really well, we had a five-month-old party, we got almost 11 per cent and it was an NDP-entrenched riding.”

In hopes of gaining further momentum for the PPC, Thompson decided to move to Alberta this year at the urging of fellow PPC candidate Paul Mitchell (Red Deer-Mountain View).

“I went on a road trip and I went to a lot of places and Red Deer just stuck out,” she exclaims. “I was embraced, people had seen my debates, they liked me, they had seen me on television, I was really welcomed here. And so I chose Red Deer to be my home and I moved here four months ago.”

Pipelines and equalization, however, are the main focus for this campaign, says Thompson.

“Max Bernier is the only one willing to impose pipelines,” adds Thompson. “He’s the only one willing to make equalization fair to Alberta. It’s unprecedented, someone from Quebec actually standing up for Albertans.”

Thompson says Bernier is also the only party leader willing to end Canada’s participation in the UN’s Paris Agreement on climate change related to greenhouse gas emissions.

“Stop going with this politically correct climate alarmism, but rather support great initiatives in our own country that make our air, water and soil clearly acceptable,” she insists. “Climate alarmism is a problem, the fact that climate changes, we agree with that. So who wants the money? Follow the money. Who wants the money? The UN wants the money and if you scare people, you can get money out of them.”

Thompson says her goal for this election is to win the riding.

“I think that I can,” she exclaims. “I think that I have a lot of support in this riding. We believe that free speech is under fire, we believe the pipelines will only get built by Max Bernier, imposing section 92(10), we’re the only party saying that we’ll do it.”

Thompson tells undecided voters it’s time to try something new.

“They have had decades of Conservative party leadership in our area and yet we’re in this position,” exclaims Thompson. “We had Harper with a majority government that did not get pipelines built, he did not put people in the Senate when there were seats available, somethings wrong. Once a leader gets to Ottawa, it seems like he forgets about the people. We’re not going to do that.”