Alistair MacGregor is preparing for a federal election this spring.
MacGregor, the NDP MP for Cowichan-Malahat-Langford, was preparing to head back to Ottawa when Parliament was scheduled to reconvene after the Christmas break, but now that the Liberal government has prorogued Parliament until March 24, he said he intends to spend much of the time until then working in the constituency.
He said he expects that a non-confidence vote against the government will be introduced soon after Parliament reconvenes that will be successful, and predicts a federal election will be held somewhere from early to mid May.
But he said he’s not happy that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau suspended Parliament until March 24 because the voice of the people in his riding won’t be heard in the House of Commons.
“We’ll all be left in limbo while the Liberals deal with their internal dramas and leadership issues,” MacGregor said at his constituency office in Duncan. “There wasn’t a lot of work being done in the House anyway recently, but the committees were still doing their work and now they are being shut down. However, my team still have duties to the riding’s constituents during this time and we’ll continue to meet with people to deal with their issues and write letters on their behalf. We have more time for that now courtesy of Justin [Trudeau].”
MacGregor has represented Cowichan-Malahat-Langford in Ottawa for three terms since 2015, and he said he intends to run for a fourth term in the upcoming election.
He said the cost of living in the country has skyrocketed not just because of Liberal policies over the past four years, but over the past 40 years of both Liberal and Conservative governments that have let Canadians down.
“We’ve seen successive Liberal and Conservative governments increasingly defer to corporations where mergers and acquisitions have led to domination by fewer and fewer corporations who are seeing increased profits while people are paying more as a result,” MacGregor said.
“Both parties got us into this mess. The fact that increasingly more people are now relying on food banks is an indictment of the Liberals and the Conservatives. The NDP and I are working to make things more fair and equitable for the working class people first and foremost.”
MacGregor pointed out that, while the NDP are currently the fourth party in Parliament, the party is responsible for the biggest expansion in Canada’s medical system through the Canadian Dental Care Plan and Pharmacare, and forced the government to establish the first federal anti-scab legislation, as well as childcare legislation.
“We’ve worked hard to to try and make things better for Canadians everywhere we could, but we’ve had to work with the Liberals and they have let people down,” he said.
As for how he thinks the federal election will play out, MacGregor said that while Pierre Poilievre and his Conservative Party are currently well ahead in the polls, sometimes elections can take wild turns when a leader performs exceptionally well in a debate, something from a leader’s past surfaces, or other issues emerge that change the opinions of voters.
“Poilievre is a great orator and talks a good game, but he’s holding fundraisers in the mansions of multi-millionaires and taking donations from corporate donors who have put us all in the position we’re in in the first place,” MacGregor said.
“As for the Liberals, they tend to campaign on the left and then govern from the right. I expect they’ll try to swing back to the right during the election campaign to try to capture many of the votes that are now going to the Conservatives and if that happens, that will leave a lot of space for the NDP to try to get the votes of the many disillusioned people on the left. But from now until March 24, I intend to to make full use of the time in the riding. I’m glad to be home so I can chat with my constituents.”
