Meet The Candidates - Chey Craik - People's Party Of Canada

By Nick Murray

Chey Craik is a family man, with family values who lives on a family farm in the RM of Moose Jaw. He's been married for over 17 years and has two teenage children at home. Now he's running a campaign with the goal of becoming a Member of Parliament (MP) for the riding of Moose Jaw-Lake Centre-Lanigan.

Chey Craik alongside PPC party leader Maxime Bernier - submitted photo

Chey spent nearly 20 years working for the Canadian Pacific Railway. He was a Conductor, a Locomotive Engineer and he even did a spell in management as a Trainmaster. He now runs his own business.

More recently, he was spurred to political action because of the corruption he claims he witnessed throughout the other mainstream political parties. Ultimately, he joined a brand whose values and convictions aligned with his own; the People's Party of Canada (PPC).

The PPC is a new party. Right wing. It was formed in September of 2018 by Maxime Bernier upon his resignation from the federal Conservative Party.

Many conservative voters see Bernier's defection and the creation of the PPC as nothing more than an aid to getting Justin Trudeau re-elected. The logic behind this thought is that, the only party with a solid shot at dethroning the Trudeau Liberals is the Conservative Party and by Bernier creating the PPC he will take votes away from the Conservatives that could be vital in defeating the Liberals.
Craik doesn't see it that way. He claims the PPC is "gathering the vote" as opposed to splitting it.

"Certainly a large portion of Conservatives are now on board with the PPC" Craik said. "Along with that I personally have talked with ex-Liberals who are embarrassed of their past affiliation for obvious reasons and are now voting for us; NDP supporters who realize the NDP is no longer relevant to the working people, as it once was, and are now voting PPC. And of course the over 30% of people who, for various reasons, did not cast a vote in the last election, many who are now on board with the People's Party of Canada."

Craik cited Maxime Bernier's reasoning behind leaving the Conservative Party.

"I have come to realize over the past year that this party is too intellectually and morally corrupt to be reformed" Bernier infamously said.

Chey doesn't mince words either, adding.
"The big problem I have with blaming Bernier is that Scheer wasn't winning when Bernier was with the Conservatives and it doesn't look like he's winning now that Bernier has been gone for over a year. If Scheer can't beat Trudeau, who I believe is the worst Prime Minister in Canadian history, he certainly can't blame anyone for that weakness and lack of leadership but himself."

Chey's experiences with door-to-door campaigning have, he says, been "overwhelmingly positive".

"The people we've talked to are really disgusted with the political landscape as a whole and are grateful to have a new great option" he said. "I see it first hand everyday, the PPC is truly gathering the vote. We are drawing people from all across the spectrum of political beliefs. When people have a chance to look into our policies and the platform they really have a hard time arguing for the other parties they thought they might've previously aligned with. Nearly all the political parties currently in Canada have shifted so far from where they were in the past people really owe it to themselves to do the research and vote for what they believe in, for their values."

Chey Craik on the campaign trail. - submitted photo

One of the PPC's more contentions platform proposals is to "end official multiculturalism". That means they want to repeal the Multiculturalism Act and eliminate all funding which promotes multiculturalism. Instead, the PPC wants to emphasize the integration of immigrants into Canadian society.

"We as Canadians have always been an amalgamation and blending of ethnicities and we are united together. I believe that as Canadians we absolutely have a core identity and we share the values of contemporary western civilization, which include: democracy; individual rights and freedoms, including freedom of religious belief and freedom to criticize religion; equality between men and women; the equal treatment of all citizens regardless of ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation; the rule of law; separation of state and religion; tolerance and pluralism; and loyalty to the wider society instead of to one’s clan or tribe. Through lower immigration numbers (100,000-150,000 immigrants and refugees), we will be able to properly process and support the people who come to this country with a priority being placed on economic immigrants. People willing to learn one of our official languages. Also we want to end our reliance on the United Nations for refugee selection.

In regards to local issues, Chey shows off a Libertarian bent.

"I believe taxation as a whole is an absolute burden to all Canadians and this is confirmed with the constituents I've talked with. Our plan is to simplify the system overall. We would like to cut taxes for everyone, not just a select few. By raising the personal exemption limit to $15,000 and having only two tax brackets after that, thereby strengthening our economy and allowing everyone to take more home and give less to the government. One of the other big issues for myself and many people I've talked with is lowering corporate and farm taxes as well, this incentives investment and strengthens jobs overall."

Chey added: "I believe that I will be the strong voice for our region that has been lacking in Ottawa. I will stand up for our values with courage and conviction."

We asked readers at MJ Independent which other issues were important to them this election. Below are responses from Chey regarding each one.

Climate Change
"I believe the climate is always changing. As for "the science on climate change is settled"; that is the weakest argument that I have personally heard. In the scientific world, the science is never settled. We learn through critical thinking, we develop new strategies to improve existing technologies and we get better at everything we do. I don't believe in a Carbon Tax and I don't believe in Carbon Pricing. Giving money to the government has never and can never fix the atmosphere. Over 100 municipalities in Quebec dumping raw sewage into our waterways is a far more tangible threat to the environment and we need to deal with things like that before we virtue signal to other countries and cripple the Canadian economy for 1.6% of global emissions...

Federally Funded Daycare Programs"Lowering the Cost of Living by reducing and simplifying income tax. Removing the Carbon Tax. Getting the CRTC out of Telecom. Removing capital gains tax and ending supply management, we can save Canadians thousands of dollars every year."

Pipelines "We need to get Canadian oil to tidewater safely and efficiently. The PPC is the only party dedicated to using article 92(10) of the Canadian constitution to get pipelines built. Pipelines are a federal jurisdiction and as such the federal government can approve pipelines.

Big Tech Censorship"Big Tech needs to decide whether they are a publisher, producing opinion pieces and thus being responsible for them or a public forum in which case they can't decide who says what. Freedom of speech is an enormous issue. The government should restrict the definition of hate speech in the Criminal Code to expression which explicitly advocates the use of force against identifiable groups or persons based on protected criteria such as religion, race, ethnicity, sex, or sexual orientation."

Carbon Tax
"Ah the Carbon Tax. I, as well as the People's Party of Canada, will end the Carbon Tax. The problem with a Tax on Carbon, or Carbon pricing, is that it is always the end user, us as taxpayers who end up footing the bill."

Chey Craik will be taking part in the All Candidates Forum on October 15th at the Cosmo Centre (7:00 pm).