A federal election may well be on the horizon, and one of the major players in it spoke to citizens of the southeast today. In an event put on by the Estevan, Moosomin, and Weyburn Chambers of Commerce, those citizens had a chance to ask him some of their burning questions. 

Erin O'Toole, leader of the Conservative Party of Canada and the official federal opposition, was the main speaker at a virtual Q and A session this afternoon. The event was free to attend for Chamber members and cost $10 for others, many of whom sent questions in beforehand. 

After an introduction by Souris-Moose Mountain MP Dr. Robert Kitchen, O'Toole began by extending his condolences to the family and friends of RCMP officer Shelby Patton, saying that because of his own military experience, he has a particular sympathy for men and women in uniform who serve their community and country. He then launched into an opening speech that featured several jabs at Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. 

"As leader of the opposition, I have a job to do to hold the Trudeau government to account," O'Toole said. "Trudeau under the Liberals literally has failed or fallen behind at every stage of this pandemic, with the border at the beginning and then again at the time of variants, with rapid tests and, of course, with vaccines."

After outlining his party's four-pillar plan for recovery, O'Toole took pre-submitted questions from those in virtual attendance. From his climate change plan to his stance on pipelines to his strategy for actually winning the next election whenever it comes, O'Toole fielded questions on a wide variety of topics. 

"Under Mr. Trudeau, we've lost Keystone XL twice, we've lost Energy East," he said, when asked about pipelines. "He cancelled Keystone XL and had to buy Trans-Mountain with our money. It shows his policies have made us poorer and divided our country."

A divided country was another topic of conversation, as western alienation came up at several points. O'Toole recalled a rather different set of circumstances when his party was most recently in power. 

"When I was appointed to cabinet by Stephen Harper, a Prime Minister who served for a decade from western Canada," he said, "we had a balanced budget, gosh, wouldn't that be nice to have again? We had investment coming to Canada. There was no division in Canada. The Bloc Quebecois in Quebec, the separatist party, was not even an official party at that time. If you mentioned the word Wexit, or Buffalo, people would think you were talking about the animal."

O'Toole added ethical leadership in Ottawa and respecting their jurrisdictions would help ease the frustration that underlies separation.