The Conservatives need to bring down the Liberal minority government as quickly as possible, a Conservative MP tells True North.
Speaking with True North’s Andrew Lawton in Alberta, Peace River—Westlock member of parliament Arnold Viersen said conservatism needs to “take over” the country in the wake of Trudeau’s re-election.
“Is the goal basically to — in a minority situation — bring the government down as quickly as possible, at the earliest opportunity?” Lawton asked in the interview.
“That’s my perception of it for sure,” said Viersen.
“I know that Albertans are looking for their way into this and in order to do that we need to ensure that we take over the rest of the country. And if conservatism is born in Alberta, we’ve got to bring it to the rest of the country.”
In the 2019 election, the Liberals hung onto power by securing a minority government while the Conservative party made substantial gains in the west. The Conservatives won every seat in Saskatchewan and all but one – Edmonton Strathcona, which the NDP held – in Alberta.
According to Viersen, the Conservative gains will give the opposition more leeway on committees.
“We now have total control of the committee work, where before we had to roll over and die because there was nothing we could do in a majority vote situation, now if we can get the other people on side with the Bloc and the NDP we could be able to control the tables at the committee and be able to stop things we don’t like,” said Viersen.
Viersen, who was first elected in 2015, won re-election with 80.6 per cent of the vote.
The collapse of the Liberal vote in the west even led to longtime MP and cabinet minister Ralph Goodale losing his seat to Conservative newcomer Michael Kram.
