Manitou grain producer, Kevin Friesen, is vying for a seat at the Legislative Building as MLA for Turtle Mountain. The Turtle Mountain Region spans across the southwestern corner of the province, from the Saskatchewan border, east to between Manitou and Morden, south to the US-Canada border and just north of Hartney. 

Friesen is in the race for the Turtle Mountain Riding against Incumbent, PC Candidate, Doyle Piwniuk, Lorna Canada-Vanegas Mesa for the NDP, and MLP Candidate Ali Farar. He is also the leader of the Keystone Party of Manitoba.

The following questions have been asked of all candidates in the Turtle Mountain Riding, to share their thoughts with our viewers:

What are the key issues on your platform?

I think the thing that rings true for every person in the Turtle Mountain area is the affordability that we're kind of getting ourselves into. My favorite saying is that the government can't give you anything that they haven't yet taken from you already and we see that so much is happening in governmental affairs that they're handing out a rebate for this or they're giving you money back for this or they're assembly simply sending a check during an election time frame. But the problem is all of that money has been taken from us first. So, affordability would be #1. 

And along with that would be fiscal responsibility and I got into this role, into this party, because I really feared for my grandchildren. And when I saw that a $32 billion debt was hanging over our heads, I just didn't see much of a bright future for our next generation and the generation after that. So what we need to do is get a hold of that and start acting on that now, not in eight years or in four years.  

And the final thing that I see specifically for Turtle Mountain I think is roads. We make it a practice to listen to our grassroots and I think the grassroots are speaking very loudly, especially in the Turtle Mountain region where the infrastructure is fading. We often mention that we really appreciate the government for fixing this road, and we really appreciate the government for fixing that road, but it really is not the case. It is the government's job to keep our roads in good shape and unfortunately there are a lot of roads that are connecting a lot of the towns that people are traveling on a day-by-day basis where some of them are not even safe, and the other ones are definitely ripping our vehicles apart.  

 

There is a great lack of doctors across the province.  What steps are your party taking to be proactive in your riding?

Oh, absolutely, I can speak for myself. I've been three years without a doctor and I'm on the waiting list. Last time I looked I was 18,000th on the waiting list and so I feel for those people who are out there. Luckily, I've only needed a doctor in the last few years for Class 1 physicals and it's amazing how, as soon as there's something that they can get a claw back and they get some money out of it, there seems to be a nurse practitioner or doctor there.  

The point, I guess, of the story is that what we have is an incentive problem and that's maybe why some doctors aren't really attracted in in coming here.  

I think there's a lot of red tape for a foreign doctor to come here, more than there was a few years ago. And that's something that we would definitely want to work on. But there's also the problem that we aren't training enough local doctors and I think there needs to be a way for us to encourage local Manitobans to want to take the sciences and go through the work of becoming doctors. 

We're looking to the same people to fix what they haven't been able to fix in the last 20 years, and what makes us think they're going to do it this time?

 

What are your thoughts on the carbon tax and how it affects are farming community in the southwest?

In the farm fuels, dyed diesel and dyed gas, we don’t pay carbon tax, which is a very good thing because it would hit us that much harder. But, farmers are paying carbon tax on all the fuel that they’re using to heat their buildings with, all the fuel that they’re heating air with in drying their grain, so that is hitting them very hard. 

Last year when we were drying corn, we spent just over $10,000 in carbon tax alone. So when I received the cheque from the government saying that the $157 cheque was going to cover my carbon tax it was an absolute joke. 

The second thing I want to say about the carbon tax is burning less fuel is a drop in the bucket in reducing our carbon in Canada, and there is no science that can show us that we are making a difference by burning a little bit less, because that is their idea, that we are going to burn less gas or diesel because we are being carbon taxed on it. 

That being said, in the Turtle Mountain Riding, many of you don’t have a choice in travelling to work, and many of you don’t have a choice in bringing your kids to school, or many of you don’t have a choice in a lot of the activities that you’re doing. We live with areas between towns and so carbon tax is hitting areas like Turtle Mountain Riding very hard in a time when we need to make things more affordable. We need to fight that as hard as we can. 

The Keystone Party is not affiliated with any Federal Party. We’re not affiliated with any unions. And so, we can fight these things perhaps with more of a voice than these other ones because there’s no toes that we’re going to step on, and we have no deals made with any other party. So, I think we can be a better voice now that any of the three legacy parties that are out there. 

I think the best thing we can do is to join together with some of the other provinces that are against the carbon tax, like Saskatchewan. I would put us on the same page as those other new parties that have started in those other provinces. I think one province at a time to fight the federal government on this is going to be impossible. I think if we put the three provinces together and start putting our heads together and figure out how we can fight the carbon tax is the only way of us doing that. 

Referring to Manitoba Hydro and the carbon tax on that, Manitoba Hydro as a government entity is probably something of an easy way for the government, it doesn’t matter which party it is, to be very non-transparent about what their money is going. So, when we hear them saying things like freezing hydro rates that doesn’t help our $32billion problem. What that does is perhaps balance a budget, but it makes Manitoba Hydro lose money that year which actually is a fallacy that they are balancing the budget. 

So, we need to look at those numbers closer, and when we think they balanced the budget but Manitoba Hydro lost money, that is not a balanced budget. 

The Manitoba government taxes the water that flows through Manitoba Hydro’s dams, and I didn’t know that before, and I would like to bring that more into a transparent state to the people of Manitoba.

 

Homelessness and drug abuse continues to rise in Westman. What are your thoughts on eradicating this growing population?

Unfortunately, we're not immune to it in our area. Homelessness and child poverty, we're not immune in some of these smaller areas but I think the things we need to focus on are organizations like the Christmas Cheer Board are supported by our local communities and are very successful. And the reasons for that is that people are about what they're putting their money towards, so I think when we talk about the provincial government matching donations to some of these organizations is a much better way than just giving them money to do these, and our small towns and communities are doing a good job in some cases of taking care of these desperate needs. 

When it comes to addictions, it's somewhat of the same story. I think organizations like Teen Challenge and what they're bringing to the problem of addictions, those are the ones that are successful, and they are successful because they're not just supported by the government.  They 're supported by local communities and the government.  So, working together with communities is the way I think for us to combat it.  

 

Rural crime is on the rise in the Westman Region.  What are your thoughts on this?

And when it comes to crime, I think about 90% of crime we're seeing has to do with drugs, that's what we're seeing. I talk to lots of police officers, and they say that if we were to remove drugs, we would probably remove 90% of the crime in Manitoba.

I think the affordability problem is also part of this.  I think we need to help Manitobans to get their lives back under control but the way to turn it around, I think sometimes we need to give our justice system a little more teeth. I think our justice system needs an overhaul. One of the great things our party is talking about is getting convicted people in front of a judge much quicker. Rather than 18 months, we're talking about 90 days. And that would probably cut down on a lot of these repeat offenders.

We also need to give some teeth back to our police officers too.  So many of them tell me about how they put someone in jail and the next day they're arresting him again for the same thing. Policing has really changed a lot. The one candidate that we're running up in Swan River, he's been a police officer for 30 years and has just retired as a superintendent and he knows how policing has really changed a lot and has some ideas on how to change it back.

 

What makes you a good fit for your riding?

Please listen for to Kevin Friesen's answer to this question, as well as his final thoughts.

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