Ahead of the April 28 federal election, Black Press conducted phone interviews with candidates running in the Columbia-Kootenay-Southern Rockies riding. Each interview included questions about two general topics and one about their party. These questions were not disclosed in advance. The candidates were also given the opportunity to speak on a bonus topic of their choice.
This interview is with Reggie Goldsbury, the candidate for the Liberal Party.
Canada-U.S. relations
Goldsbury said Liberal Party leader Mark Carney's experience on the global economic stage is the answer to this new reality.
"The tariffs on Canadian goods have hit industries hard," he said. "Softwood lumber and mining operational costs are going up. These are threats to our mills and industry. The old relationship with the U.S. is over. It isn't rhetoric, it's a policy shift."
Goldsbury said Carney is pushing economic diversification and talking with the European Union and Asia about new markets.,
"It might be a slow pivot but we have to build new relationships."
Locally Goldsbury said the Liberals would expand infrastructure and explore new synergies between different industries, including rail transportation in connection with mines on both sides of the border, and advocate for increasing the eight-hour operation at the Waneta Expansion to 24 hours.
Cost of living
Goldsbury said part of the solution is to increase housing supply. He said a Liberal government would find ways to speed up building projects and streamline permits, and it would increase rural housing grants.
"We're going to be talking with our provincial and municipal and regional counterparts and making sure that we can find different synergies so projects could enable low-income housing."
As for food costs, Goldsbury said a Liberal government would provide incentives for local food sourcing and to help local farmers markets to grow.
"The MP is like the glue that connects the many layers of government," he said, "and although a lot of the issues are not directly the federal jurisdiction, the MP hears a lot of these concerns, and can directly put the groups together, so they're discussing the solutions on the ground level that will make it so these builds can happen, whether it be for housing or whether it be for supply chain improvements so the cost of groceries can go down."
The Liberal Party
Goldsbury was asked about his party's distant third-place standing in previous elections in which it has run far behind the Conservatives and the NDP in the riding.
Goldsbury said the downturn in U.S.-Canada relationship, and the national trust in Mark Carney's ability to deal with it, are causing a surge in local Liberal Party membership.
He said the party got about 1,000 new members shortly after Carney became party leader.
"We have NDP and Green voters swinging our way ... We're opening our umbrella to embrace them, to understand how important this is that we make sure Rob Morrison and Pierre Poilievre are not elected."
Reminded that the NDP is also advising voters that an NDP vote is a strategic vote against the Conservatives, Goldsbury said the current rise of the Liberals nationally have made it the strategic anti-Conservative choice locally.
Bonus topic: Communication
Goldsbury said the main issues in the election are how the tariffs will affect softwood lumber, mining, and tourism. He said heath care access needs to be addressed, as well as fighting a climate change-driven increase in forest fires and mudslides.
"There's a lot of issues," he said, "but you know, the big one that ultimately comes around is constituency communication, and how we need a voice that promotes direct investment in our riding, who is regularly communicating with our constituents, our people, our businesses."
He said he would set up a centralized online information portal to communicate with constituents.
Goldsbury also listed rural infrastructure, the future of the Columbia River Treaty, affordability for families, and the need for more Indigenous partnerships modelled on the new health centre in Cranbrook run by the Ktunaxa Nation Council.
