With over 80 per cent of his riding’s support in the 43rd general election, Fort McMurray-Cold Lake MP David Yurdiga is ready to tackle his next term.
Based on the unofficial results of the 2019 federal election, there were 39,765 votes in Yurdiga’s favour out of the 49,680 ballots cast in the riding.
He told the Nouvelle following the announcement on Monday, Oct. 21 that he was honoured to be re-elected as Fort McMurray-Cold Lake MP.
“I’m really thrilled. It’s amazing that the people put their faith back into me. I work hard to make sure our district, our riding, gets their due share of funding. Words can’t describe how thankful I am to all of the people who came out and supported me.”
Yurdiga is entering his second full term as MP. He also served a partial term in 2014 after Brian Jean stepped down.
When considering the next four years, Yurdiga hopes to continue working on projects he’s already started.
“We have a lot of things on our plate that I was working on prior (to the election),” he expressed.
One item he had on the go was talks with a research company who has shown interest in opening up a facility in the Fort McMurray-area.
Although he isn’t quite sure what the economic spin-off will look like, he is intrigued to see where it leads.
“The project that I’ve been working on doesn’t create any pollution… it uses other material, which actually cleans up the environment,” explained Yurdiga. “It’s too early to tell what kind of impact it would have and how many people would be there.”
Some projects he can predict having an influence in his riding are two factories, Yurdiga estimated each one would create roughly 50 jobs.
Yurdiga also plans to continue pushing for Motion 192, which was inspired by his wife Kathy who suffers from MS.
“The report has gone to government, and I know that my colleagues continue to support me to ensure these people who fall through the cracks are properly looked after, sort of a safety net, because a lot of people with episodic disabilities have challenges retaining a job, because you never know when an episode will happen. We want to put safe guards in place to ensure these people stay longer in the work force, which is good for our economy and their families. We’re very excited to see the next steps.”
With the Liberal Party holding a minority government, Yurdiga said the biggest hurdle the Conservatives face is the potential for a coalition government.
“With the NDP, you never know which direction they’re going to go. They’re very negative towards any pipeline, and obviously we need to twin the pipeline and get our oil to international markets. The concern is a coalition. If there is one, it’s really going to hurt Albertans,” he exclaimed. “I think all Canadians are demanding that Alberta is not overlooked as we’ve seen with the various bills, such as C-69 and C-48. We’re going to have to push the government to repeal that, Alberta can’t handle four more years of economic disaster.”
Nearly 18-million Canadians voted in the general election, a turnout rate just shy of 66 per cent.
The Liberals hold 157 seats, while the Conservatives have 121, the Bloc Québécois hold 32, and 24 went to the New Democratic Party.
What this means, Yurdiga said, is they will have to work together in order to see change.
One of the biggest issues for families within his constituency is rural crime, and Yurdiga doesn’t plan on letting the issue stay on the back-burner.
“We had roundtables regarding rural crime, and the biggest challenge right now is the justice system. A lot of these people are suddenly in jail and then gone the next day and it’s the same people committing the crime, so the key to our success is having longer jail terms, and more policing, because rural communities are a lot different than urban centres where they have five, six, or 10 minutes before a police officer shows up. In a rural community, it’s 45 minutes or longer, and that’s a concern. We have to reduce our response time, because we see so many people taking the law into their own hands… the next thing you know, the criminal gets away and the person protecting their property ends up in court,” he outlined.
The only way to tackle rural crime is by involving all levels of government, Yurdiga said.
“We have to work with all of the groups at what’s a best fit for our community and what we actually need and what it’s going to cost.”
While some of the problems lie in Canada’s criminal justice system, Yurdiga also believes the region needs to find better incentives to recruit RCMP officers, which would help reduce response times.
“Not only do we need to address the number of police we have in our communities, we also need to address the justice system, which is a revolving door,” he stressed. “(Criminals) know they have a window of opportunity, and that’s a problem, because they know it will be an hour or more (for police to arrive)… if we could get officers there in 10 to 15 minutes, things would be a lot different.”
Running against Yurdiga in the federal election were Liberal Maggie Farrington, People’s Party of Canada candidate Matthew Barrett, NDP Matthew Gilks, and Brian Deheer of the Green Party.
On Oct. 21, Farrington had 4,708 votes, while Gilks had 2,767, Barrett received 1,583, and Deheer had the support of 857 electors.
