Ed Kormarnicki, Souris Moose Mountain MP touched on a number of topics last week when he was the featured speaker at the Estevan Chamber of Commerce's monthly meeting.
The veteran MP - he was first elected in 2004 - focused on the economy but also took time to tout the record of the Conservative Party which is currently in the midst of its first majority after this year's election win.
Komarnicki said the Conservatives have taken steps to protect the best interests of Canadians - particularly those in southeast Saskatchewan - by refusing to agree to a carbon tax and not signing onto all aspects of the Kyoto protocol which governs greenhouse gas emissions.
"If we had a carbon tax, it would be disastrous for Saskatchewan, especially for this part of the country," he said. "We do have CO2 emission regulations and those are tough enough and we are working through those with the provincial and federal government."
Komarnicki added his government has also continued to follow through with one of their major campaign promises, the dismantling of the long-gun registry.
A bill to end the registry was introduced in October and Komarnicki said he is looking forward to its end.
"It was costing over $2 billion to keep it going. It wasn't particularly accurate, it wasn't really effective, so why do we have it? We also said we would destroy the data and that has got a lot of dander up in the opposition. I hope we don't cave on that one so that when the registry is no longer, any data that was submitted will be destroyed so the rancher up in Bengough, Saskatchewan will know the government is not keeping tabs on what he has for firearms or long guns."
Komarnicki said the current focus of the government is the economy and jobs. He said with so much economic turmoil, in the world there is little to no chance Canada will be immune from the ongoing problems. Instead the government is taking steps to ensure the impact on our economy isn't as severe as in 2008 when the U.S. housing market collapsed.
Among the steps they have taken is reducing the amount of red tape that businesses are forced to deal with and keeping taxes low to allow businesses to invest more in their operations and create more jobs.
"It makes Canada a place for investment. It invites people to be interested in investing and that creates jobs," said Komarnicki who added that the Conservatives have also taken steps to lower personal income taxes and put more money in the hands of Canadian families.
"The United States, our neighbour, has had some significant issue with debt. They are highly in debt as a nation and they have had high unemployment. We have linkages so if they do poorly it affects us, so you can expect it will have some impact on Canada regardless of how we do things and how we manage. The finance minister said yesterday we will do measured and controlled adjustments to our economy and we may not be able to balance our budget by 2014-2015. It might take an extra year and I think that is wise."
Komarnicki also touched on an issue of importance to southeast Saskatchewan when he noted that work is ongoing to allow people to move around the country to where the jobs are. As the current chairman of the Human Resources Committee said they are studying inter-provincial mobility and credentialing which would allow for freer movement throughout the control.
"We bring people over and we want to make sure that they don't spend forever trying to get credentials," he said. "The study is looking at ways we can find out what are they lacking and can we bridge what they need quickly to get them into the stream and working."
Komarnicki admitted the country's immigration system isn't working as well as they would like and they are looking at ways of fast-tracking immigrants who have needed skills, can speak either English or French and have a job offer.
"You're gonna get through quickly. Not in five or six or seven years in one year."
