Q&A: Stephen Harper

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper spent Tuesday morning in Thunder Bay, making appearances at the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre and the Northwestern Ontario Sports Hall of Fame.

Before jetting off to campaign in Val d’Or, Que, Harper sat down with Thunder Bay Television’s Barry Third for an exclusive one-on-one interview.

Here’s an edited version of their conversation, which will air on the TBT Newshour at 6 p.m. on Tuesday.
 
Barry Third: Mr. Prime Minister, thank you for this opportunity. I’d like to start with an issue that is of major concern to people in Northwestern Ontario, and that is the Ring of Fire development, which I know you are familiar with.

 It is seen as the economic salvation of Northwestern Ontario, especially given the continued problems of the forest sector. Much of the governmental responsibility for shepherding this through to development plans lies with the provincial government. But do you see a viable role for the federal government in the Ring of Fire development, especially as it relates to keeping the jobs that are generated by it here in Northwestern Ontario?
 
Stephen Harper : I’m not going to comment on the specific development, because as you know it’s undergoing the environmental assessment process. But one of the things we included in the budget that we want to get a mandate to pass is an extension once again of the mineral tax exploration credit.

If you look at regions across the country that have had particular challenges, and forestry has been among the biggest – the forestry sector was actually in recession before the rest of the economy. We’re making investments in forestry, but we do have to have other growth opportunities. And in areas like this, mining is a big one. So that’s why, as I say, we have the tax credit in our budget and we want to see mining projects go forward.
 
I should mention there’s an important other piece of legislation on this whole issue of mining. The other parties supported a bill in the last Parliament called Bill C-300 which would be strongly opposed by the mining sector across the country.

It would devastate the Canadian mining sector and its role in the global marketplace. We defeated that, the other parties are committed to bringing it back. So another argument we give for the need to have a strong majority Conservative government is so that our mining sector can continue to grow.
 
BT: I’d like to move, if I can, to another element of the whole Ring of Fire development that also has broader overtones, and that’s the involvement of our Aboriginal communities. Their interests are going to be at the forefront of making this project go. A similar question to what I asked earlier. Do you see the federal government as having a viable role in that regard?
 
SH: I think it’s important. One of the great challenges Canada has going forward is actually labour shortage. If you actually look at the demographics in many parts of the country in the very near future, the growth of our economy, the growth of skilled trades, particularly in sectors like mining, is starting to outstrip the number of workers we have.

We believe one of the big sources for that, particularly in the rural regions of the country, needs to be getting young Aboriginals into these occupations and participating. And of course not just as workers.

But in some cases, as you know, increasingly, Aboriginal First Nations play ownership roles as well. That’s all part of our development strategy and our vision for an area like this.
 
BT: Still with economic development, let’s move to FedNor. Under previous governments the federal economic initiative for Northern Ontario was a standalone ministry. You’ve chosen not to do that. Why does FedNor not deserve to be a standalone ministry?
 
SH: Well, FedNor, of course, has a minister responsible, Mr. (Tony) Clement, whose area is partly in the area served by FedNor. There is a debate about whether FedNor should be a standalone separate operation from a wider department.
 
BT: Your friend Joe Comuzzi seems to think so.
 
SH: Yeah, I know people do, but we honestly can’t see the benefits. The FedNor agency is important. It’s something we’ve supported. I think the announcement I made today, our support for the cyclotron and the continued development of the Thunder Bay Regional Research Institute, which was something that was funded by FedNor under this government.

It’s really an initiative. We had federal development agencies when we came to office, four of them. We created two more so that there now is an economic development agency in all parts of the country. Is it important that it be bureaucratically separate?

We honestly can’t see what advantage it makes, other than creating another level of bureaucracy. So that’s our take on this. We think FedNor is doing a fine job now and it will continue to be important. But we don’t see any real benefit to changing it’s bureaucratic status.
 
BT: Funding for FedNor currently sits at $50 million a year. Other parties have indicated they would be willing to increase that, up to as much as $100 million. Would you similarly be willing to endorse or advocate for more money for FedNor?
 
SH: You know, I’ve not been going around the country promising that we’re going to double this and triple that. It’s easy for opposition parties to say. Our job as a federal government now is to make sure money is expended effectively. We’ve done that through FedNor, including giving additional funds to FedNor and others through the global economic crisis, through the economic action plan, through the rink program, for instance that FedNor enacted in this part of the country.
 
Our job is to keep creating jobs, and we believe part of that is controlling our spending, bringing our deficit down and lowering people’s taxes, not raising them. I know the other guys are making all kinds of spending promises, but if you read their platforms carefully, they’re making all kinds of tax increase commitments that we think would be bad for the economy.
 
BT: Let’s move to another issue, one that seems to rear its head every time an election comes up, and that’s the federal gun registry. It’s an issue that opponents say the Conservatives could have dealt with quite easily, had they wanted to get rid of it, at the beginning of their mandate. Instead it comes up during election time perennially. Fair comment?
 
SH: No, not at all. This government has wanted to get rid of the long-gun registry from the beginning. And we’ve had legislation from the beginning to do that.

The truth of the matter is, the other three parties, who have had more votes than us in these minorities, oppose getting rid of the long-gun registry. You saw what happened last time. We moved forward with a private member’s bill from Candice Hoeppner.
 
As soon as it looked like the registry was going to be scrapped, enough NDP and Liberal members switched sides to make sure it would be kept. That frankly is the real position of those parties. They will always keep the registry and they will always make sure any bill to scrap the registry fails. It’s only a Conservative majority government that’s going to scrap the registry. So I think that’s the bottom line, Barry, that as long as it’s a minority Parliament, a minority Conservative government, we will not be able to scrap this. We’ll keep trying. But until there’s a Conservative majority we will not get rid of it.
 
And this is a fundamental issue. Because it’s really whether you get it or not. Do you get it or not?

Do you understand that more regulations on farmers and hunters in Northern Ontario aren’t going to change the gun-crime problem in Toronto. 

You need to do other things to deal with that, particularly with criminals.