A stop by the federal Conservatives leader in Grand Forks to visit a manufacturing business was a show of support for Canadian businesses, tradespeople and to reiterate the party’s promises to “axe the tax.”
Pierre Poilievre paid a visit to Boundary Electric’s new Second Street location on Wednesday afternoon as part of a tour of B.C’s southern Interior and to meet staff, family and supporters who came to hear him speak and get a photo.
The tour included testing transformer modules, speaking with management about the company’s building projects and met several employees, praising all of them as hard-working Canadian tradespeople his party is striving to help.
“I think Boundary Electric symbolizes the entrepreneurship and work ethic of the local people,” he said. “They are making products of the future. They are making data centres out of shipping containers. Data is the name of the game for the future economy, like AI, cybersecurity, the Cloud. All of it is going to need data centres, so here’s the place to do it and I wanted to meet the best workers in the world.”
He explained he was really impressed by the innovation he was seeing and while glad they have brisk business with Americans, he wanted to see more Canadian customers buying their products. The Conservative plan is to have a stronger energy sector in Canada, so the country can drive more business for them and ultimately give workers the stronger paycheque he says they deserve.
Several of Boundary Electric’s manufacturing projects are heading to the U.S., which Poilievre said is great, but wants to see more Canadian businesses buying Canadian-made products like this, which of course will support Canadian tradespeople and home-grown innovation.
His speech to the crowd waiting for him was peppered with political talking points, fist of all about eliminating the federal carbon tax. There was also a little humour, reiterating he grew up in Alberta, which he joked was the home of a weird species that invaded B.C. lakes and mountains during the summer and winter recreation seasons.
During the speeches, Poilievre reiterated several key points of his platform, including the recently announced plans to scrap the GST on home sales that were less then $1 million, which he explained would save Canadian homebuyers and average of $48,000 and would stimulate new home development by eliminating one more layer of taxation.
He also reiterated several other points, including canceling many Liberal-led bills like restrictive gun ownership changes.
“Trudeau wants to protect turkeys from hunters, but we want to protect law-abiding people’s access to hunting and sport shooting,” he quipped.
But there were also serious notes, like reiterating inflation, the carbon tax and the cost of living driving people into poverty, causing growing homelessness, crime and drug use. All of this, he said, would be key priorities for the Conservatives if they form the next government.
David Evdokimoff, president of Boundary Electric, explained he was told Poilievre’s staff reached out to his and several other businesses and was asked to submit an application to see if they would be a good fit for a tour visit, which he said he was happy to submit.
“I think this is fantastic because he is a big supporter of technology and manufacturing,” he said. “A big part of our business is data centres and cryptocurrency and he is a big supporter of crypto as well. So the opportunity to show off our facilities and our teams is an opportunity we had to take.”
He led the tour of the facility and of course, talked about the business, its history, ongoing projects, the advantages of Boundary Electric’s location near the Canada-U.S. border and opportunities his government could have for companies like his.
“He’s very engaged and knowledgeable of crypto and blockchain space,” he said. “He;s also very knowledgeable of the trades and the folks who work in it. We were happy to host Poilievre and his crew. It was a great opportunity to show off all these businesses in the BOundary that are doing international business.”
After the tour concluded, Poilievre took time for photos opportunities with everyone in attendance. Later that evening, he was in Castlegar for a “Axe the Tax” rally.
