Michael Chong says it’s time for the Conservative Party to renew itself.
Chong, the longtime MP for Wellington-Halton Hills who lives just outside Fergus, announced Monday that he was running for the leadership of the Federal Conservative Party.
“It’s time for the Conservative Party to renew itself, to attract new people to the party and I think that means we as Conservatives need to do a better job of reaching out to people and of telling our story,” he said in an interview with GuelphToday.com hours after he made the announcement regarding his leadership run on Parliament Hill.
The Conservatives will pick their new leader on May 27. So far two others, Simcoe-Grey MP Kellie Leitch and Beauce, Que, MP Maxime Bernier, have announced they are running. More are expected.
Chong said he had no plans to run for the leadership before the last election, but after the Liberal victory he said “hundreds of people” contacted him asking him to seek the party leadership
“I decided in January to take it more seriously, went out and talked to people across the country as to whether I should run or not, then in late March my wife and I made the decision to run,” he said
Chong said the party learned a lot from the last election.
“I think we need to grow our support. We need to reach out to younger people and we need to reach out to minorities,” said Chong, whose parents were immigrants from Holland and China. “It begins by putting forth new, ambitious policies that will attract these voters.
“It’s time for new leadership for Canada. We face challenges in this country that can only be faced by introducing bold, new, ambitious policies that will take this forward.”
He said his campaign will take the party in a different direction on environmental policies that will appeal to younger voters.
“At the end of the day people want competent economical management from the Federal government. If they see that as an option in the next election, I believe they will choose it.”
Long a proponent of parliamentary reform, Chong said reducing the amount of power that the Prime Minister and party leaders have and putting more power in the hands of the elected members will be a foundation of his platform.
“Their (the Liberal party) favour a preferential ballot. That will actually exacerbate the problem,” Chong believes. “Their proposal for electoral reform will, in fact, make the problem worse.”
Chong said the real problem lies not with how MPs are elected, but how they are “put under the thumb” of party leaders.
“That doesn’t allow those MPs to express themselves, it doesn’t allow them to vote freely and it doesn’t allow them to represent their constituents,” he said.
The environment platform he will roll out will be generating revenues through carbon pricing then putting that money towards reducing income tax.
“We have to acknowledge as Conservatives that carbon pricing has arrived and that it’s going to be implemented to a greater extent in the coming years both here (in Canada) and internationally.”
Chong said the Conservative Party not only learned what to do during the last election, but how to do it, saying the Liberals did a much better job of using social media and other forms of communication to get their message out and grow their party.
“That will also be part of our campaign … how we can be more open and attract new people.”
