Lee Harding, People’s Party of Canada

Personal details. Name, age, hometown

Lee Harding, 44. I live in Swift Current but was raised near Lafleche.

Tell us about yourself

My roots are in the prairie soil but the last third of my life has been in the city. I live in Swift but grew up in a ghost town called Melaval, next to Lafleche where I went to school. I later got a theology degree in Caronport, and filled the pulpit for a few months after grad at the Mennonite church of my teen years. Thereafter, I lived in Assiniboia for four years working at seed cleaners and volunteering at a teen drop-in centre. I’ve always been interested in media and politics and eventually pursued a journalism degree in Regina. I reported as an intern for CBC and CTV Regina and was later hired by Global.

The past 12 years I’ve been dedicated to politics and policy. In 2007, I became the Saskatchewan director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF). Our influence led to historic tax reductions and debt elimination. In 2010, I worked in the Ottawa office of David Anderson, the outgoing Conservative MP. In 2011, I rejoined the CTF and spent the next seven years criss-crossing the riding and province to do petition drives and raise money for the organization. I squeezed in a master’s degree in public policy from the University of Calgary in 2016, then became a writer and researcher for the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. I had to forsake that for this election run. In recent months I worked at a furniture store in Swift Current and wrote for the Epoch Times.

On a personal level, I play guitar. I’m down to earth, comfortable with a very wide range of people from all ages, backgrounds and lifestyles. My convictions run deep but they are tempered with a soft heart and a healthy sense of humour. (More than one person told me the first time they saw me being serious was as a spokesperson for the CTF). I ran the Queen City Marathon twice, most recently in 2017 in three hours 54 minutes. My happiest moments are those I can spend with my daughters.

What’s a little-known fact about you?

My maternal grandparents raised one boy, then six girls, then me. When they adopted me, in a way my mom became my sister. Maybe I’m my own uncle … or my own nephew … Either way, if your family tree don’t branch you might be a redneck! I can also freestyle rap — which means I make it up on the spot. I’ve MC’d wedding receptions where years later attendees can’t remember any of that — only that I rapped at it.

Why should voters hire you?

I feel like my entire life has prepared me for this role. My heritage, experience, education, and values make me a great candidate and the PPC platform makes me a knockout candidate.

Our riding is geographically vast and sparsely populated. The relationships are tight-knit. In some places, if you’ve only been around for three generations, you’re considered a newcomer! My great-great-grandfather John Thomas Harding was one of the first homesteaders in 1907. So my roots run deep, but my branches spread wide too. I’ve lived in five different communities in the constituency, and travelled all over the backroads too. Being a CTF agent was the best way imaginable to meet people, to hear their stories, and to learn how government policy was affecting them. Then we went to work together to successfully affect the policy.

What else … I was a staffer for the outgoing Member of Parliament, David Anderson, who was MP for the past 19 years. I’ve already worked in the office I would get. I know how to relate to my staff because I was one of them. I was a reporter for all three TV networks in Regina. I’m not sure what else anyone could ask for.

Who should we call for a reference?

Pastor Glen Povey in Regina. He has known me for nearly 20 years. He conducted my marriage and walked with me through my divorce. He has seen me at my best and worst and in various settings. And after all of that he absolutely believes in me. I wish that everyone has someone like that in their lives.

What is your greatest strength? What is your greatest weakness?

My greatest strength is my heart. It has tenderness, grit, and courage. A heart is like a flag. You watch its beauty as it waves its colours in the wind. But it’s useless without a flagpole. That’s where the ideas, the mind, the principles come in. I have both a flag and a flagpole. Also, Robert F. Kennedy said that moral courage was what was needed most in his times. The same can be said today, and I believe I have it.

Weaknesses. I read a book about attention deficit 20 years ago and thought it was my autobiography. Maybe that’s why I became a distance runner. Cardio gets the blood flowing to the brain and helps me focus.

Where do you stand on:

Gun laws? People need to watch my YouTube video, “Justin Trudeau promised to never take away guns.” I filmed it with my own BlackBerry in 2010 at a protest on Parliament Hill. At the time, he told a group of us protesters: “I mean the fear in here is that the first step towards registering your guns is just the first step towards taking away guns from everyone. That’s never going to happen because here in Canada we have a culture that has grown up with guns and that respects the need to go out into the wilderness and shoot things from time to time.” It was quintessential Trudeau — saying something untrue in a strange and awkward way. Look at his platform now — to ban guns and allow municipal leaders to ban even more!

In my constituency, in the now-closed Piapot Hotel, a sign beside the cattle brands read was burned into the wood: “Hitler banned guns in 1934 … and they all lived happily ever after”! Every oppressive regime has enacted laws to disarm the public. Any government that is coming for your guns is coming for the rest of you too, guaranteed. Oppressive gun laws disarm honest people and leave them as victims-in-waiting, first for criminal hoodlums, then for criminal governments.

A few months ago some Toronto doctors called for more gun control because of all the gun violence they had witnessed. Absent from our public broadcaster’s coverage of the story was the fact that four of every five handguns in Toronto were already illegal. The only time criminals care about the law is when minimum sentences are high and the law has teeth. Crime went down eight per cent nationwide when the Harper government increased minimum sentences for illegal guns. Again, gun laws and sentences should be aimed at criminals and not make criminals out of honest people. Many want guns for self-defence, sport, or practical needs of hunting, and these are all valid things.

Many mass shootings in the U.S. were stopped by armed bystanders. The study “More Guns, Less Crime” demonstrated that gun-related violence actually DROPPED when it was legal for everyone to carry a concealed weapon. The criminals were much less brazen when they could no longer assume that gun in their hand gave them the upper hand. The People’s Party has sensible gun laws and I encourage everyone to click the link “Respect firearms owners” at LeeHarding.ca to learn more.

The need for more pipelines? Thanks to the energy conservation movements, the demand for fuel has flatlined in North America for over a decade. However, in another 20 years, the increased demand for oil in China will be three times all that produced in Western Canada. As it stands, American refineries pay far less for Western Canadian oil than the world price because they know we have nowhere else to take it. Pipelines have a great safety record in Canada. The lack of pipelines ties up the railroads, which prioritize oil first, minerals second, and grain third. Meanwhile Saudi ships fill the Atlantic Ocean and the St. Lawrence River because Eastern Canada shuts us down. There is no good argument — ethical, environmental, or economical — that can persuade me this is an ideal situation. It is frustrating to watch Canada underachieve.

Western alienation? In an old political cartoon, Canada was depicted as a cow fed in the west and milked in the east. That has not changed. Equalization, employment insurance rules, the places federal government employees work, progressive income tax rates — all of them take money from the west and send it east. The first Trudeau gave the west the finger and the second Trudeau followed in the tradition. Quebec prime ministers have had much to do with this situation, and that’s why it is a pleasant surprise to see a Quebecois like Maxime Bernier being the francophone voice of fairness right to the media and politicians of the east. He says equalization is unfair and that pipelines should be built whether Quebec likes it or not. He’s not coming to the rescue of Quebec dairy producers who like their quotas either. He says it’s unfair to Canadians. In his speech, he says the Quebec people are not the Quebec government and that many everyday Quebecers know this situation is unfair and they don’t want to bleed Canada. I believe that Bernier and PPC policy deflate both Trudeau and the western separatism he fed.

China? What should our approach be with some of our markets blocked? China is an economic powerhouse, but it has been called the first digital dictatorship. Trudeau has created the worst of all worlds with his approach to China.

Are we facing a climate change crisis? Is carbon tax the answer? There’s a saying, “If you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes.” We are kidding ourselves if we claim to know what the weather will be like 100 years from now. Even so, it has been estimated that even if all the signatories to the Paris Climate Accord fully adhered to the agreement (something that did not happen after Kyoto or at any other time), the difference by the year 2100 would be … wait for it … 0.023 degrees! Bjorn Lomberg, the “environmental skeptic,” has said that many of these gestures are about feeling good but not about actually making a difference. He and James Hansen of NASA agree on this even while they disagree harshly about an appropriate approach.

China is building a coal-fired power plant every two weeks for the next 20 years but Canada is shutting its down early. If Canada put a gas mask on every belching cow, never lit a fire again, walked everywhere, had no power, and no factories, the worldwide difference in greenhouse gas emissions would be negative 1.65 per cent. As Shakespeare said, “Much ado about nothing.” Canada might actually be a net zero emitter if we include our fields and forests. SARM has wanted Canada to get retroactive carbon credits for its agriculture dating back to 2002. Maybe we could all get rich instead of being made to feel guilty. As it stands, Al Gore is enriching himself as he tries to make everyone else feel guilty.

The global warming of the climate change models is actually twice as much as is actually observed. But if we were to concede for a moment that it was true, Canada would be poised to gain additional agriculture land that is twice the size of the entire province of Quebec. Canada would be the big winner of global warming, but we would need to develop some crop varieties and irrigation to handle this opportunity. Climate change prevention is completely the wrong approach.

I like to joke that one day someone said, “How can we tax the very air that people breathe?!” And thus, the carbon tax was born. People who think we can tax our way to a meaningful change in climate might have some extra CO2 in their skull.

It’s a day off and you can do anything you want. What would it be?

I’d spend it with my sweetie and my children, hopefully doing something fun somewhere we had never been before. But any such time together is a gift, even if it is wrapped in familiar settings.

Who inspires you?

Laura Lynn Tyler Thompson, General Patton, William Wilberforce, and anyone who combines bravery and kindness.

What is your hidden talent?

Freestyle rapping.

What do you wish you could do but can’t?

Fly. Without technology.

Who are the three people, dead or alive, that you’d love to have dinner with?

Jesus and my grandparents … somewhere on the other side.

How do you take your coffee?

Often and with sugar!

What’s the one album you’d take with you on a desert island? What embarrassing song do you admit to on your playlist?

Whatever I brought to a desert island I would soon grow sick of and it would become my unfavourite! My all-time most-played album has been The Joshua Tree by U2.

What is your guilty pleasure?

Me? Guilty? … haha. I am guilty of cheering for the Edmonton Oilers. I never thought they would be so futile all my adult life. Teach your children right, mom and dad, because your children might continue on the path they started in childhood whether it makes sense or not!

What is the last book you read?

Toyin Crandell’s Money Mindset Shift.

What is your favourite TV show? What are you binge watching?

I followed Game of Thrones and I haven’t latched on to anything since. I won’t kill anyone for the throne and I’m glad no dragon will consume it before I sit down.

What is your all-time favourite movie?

Probably the Lord of the Rings movies, especially The Two Towers. I like it better than the third one. Jack Nicholson was at the launch of the Return of the King and walked out. “Too many endings,” he told Elijah Wood.