Travis Patron, Canadian Nationalist Party

Personal details. Name, age, hometown

Travis Patron, 28, Redvers.

Tell us about yourself

I’m from a agriculture and oil community in Saskatchewan. I grew up playing hockey and connecting to the Internet via dial-up. After I completed my undergraduate at the University of Saskatchewan, I continued building my business in the bitcoin industry. Eventually, I realized that my business success would be all for naught if my country was in a state of deterioration, and therefore I decided to get more politically active — thus the Canadian Nationalist Party was born.

What’s a little-known fact about you?

I started the Nationalist Party at the age of 25. That makes me the youngest leader of a federal political party in Canadian history.

Why should voters hire you?

Our explicit advocacy for the nationhood of Canada holds the greatest potential to improve the standard of living for our citizens because the current government is not taking advantage of Canada’s natural resource sector to the fullest degree it could. Instead of relying on resource self-sufficiency, our government is both importing and refining crude oil from foreign countries. The truth is we already have everything we need here at home (including human capital) to turn Canada into an economic powerhouse.

Who should we call for a reference?

You should call one of our growing number of loyal party members.

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

My greatest strength is goal-setting. This one talent has been responsible for the success I have enjoyed professionally and otherwise, more than any other strength I have. Goal-setting is crucial for both corporations and governments. Not only that, but being able to understand and execute on the goals is essential. One must also be ready to pivot on the goals when circumstances change.

My greatest weakness is perfectionism. Although it is never a bad thing to aim for perfection, setting unrealistic standards for others (and yourself) can hinder progress and cause people to miss deadlines. I put a strong emphasis on the quality of my work, and when there is a small, insignificant error, I can be known to focus time and energy on it when others wouldn’t even have noticed in the first place. This tendency of perfectionism also can cause problems when delegating tasks to others, because I expect teammates to reach the same results I expect of myself. This is not always the case and so I tend to try and do everything when I should trust the competency and talents of others.

Where do you stand on:

Gun laws? We are staunch advocates of firearm owners in Canada. We believe that firearm laws generally need to be less restrictive for firearm owners. One of our best policies is to implement Castle Doctrine which would allow rural firearms owners to use their firearms in defence of their private property.

The need for more pipelines? Our goal as a government would be to make Canada entirely self-sufficient in terms of oil and gas production/consumption. We already have everything we need here at home, except for a government which is willing/able to put these resources to use. Our long-term objective is to be entirely self-sufficient in the production and consumption of oil and gas products. If and when pipelines are required to move that oil across the country, the CNP would be ready with a plan.

Western alienation? Equalization payments are unfair for Western Canada and Alberta/Saskatchewan in particular. We believe in discontinuing the interprovincial equalization formula in favour of a publicly managed oil and gas investment trust benchmarked off the Norwegian Pension Fund (which has performed exceeding well for the Norwegian people). Essentially, a portion of the revenues from our natural resources would go into this fund which would then be used to subsidize public services such as health care, transportation, military, and more.

China? What should our approach be with some of our markets blocked? We need to reopen negotiations with China. As a valuable trading partner, we simply cannot afford having China hostile to us. We also need to have the Canadian citizens who have been detained by China released. This requires reaching out to China is a genuine way, asking them for their perspective on our relationship, and listening to how we can become stronger allies.

Are we facing a climate change crisis? Is carbon tax the answer? The climate is indeed changing and our government should pay special attention to this. However, I would not use the world ‘crisis.’ Many factions within our government today (and external NGOs) would like to stir up climate alarmism for the sake of handing our sovereignty on our environment and economy to external actors (such as the United Nations). This is entirely unnecessary because Canada, per capita, is a country with one of the smallest carbon footprints.

I also believe a tax on carbon to be a bad idea at this point in our country’s history because it targets the very backbone of our economy. We cannot have another tax cutting into the profit margins of the oil, gas, agricultural, etc. industries. The costs will be passed down to the end consumers and many of these businesses will no longer be economically viable. The carbon tax is very risky for the relative competitiveness of our economy, especially when we have a president south of the border who is a climate skepticist and has recently pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord.

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

Go to the beach for a swim. Either that or catch up on work.

Who inspires you?

I could answer this question by naming great politicians, actors, athletes, but in actuality the people who inspire me the most are my parents because of how selfless they are and how much they have provided for me. I wouldn’t be where I am today without them.