Aaron Gunn standing before a podium, smiles at supporters.
Politics

MP Aaron Gunn to host town halls; Cortes Island possible stop

Our local MP, Aaron Gunn, is holding a series of town hall meetings in the North-Island Powell River riding. He will be in Courtenay tonight (Feb 17), Campbell River on February 21, Port McNeil on March 16 and Powell River on March 19.  Gunn may also come to Cortes Island, but the dates have not been set. 

Potential Town hall in Cortes

Aaron Gunn: “ We want to come to Cortes, but if I just come to Cortes with no plan – I haven’t really accomplished anything other than a photo op. So we always try to set up some kind of coffee or meeting where people that live there know that I’m coming and if they want to come and engage, they have an opportunity to do so.”

Cortes Currents: We will promote it on the radio. We will promote it over our bulletin board. It’s called the Tideline. The size of the crowd’s hard to tell, could be as few as 20, or as many as 100. The hundred would be surprising, but who knows? We haven’t had a Conservative candidate or politician on the island for years.

Aaron Gunn: It’s always better to have more people show up, but the most important thing from my perspective is you give everyone an opportunity to come out and voice their opinions and ask their questions. Different communities certainly have different amounts of political engagement. Power River has an incredible amount of engagement for the size of its community.We’ll see how the Comox Valley goes tomorrow, but of course only half of the valley’s in my riding. So a bunch of people who I’m not representing might show up at the door, but that’s okay.”

While the Conservative party saw increased support on Cortes during the last election, Gunn will face a variety of perspectives. 

Max Thaysen, the alternate director for Cortes Island and co-leader of the Cortes Climate Action Network, responded, “I welcome him to come and I will be happy to ask him some questions, find out more about what he thinks about some really important stuff. I think having open and public dialogue with people who’ve been elected to the House of Commons is very important. There were some early concerns that Aaron Gunn was not interested in hearing from constituents. That was something that I heard in a few different places from people who were trying to get hold of him to share their concerns with him. I think he’s become more open to hearing from people and sharing with them. That’s a good thing.”

“I also want to say that, as a very climate concerned person, I am very concerned about the public position that the Conservative party has taken. It borders on climate denial and that is very dangerous. I think we’ll have some pretty serious conversations to have. I hope we get lots of people out. It should be fun. Come bring your own questions.”

Aaron Gunn’s Town Hall Tour

Cortes Currents asked Gunn what he hoped to achieve through his town hall meetings.

Aaron Gunn: “The primary vision is to give constituents an opportunity to hear directly from me and ask any questions that might be on their mind. We get hundreds of emails every week and try to meet with as many constituents as possible, but this is a very efficient and transparent way to engage with the people that you’re representing and give them a chance to hold you accountable.”

Cortes Currents: What would you say is the most important issue right now? 

Aaron Gunn: “The issue that I hear the most of is still the cost of living and how it’s increased over the past 10 or so years, followed by the ongoing trade dispute and antagonism from the United States. Those are the two big issues. They’re not mutually exclusive either.”

“Other big issues here on the island: the hollowing out of the resource sector –  so a lot of good paying jobs in industries like forestry; public safety concerns; downtown Campbell River; downtown Courtenay; downtown Power River; and 50,000 people dead from drug overdoses over the past 10 years.” 

The Opioid Crisis

Cortes Currents: When you were talking about the opioid crisis, we have two different approaches to it. Do you want to talk explain this? 

Aaron Gunn: “I’m happy to. As you may know, I was a documentary filmmaker before running. This was probably the topic that I covered the most prolifically. For the past 10, 15 years they’ve been rolling out these various policies they like to call ‘harm reduction.’ That starts with the injection sites. It also includes decriminalization of hard drugs, which just expired. It includes what they call ‘safe supply,’ which is the handing out of the prescription opioids hydromorphone and fentanyl. I think they’ve all made the problem worse. I’d be hard pressed to find anybody who thinks the problem isn’t worse now than it was 10 years ago. We have 50,000 people dead.”

“If it were up to us (Conservatives), we would be putting all the resources we’re putting into these failed policies into treatment and recovery instead of enabling or perpetuating drug addiction. Try to get people back on the path to living healthy drug-free lives. It’s a very important issue for me. What we’ve been doing recently has been crazy. It’s a policy of handing out free drugs instead of getting people treatment.”

“There was a business owner that I interviewed when I was making one of these documentaries and he said, ‘you get what you tolerate as a society,’ which is a really interesting point to consider.”

“There’s obviously many good things that we want to tolerate, and then we reap the benefits of that. In this case: if you tolerate hard drug use; or you tolerate open drug use on the streets; or you tolerate shoplifting; or repeat violent offenders, people with 40 different assault charges – then you’re going to get more of it.”

“We need to stop tolerating destructive, antisocial behaviour and instead provide opportunities for people to get healthier and to get clean and seek treatment, which I think is the true kind of compassionate path forward.”

“I know they’re building a new treatment center on Quadra Island. I don’t know if it’s completely open yet, there are some hiccups in it, but hopefully that provides another opportunity for people to seek treatment and recovery and kind of turn their life around.” 

No Shortage of Issues

“There’s no shortage of issues that you get to deal with as a federal member of Parliament.” 

“I’m on the Fisheries Committee, so I have to pay special attention to all sorts of different issues affecting the fisheries. It’s a very passionate group of stakeholders engaged on that side of things.”

“In this riding we don’t have any oil unfortunately, but we do have other big resource industries that are struggling. The last mine here in Northern Vancouver Island closed, the fishing sector has been struggling, forestry is down by 50%. Recently a small chipping plant closed up in Port McNeil as a result of the Crofton pulp mill closing.”

“One of my big objectives is to be a voice for the region’s specific issues in Ottawa, to make sure they’re not lost in the wilderness. Trying to bring forestry to the top of the agenda and top of mind to policy makers is important. When it comes to the political work that I’m doing in Ottawa, on the forestry crisis, I penned a letter to the Prime Minister and the Premier signed by the MLA, the eight mayors throughout Northern Vancouver Island and Powell River which made quite a media impact.”

“Lately we’ve been talking a lot about this Brookfield Dam, over in Power River, that is trying to get an electricity export permit to send all of our power from that region to the United States with almost no benefit to the people who live here, especially in the context of the current trade dispute. So we’ve got over 2000 petition signatures opposing that and Canada’s Energy Regulator, for the first time in its history, made a recommendation to deny that simple permit. Obviously we played a role in that, but also the local (Tla’amin) First Nation, the mayor and council of Power River. BC Hydro wrote a letter opposing it. The combined effort led to Canada’s Energy Regulator basically kicking it back to the cabinet and recommending what’s called a full licensing process, which includes a full public review, probably town hall hearings, and then also allows the regulator to put any conditions that they see fit as part of a license – as opposed to a permit, which could include a surplus test (Canadian companies having the right of first refusal to buy the power etc).”

Aaron Gunn on the Discovery Pier in Campbell River

Constituent’s Concerns

Cortes Currents: Some of your constituents have also been approaching you with more personal issues. What kind of issues have people been coming to you with, and what can you do for us?

Aaron Gunn: “So just to clarify that, you have two roles as a member of Parliament. First is political, and the second is almost a constituency piece. So on the constituency side, we have two offices in the riding- Campbell River, Powell River – and people come in with issues related to immigration, the CRA (Canada Revenue Agency), collecting their veteran affairs or collecting their pension benefits or whatever. Our office does the best that we can to resolve those issues or point people in the right direction. That certainly keeps us very busy.”

“One example that we had of someone in the riding, the parents were permanent residents. They’d applied for citizenship. They were from a Middle Eastern country and the parents and one of their kids’ citizenships went through, but there was a mix up in the paperwork so that while the parents were citizens and one of the kids were citizens,  the two youngest weren’t. Because of that, they couldn’t get their passports to travel together as a family. So we intervened to get the two other citizenships fast tracked so that they could travel together, as a family. It was just one example that comes to mind.”

“Of course, we always have to tell people that we don’t make government policy. So at the end of the day, for some of these agencies, there’s options available to members of Parliament where we can apply additional pressure. We can get status updates, we can move the process along or speed it up. We can’t change the government policy because we’re in opposition, all we can do is create pressure.”

A Local Voice in Ottawa

“If there’s a problem with government policy, then it escalates to me and there’s some additional buttons that I can push. There’s the role in Ottawa as an opposition MP, that’s first and foremost being a loud voice in Ottawa for the people of this riding and make sure their voice is heard.”

“Ottawa’s a long way from Vancouver Island and from Cortes. I’m sure most of the decision makers in the nation’s capital probably have never heard of Quadra Island, Cortes, Alert Bay or even Campbell River. So I’m making sure the voice is heard and holding the government accountable for their policies. Then also working with the government if the opportunity allows to improve their proposed legislation or to come up with joint proposals together, because it is a minority parliament at the end of the day.”

“I’m looking forward to coming over to Cortes soon. Hopefully we can have a small gathering or whatever size gathering, whoever decides to show up and ask whatever questions they have or provide any feedback that they have.”

“The role we’re doing in Ottawa: It’s truly the honour of a lifetime to be an elected representative for such an amazing riding, such an amazing group of people. So many unique and interesting communities. So I’m looking forward to coming to Cortes.” 

Links of Interest:

Aaron Gunn at Townhall Meeting in Powell RiverAll images courtesy the Aaron Gunn Website.

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