Economy the key

Gun control also an issue for PC candidate

Richard Gleeson
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Nov 10/00) - Economic development will a central issue in the bid to switch the Western Arctic from red to blue.

"Every time a mining company wants to do something we react," said Progressive Conservative Party Candidate Bruce McLaughlin. "We need to be working with them up front, at the beginning of the process."

Bruce McLaughlin

The three-term MLA (1979-87) said one example of an opportunity that was missed because the North reacted instead of responded to development is the pipeline to Norman Wells.

The wells there, he said, produce enough oil to meet the Yukon and Mackenzie Valley communities' aviation gas, automotive fuel and heating fuel needs.

"We should've been supplying our own needs by refining it in the territories," he said. A road and a refinery would have been a far better option, said McLaughlin.

Key to the economic progress of the territory will be the settlement of land claims and transfer of control from Ottawa to the North.

McLaughlin pointed to the PC's national platform --the only national platform to mention the North -- which calls for the phasing out of the Northern Development side of the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs and the transfer to all three territories of provincial powers.

The federal bureaucrats left in Ottawa that are dealing with Northern issues should be moved to the North and "be living here and feeling the effects of their decisions."

Gun control will also be an issue this election, said McLaughlin. The PC party has committed to repealing new gun control legislation and removing hunting rifles, or 'long guns', from the registration provisions.

"How many people go in to rob a 7-11 with a seven foot rifle?" asked McLaughlin in reference to the new gun law. "Give me a break!"

One thing McLaughlin will not be accused of this election is disloyalty.

As a member of the party's national management committee he has spent much of his time in Ottawa over the last five years and has had an insider's view of the rise of Canadian Alliance and, before it, Reform Party at the expense of the Progressive Conservatives.

"I'm a Progressive Conservative by conviction, not by convenience," said McLaughlin.