Last Monday, I left for Newfoundland and spent the whole week in Atlantic Canada.
The first few days were devoted to an official visit in the region by the Commons committee on National Defence, of which I am chairman, to examine the state of search and rescue operations. Rescuing Canadians in trouble at sea is an important task and our Forces and Coast Guard should have the means to carry it out properly. We held hearings in Gander and St. John´s and visited search and rescue stations. We were also supposed to go to Greenwood, N. S., but unfortunately the big snow storm that hit the region forced us to cancel that visit. The visit ended in Halifax on Thursday.
Thursday evening, I had the pleasure of being invited to speak to the Dalhousie University Liberty Society, where I gave a version of my speech on Doing politics differently. This is a group of enthusiastic students who want to promote the principles of individual freedom and small government. I want to thank Michael Kennedy for bringing this group together.
On Friday morning, I had a breakfast and interesting discussion on public policy issues with a group from the Atlantic Institute of Market Studies, Atlantic Canada’s free market think tank. As everyone knows, I worked at the Montreal Economic Institute in 2005 before going into politics, and I find that these think tanks do tremendous work in terms of bringing up new ideas and fostering public debate. I want to thank AIMS’s president, Charles Cirtwill, for inviting me.
From there, I went to Halifax’s radio station News 95.7 to discuss politics with host Jordi Morgan. Most of the half hour interview was devoted to a discussion of my proposal to restore our Constitution and end federal involvement in provincial jurisdictions. But I also made comments that attracted media attention, which I discuss in another blog post that will follow this one.