Shawn McLean has been named the candidate for the People's Party of Canada in Grande Prairie-Mackenzie (Photo: People's Party of Canada)

By Shaun Penner

Federal Election

Shawn McLean running for People’s Party of Canada in Grande Prairie-Mackenzie

Aug 30, 2021 | 10:17 AM

The People’s Party of Canada will have a candidate running in Grande Prairie-Mackenzie for next month’s federal election.

The party has nominated Shawn McLean as its candidate in the riding, a Sexsmith resident who has spent a majority of the last two decades working as an instrumentation technician in various capacities in the oil and gas sector.

The desire to make the shift into politics, he said, was because he wanted to fill what he feels is a gap in conservative voting options in the riding that spans from Grande Prairie north to High Level.

“Historically, I have been a Conservative supporter, as many of us have been here in the area, but like many of us I’ve got really disillusioned with the Conservative Party of Canada,” explained McLean.

“Both the way they lost the last election, the way they have been kind of isolating the Conservative base and trying to trend a little bit more to the ‘Liberal-light’ platform.”

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McLean, who grew up in the Peace Country, says he feels the needs of Albertans have been long ignored in Ottawa. He suggests those needs have not been heard strongly enough on Parliament Hill for some time.

“We need to send a message to the Liberals and the Conservatives that ‘you know what, this is an honour to be able to represent the people and what they want,” said McLean. “This isn’t about party politics or somebody that is trying to obtain power for glory. That’s not what it’s about. It’s about representing the people’s interests.”

There are several key platform issues the PPC is looking to address, with the one top of mind for McLean being what he views as citizen’s personal freedoms.

He says the current dialogue around vaccination and whether it should be mandated at the provincial or federal level is of concern to the party.

“A lot of people are concerned about vaccine passports and government forcing vaccines on them. Our party is about choice, and letting people make the choices for themselves,” said McLean.

McLean adds the PPC also wants to address federal government spending as the federal debt climbs over $1 trillion, according to the Canadian taxpayers Federation.

He also wants to limit the federal government’s authority over provinces and territories.

“Let’s make it so that provinces have a little more autonomy, and the federal government is a little less overreaching than what we are normally used to,” said McLean.

“We have to get our government under control.”

On top of those, he says while there has been plenty of talk over recent decades of fixing the fiscal stabilization formula, also known as equalization, there has been little action taken to address the concerns of Albertans on the issue.

“We’re tired of basically the east taking our resources with unfair equalization systems and giving us a system where we don’t really have much of a say of how we get to live our own lives here in Alberta.”

McLean adds while he, and the PPC, are fairly new to the political scene, he says he looks forward to continued growth as he looks to build trust with voters in the region.

“My ambitions have never been to be in politics, I just stepped up,” said McLean. “I’m just this simple technician from the oilfield, kind of coming in and stepping up. But it’s the party they can actually believe in, and the principles we are trying to follow.”

As of August 30, there are four other candidates running against McLean, including Conservative incumbent Chris Warkentin.

Other candidates in Grande Prairie-Mackenzie include Ambrose Ralph of the Maverick Party, Dan Campbell of the Liberal Party, and Jennifer Villebrun of the New Democrats.

The federal election will be held exactly three weeks from Monday, on September 20.