People's Party of Canada candidate in Grande Prairie-Mackenzie Shawn McLean (Photo: Abby Zieverink / EverythingGP staff)

By Abby Zieverink

Federal Election

Shawn McLean hopeful for the future of PPC

Sep 21, 2021 | 6:00 AM

People’s Party of Canada candidate in Grande Prairie-McKenzie Shawn McLean says he hopes this is just the start of his party getting noticed.

McLean reflected back on his first election campaign to EverythingGP Monday, after Conservative Party candidate was projected to claim a sixth term as the MP for the Grande Prairie area.

With this being his first time running in an election, McLean says there were a lot of learning experiences and hurdles to overcome.

“We need to get out there, we need to talk to the people, we need to get people to understand what the Peoples Party of Canada is all about,” McLean said.

McLean says now that he understands the process better, he suggests there would be a few things he would like to change about his campaign.

“I felt really bad about the fact I couldn’t get up to the north part of our riding to High Level or even Manning,” McLean said. “In the next election, that will be my game plan.”

He suggests his campaign was made more difficult because of the snap 36-day election campaign, which made it more difficult to communicate with individuals in the riding he says.

“It was really me working for three weeks, and the fourth week I got a campaign team and the fifth week I was able to use that campaign team to let Grande Prairie-Mackenzie know who I was.”

Overall, for the election, McLean suggests he was hoping to see more from the PPC. As of Monday morning, the PPC had garnered 5.1 per cent of the national vote, but is not leading or elected in any riding.

He feels getting the PPC more recognition will be a marathon, not a sprint.

“Until they actually know that there’s an option out there, they’re going to continue to vote the way they have always voted… And that’s the problem we have always got,” he said.

“If you take a look at what we’re looking at here, and of course the polls aren’t totally counted yet, but we’ve essentially gone into the completion of this election with the same government that we ended up going into it with.”

McLean hopes for the next election, the PPC will be part of the federal leaders’ debates, which was something he felt made the PPC struggle more in this election.

“We’ll keep fighting, we’re going to stay here, we’re going to build, we’re going to stay here for the next election, and they better look out, because we’re coming.”