Sitting in Keith Roy’s campaign headquarters on Cowrie Street Feb. 24, the federal Conservative candidate for West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country, explained he has a strong connection to the region as the result of spending years growing up in Powell River.
He added, so it concerns him that many constituents in the riding no longer feel safe in their communities.
Roy was accompanied during the interview by Larry Brock, Conservative shadow minister for justice and attorney general, and MP for Brantford-Brant, Ont., as well as Glen Motz, MP for Medicine Hat, who has 35 years in law enforcement. Brock and Motz are on a Canada-wide tour dubbed, “Stop the Crime.”
“Obviously I recognize crime as one of the top two issues on the Coast. When I'm door knocking, obviously we hear about water and we hear about crime, particularly in Sechelt, and so I invited these gentlemen who are the point people on crime for our party,” Roy said. “It's the Coast that’s often forgotten by the federal government. It's, you know, a little bit more difficult to get to. And I wanted to make sure that the crime issues on the Coast are heard at the federal government level, from the people who are going to make the decisions should we form government in the future.”
Roy, a first-time candidate with a degree in political science from the University of Guelph, has been active in Conservative politics since he interned for a Canadian Alliance MP in 2001. Based in Whistler, Roy is a real-estate agent who won the Conservative nomination for the riding last March.
Roy said despite the message the Liberals are sending, while the Conservatives do have a tough-on-crime mandate, they’re not out to lock all offenders up.
“We are talking about these repeat offenders and the repeat violent offenders, those 40 people who are responsible for 6,000 crimes. Canada has a productivity problem, except in criminality. Our criminals are extremely productive individuals,” said Roy. “We want to create an environment where everyone feels safe in their community. We want to provide rapid, available, compassionate treatment to those who want it. We want to help people get off drugs. We don't want to keep giving them more drugs. What the Liberals have done [with safe supply] is not compassion, it is cruelty. We want to bring our loved-ones home. That's what we're trying to do.”
Roy wanted to clear up a couple of misconceptions he’s read on social media about the Conservatives' crime policies, including mandatory rehabilitation for addicts.
“It’s the provincial NDP that’s been talking about that, there's not really a role for the federal government in that. What we have said is, the Liberal’s radical decriminalization of hard drugs has had catastrophic consequences for Sechelt and in communities all across the country,” said Roy. “So, we are going to recriminalize hard drugs. And I want to dispel a myth that I saw recently on a Sechelt community Facebook page, that I want to lock up drug users. No, I want drug users to have the opportunity to go to treatment. I want to lock up drug dealers and throw away the key. There's a very important distinction.”
Roy, Brock and Motz were in Sechelt to attend a community safety meeting, which took place at Seaside Centre on Teredo Street, Monday afternoon. About 60 people attended the meeting and applauded enthusiastically as the three expounded on the Conservatives' tough-on-crime policies and anti-Trudeau rhetoric.
