People’s Party candidate Doug Bebb says he will not pander to special interests

When asked about what he can do for Squamish, Robert ‘Doug’ Bebb of the People’s Party of Canada gives a rather unusual answer, especially for someone planning on running in a federal election.

"We're not going to pander, promising all sorts of stuff knowing these political parties do that and never deliver and people get upset. So we're going to treat everybody the same,” said Bebb.

The Whistler resident is a familiar face in the Sea to Sky, having run locally in the 2019 federal election. The semi-retired mechanical engineer took fifth place in Squamish’s riding that year with 1.6% of the vote.

His party did not gain any seats in Parliament.

This year, he’s back running for the West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country riding, but he’s not making any big promises geared specifically to Squamish.

When it comes to many of the familiar local issues, such as affordable housing, daycare shortages, tourism, transit and the environment, Bebb said that the majority of those should be taken up with the province.

“Most of these things are core provincial issues, and that’s where they should be debated,” he said.

“The matter of affordable housing can be addressed by cutting back on immigration.”

Bebb said cutting back or putting a moratorium on immigration will help the economy recover back to pre-COVID levels. When it recovers, then immigration can resume again, but at a slower pace, he added.

“Specific to individual places like Squamish, or anywhere else, we're not about to make promises to special interest groups, and so that's just not what we're going to do,” he said.

“We'll spend on infrastructure for national infrastructure but other individual municipalities and cities have to kind of deal with their own matters.”

Bebb said his party was against COVID lockdowns and vaccination passports.

With regard to climate change, Bebb agrees that the planet has warmed in recent times but believes that factors other than CO2 are likely the dominant cause.  Bebb further states that there is no looming ‘climate crisis,’ negating any need for a radical rush to action.

A main part of the People’s Party’s platform is an idea called radical decentralization, he noted.

“Basically, the idea is to roll out the same freedoms that Quebec enjoys now, which are allowed under the constitution, to the rest of the provinces, should they choose to do that,” Bebb said.

He also noted that this time around, the People’s Party stands to gain from the Conservative Party’s current direction.

“The conservative party is in a tailspin as Erin O’Toole takes the party farther to the left in order to try to chase the vote in the Toronto area,” said Bebb. “In fact, in so doing, he's abandoned his traditional base in Alberta.”

He also noted the Green Party is in disarray, as the group is undergoing an internal leadership battle.

Bebb will be squaring off against incumbent Liberal MP Patrick Weiler; Avi Lewis of the NDP; Mike Simpson of the Green Party and John Weston of the Conservatives in the next federal election.

Many suspect the next vote will occur in the late summer or sometime in the fall.

***Correction July 26, 1:20 p.m.: Clarifies that Doug Bebb believes "that factors other than CO2 are likely the dominant cause" of climate change.