Russ Emo: Back For Another Round
By John Swartz
SUNonline/Orillia profiles candidates from each party in the forthcoming federal election. Each candidate was asked the same set of questions. All candidates were invited to participate, however Rebecca Elming, press secretary of the New Democratic Party said, Simcoe North candidate Melissa Lloyd, “is not available for an interview.”
The Christian Heritage Party candidate in the Simcoe North riding is Russ Emo. This is his second time running here and he ran in the Dufferin – Caledon riding in 2019 where he came in 6th with 318 votes. Emo lives in Kirkfield with his wife with whom he has five children.
“Originally I grew up by the airport. I’m a Malton boy. I had family that actually worked on the (AVRO) Arrow,” Emo said.
Why be a candidate and for the Christian Heritage Party?
“They already had an established district association here. That’s what originally got me. When I ran in Dufferin – Caledon (2019) there was nothing there and it was difficult, so this was kind of a unique situation for me to have people that were onboard, that were willing to do a lot of the extra work for me.”
“The CHP is the only federal, 100% pro-life party. Pro-life is very dear to my heart. When my wife was pregnant with him (youngest child), we were put through all the testing and everything like that and the only conclusions they would come to for us, the only decisions to make things better was to abort him and that was not an option on our table. When he was born we had one of the heads of McMaster Hospital asked us, “Every choice we gave you, you turned them down, why?”
“It was kind of funny, maybe they thought we were going to sue them because of what had happened. We came back and said, “When you gave us these answers and we asked what can you do about it, you’re answer was nothing.” So why would I subject my wife to more tests, pain, etc., potentially lose my child over something you can do nothing about. He’s the apple of our eye, we’ve always been 100% proactive,” Emo said.
Politicians and candidates get asked a lot of questions. It’s almost embarrassing to watch one speak endlessly when it is clear they don’t have an answer instead of saying, “I don’t know,” and promising to find out. Each Candidate was asked how they inform themselves about subjects they are unfamiliar with.
“There’s always somebody smarter than me. What I do is I start researching and I look for patterns of meshing. When CNN was going to be 24/7, how do you possibly fill 24/7 worth of news unless you start getting into, ‘well, in my opinion?” That’s where we are now, everybody has got an opinion; some are good, some are bad, some are just fabricated,” Emo said.
“I don’t go to Youtube at all. Too many opinions and people have their bend a lot of times. I like something a little more substantial a little more credibility. Everybody has a phone, everybody has a blog and can put their slant on things.”
“There’s been so much misinformation out there. Even though I hear people say what they have to say and maybe I’ll like it, I will still dig a little bit deeper just to make sure it is accurate.”
Housing
Housing is the first topic posed to candidates. The feds got out of funding housing. Now they want to get back in to support building lots of homes. SUNonline/Orillia believes this is missing the mark, an expensive home relative to ability to pay is still an expensive home. SUNonline/Orillia Also believes the heart of the matter is corporate Canada, through Real Estate Investment Trusts and Airbnb, are the prime instigators of price increases. What would candidates do to change housing from owning commodities to owning homes again?
“Back in the 50s a one income family could own a home. Now a two income family still can’t afford it, so we’ve got a real issue.”
“It comes down to supply and demand. We’ve got so many foreign investors who are buying all this stuff. You and I can’t buy 17 homes and rent them out. Around me we’ve got lots of cottages and most of them are Airbnb’s and they are owned by people elsewhere. Here we’ve got homes that could be utilized by people. If we are allowing others to come in and buy all this stuff up, obviously we’ve got a problem. We’re continuing to create homes and what happens with those homes. These foreign investors have got the big money; they’re going to buy those up. It’s going to be an ongoing circus,” Emo said.
Immigration
While immigration is a national concern, many economists say we aren’t taking in enough people to sustain the society we created? The CPP and economic growth need working people, but the workforce is getting smaller compared to the retired class. How do candidates think our infrastructure should be rejigged to accommodate immigrants, and will they make sure immigrants are treated fairly by employers?
“Immigration has always been a vital part of our country and the growth of it. We do need to make sure we do proper vetting. We have to be cautious and vet properly. We can’t just open it, wide open borders, everybody‘s coming in a be a catch basin for everybody because we can get ourselves in serious trouble. We do have to have the structures in place,” Emo said.
The threat of tariffs has forced us to look at a board range of things. This includes employment for everybody, citizens and immigrants.
“It’s a wake up call that we finally look an said maybe we should be trading interprovincial better, maybe we need more infrastructure, maybe we need some more manufacturing. When we start creating all this stuff, obviously we’re going to need more people and there’s going to be jobs. We’ll be a stronger country, and a happier country.”
There is also a looming issue which is not talked about by government, climate refugees. People who study this say there will be millions of people fleeing places they can no longer live in. Should Canada be make long term plans for people needing an escape?
“There should always be a plan. We should always have a one, five, ten, twenty year plan for everything in place. With the flexibility to change. Not based on the local climate of what we are going through now. We need to stay focused on what we are doing, steady the path and get ready for this stuff,” Emo said.
Climate Change
Many national and provincial politicians, and industries want to back away from climate change measures, motivated by ridiculous deregulation and jettisoning of environment professionals in the United States. Is this a good idea? Or a bad idea?
“Our party platform is, we have to be good stewards of the planet. We all have to survive here. We need to make sure we are taking care of that, looking for alternatives, but not taxing us to death. Where’s all the carbon tax money going?”
Some of the carbon tax was supposed to be invested in research.
“If it is and it’s working, awesome. But, if it’s just lining people’s pockets, we need to survive too.”
“Three years ago we were electric, electric; Elon Musk is the best. Now all of a sudden Elon Musk is this and we’re not hearing about electric cars anymore. Tesla, Tesla, and now it’s burn the Tesla.”
As an insurance broker he knows well the cost of climate change.
“We know exactly what it costs. The number one claim, years ago it used to be fire and now it’s because of water, flooding.”
Americanization Of Canadian Politics
Many people complain about the Americanization of Canadian political discourse. Some politicians have adopted the tactics, the issues and the phrases. Do we not have enough of our own problems without importing them? How much responsibility does media bear for amplifying this?
“The media has always been a big component of things. They’re the ones getting the information to us. You need to make sure you are listening to the ones giving us the facts as opposed to opinion,” Emo said.
“Because everybody has smart phones in their pockets, we’re more apt to get information right away. Because of that the media is trying to be relevant, they’re trying to be first to the point and sensationalism is huge.”
Some media are reckless in giving voice to people and groups who argue in bad faith, they create dichotomies on issues that are largely made up or don’t have two sides, and in some cases lie about events and facts. The Canadian Association of Broadcasters used to have an ethical code about truthfulness, but you won’t find one on their website now. The Canadian Association of Journalists also have one, but it is largely ignored. The CRTC regulates broadcast and cable licenses and news was required to be truthful in order to keep a license, but one hasn’t seen a report of a CRTC investigation into irresponsible news dissemination in a long time. It can also be argued our media, largely owned by American venture capitalists is part of the problem. Should there be regulation of ownership and enforcement of what is on the books?
“There needs to be integrity. We need to have ethics, morality. If you have an organization that wants an agenda pushed, so they decide to line the pockets of the media source, “either you promote this or we’ll pull our funding.” That’s wrong as well,” Emo said.
“There is so much twisting and turning with words. Get the story right, get the facts right and let’s report that.”
What about the
source of misinformation, which is often politicians. Is there accountability
on their part?
“I think you need to point them out and expose what’s being said. If you have individuals, you’ve got the microphone up to their face, they need to be telling the truth. We need to hear exactly what you are saying, what you believe,” and be challenged? “And report it correctly.”
The Last Word
Candidates usually have a burning issue not anticipated by the questions posed to all. This is their chance to speak on it.
“Me, and hopefully there’s a lot of other people, are just tired of the ping pong match. We get a Liberal government in, we don’t like what they do, so what do we do? We rally together and say, ‘Let’s have the Conservatives.” The Conservatives are in there for a while, we don’t like what they’re doing, lets vote the Liberals back in. Wait a minute. You didn’t like the Liberals before, why do you like them now?”
“Why don’t we start looking at other parties? Years ago it was very distinct (three main parties). Now they are kind of flowing together, you can’ tell anymore. You don’t know exactly what they believe anymore. For us, we’re very straight forward, you can go on our website, you can see what we stand for. We’re very transparent, we’re very open. We just believe what we believe. Just because we have the word Christian in our name, we’re not out to convert people, we’re not going to put bibles in everybody’s hands,” Emo said.
Does Emo believes in separate church and state.
“Absolutely. If you were to look at the Jewish sector, the Muslim sector, everything we believe, everything we do, they would agree on and probably the biggest boundary they would have is we have the word Christian on the party. All we’re saying is we believe in an ethical, moral country where you can actually trust the government in what we do. ”
He also likes the party’s plan for taxation.
“We have a purchase (consumption) tax. What we want to do is, the Bank of Canada, let’s go back to the original reason why it was set up. Interest free loans to towns, townships to be able to build. When we say with our fair tax, it becomes a purchase thing, so every penny you make is yours. You pay tax according to how you spend it. Everybody would then be paying their fair share because they would be buying within their means,” and paying tax accordingly Emo said.
(Photos by Swartz – SUNonline/Orillia) Main: Russ Emo is the Christian Heritage Party candidate in the Simcoe North riding.
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