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Larry McCormick: From Country Store keeper to Parliamentary Secretary
Larry McCormick was a popular country store keeper in Camden East throughout the 70s and 80s. People kept coming up to me saying Larry you should run, and finally in 93 I ran for the liberal nomination and have since been elected three times.
I would say that 95-99% of the people in parliament are there for the right reason, out of a desire to do good for their riding and their country. I ran before and Im running again because I think our area needs someone who is committed to rural areas.
McCormick, who served as chair of the rural caucus for 2 years and as parliamentary secretary to the minister of Agriculture for more than 2 years as well, thinks that the situation for rural areas is a challenge today and 20 years from now it will be an even greater challenge. This country has been built on the raw resources from the rural areas and not much has been left behind. That is not to say there are no opportunities in small towns, because there are, but it is a challenge to access services.
McCormick said he is concerned about what Stephen Harper would do in the area of regional economic development, pointing out that recently, with the hard work that Eastern Ontario Wardens have done over the past few years in lobbying the federal government, we have secured $10 million from the FedNor (the Federal Economic Development initiative for Northern Ontario) program of Industry Canada. The money is meant to assist economic renewal in eastern Ontario according to an Industry Canada press release from May 21st of this year. The money is intended to assist community futures development corporations to support local economic development efforts, the press release continues.
I sent a notice to all municipalities in my riding as soon as the announcement was made to get them to send a letter of intent for use of the money, McCormick said.
The government has also removed the GST from purchases by municipalities, which brought hundreds of thousands of dollars of savings in this riding alone, according to McCormick.
It has been a struggle, says McCormick, to get many people in government to take rural issues seriously. Ive had to fight as rural caucus chair and when I worked for the Minister of Agriculture, against the majority of members of Parliament who dont understand the needs of rural Canada. This is something that will be face by whoever represents this riding after the election on the 28th, and by whatever party is in power.
I feel that I owe it to the people of this riding to tell them that the Conservative Party constitutes a threat to economic development, and this would have consequences for this riding. Mr. Harper says he will phase out federal infrastructure programs.
Larry McCormick points out that in spite of Conservative party complaints about the federal governments reaction to the ongoing BSE crisis, the Conservatives voted against a proposal to rein in slaughter houses that were seen as profiting from the crisis.
Part of the solution is to establish smaller regional slaughterhouses, and we have put $7 million into regional slaughterhouses, including one in this area.
A couple of years ago Larry McCormick had a heart attack and needed an emergency bypass operation, so he says he knows first hand how important our health care system is. After making a strong recovery he now feels energetic and capable of taking on another term as MP.
