Venture entrepreneur Rick Peterson is holding a second run during a Conservative leadership

January 24, 2020
Business

The Conservative care competition is removing a initial Western Canadian candidate: Edmonton-based try entrepreneur Rick Peterson, who ran and mislaid to Andrew Scheer in 2017.

CBC News has schooled Peterson filed his papers with a celebration on Tuesday. His group is now collecting a 1,000 signatures from Conservative members he needs to enter a race by a Feb. 27 deadline.

“We can't have a Conservative care competition though a voice from a West,” Peterson told CBC News.

“I am an outsider. we am not an MP but, on a other hand, I’ve got some business knowledge that we’re looking brazen to bringing to a table. And it’s vital.”

Peterson will formally announce his candidacy subsequent week during High Arctic Energy Services, an oilfield services association nearby Edmonton. The choice of plcae is symbolic: Peterson is planting his dwindle as a party’s western-based champion of a appetite sector.

“The grassroots of a party are in Western Canada,” he said. “So a Conservative Party has to take a care role. And has to continue holding a care purpose on a apparatus file.

“And my candidacy from a heart of a apparatus sector, from Western Canada, will be a strong, confidant height of process ideas, including a apparatus sector, in both central languages opposite a country.”

Peterson pronounced he’ll also be pitching policies on carbon pricing for vast emitters, digital privacy, deregulating the banking and telecom sectors, assisting students with their loans and expelling corporate income taxes.

Plans for Quebec

Peterson is fluently bilingual. He has family in Quebec and pronounced that he and his group will persevere a “big part” of a debate to building support there.

“I have a grandson, he is Quebecois. Born a year ago and he’s giving me one some-more reason to come behind to Quebec on an ongoing basis. we can’t wait to see him,” he said.

“A large partial of a debate is going to be in Quebec. we was propitious to have lived in France for 10 years as a immature male so my French is flattering good.”

Peterson pronounced he’d hoped to behind Rona Ambrose’s care bid. The former halt Conservative personality reliable currently that she’s not running.

“We’re in. We’re all in. Once we launch, we can’t behind out,” Peterson said.

Peterson finished during a behind of a container in 2017 — 12th out of fourteen candidates, with usually 0.7 per cent of a opinion by a time he was eliminated.

Peterson pronounced he knows a stream competition could be a tough one for him as well, with celebration heavyweights like Peter MacKay, Marilyn Gladu, Pierre Pollievre and Erin O’Toole primed to run.

“They have a advantage of name recognition. They have an advantage of a network, I’m sure, opposite Canada,” he said.

“I’m substantially going to be a usually claimant who has to accommodate a payroll, who’s employing and banishment people, who’s operative in a private sector. So we all have a strengths, we all have a weaknesses. So I’m going to be highlighting a fact that we can know a economy and jobs and creation certain that a Conservative Party is during a forefront of formulating jobs and practice in Canada.”