Chuck Strahl admits that when he started his political career in the Fraser Valley all he had to do was win the Reform Party’s nomination and he was all but assured of a seat in the House of Commons.
That was in 1993, and after three elections Strahl is still in charge.
At 47 Strahl has four kids and three grandchildren and is every bit the consummate Conservative, but despite his moderate style his time in Ottawa has not been free of controversy.
During the summer of 2001 Strahl and Deborah Grey led a group of dissident MPs who split with the Canadian Alliance and started working with the Progressive Conservatives to protest Stockwell Day’s leadership.
The efforts of the group led to Day’s ouster as leader, replaced by Stephen Harper.
Following the election of Harper as Alliance leader in April 2002, Strahl rejoined the Alliance caucus, and in December 2003 the Alliance and the Progressive Conservatives ratified an agreement to merge and become the Conservative Party of Canada.
Strahl has also had leadership aspirations but his inability to speak French and some lingering distrust amongst a few of his colleagues over his rebellion in 2001 stymied those aspirations.
But heading into his fourth election Strahl appears to be as popular as he’s ever been in his party, and there is no doubting his popularity with his constituents.
In the 2000 election Strahl won a whopping 69.97 per cent of the vote in the Fraser Valley, which was up six per cent on what he won in the 1997 election.
Strahl visited Pemberton last Saturday, which is one of the towns that was included in the re-drawn Chilliwack-Fraser Canyon riding last April, to hear from residents and bolster his popularity there.
First Nation’s activities dominated most of the conversation, but Strahl later spoke of gas taxes and infrastructure as some of the bigger issues affecting his riding.
"Our policy of returning gas taxes for transportation infrastructure has been something I’ve been advocating since I got involved in politics right back to Reform Party days," said Strahl.
"In the 12 years I’ve been involved, every year the government finds an excuse not to do it.
"I think what’s happened, now that everybody understands the crisis that’s happening in the municipalities and the cities, so (the Liberals) come up with a version of returning some of the money to municipalities and cities.
"But we want to make sure it’s not just a big-city agenda – it’s easy to stave off hundreds of millions for rapid transit but that doesn’t help the rural part of the country which is also suffering a different type of problem."
Pemberton was previously in the West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast riding, which has been fellow Conservative MP John Reynolds’s riding, and Strahl said he has been conversing with Reynolds for about six months.
"I know John Reynolds well. I’ve been house leader before and I’m a friend of his, we get along well.
"He’s been sharing with me correspondence from the mayor and softwood lumber adjustments, we’ve been working on that together for six months to try and make that transition as smooth as possible."
On a national level there are a number of issues, particularly same-sex marriages and Iraq, that are not hotly contested issues in Strahl’s riding, but the incumbent MP was happy to address them anyway.
"On the definition of marriage my track record is pretty clear, I voted in favour of keeping the traditional definition of marriage in the House of Commons.
"It’s a definition issue and it’s not a matter of benefits or employment opportunities, or access to benefits of any other kind. There needs to be recognition that there are other kinds of relationships besides the traditional marriage relationships.
"And I think the majority in my riding – and I think in Canada – feel there should be a way of doing that without having to redefine the traditional definition of marriage.
"I think the majority of Liberals support that as well."
On the issue of the Iraq war and whether the Conservative Party would have defied the wishes of the majority of Canadians and sent troops to fight with the Americans, Strahl was to the point.
"There’s no interest or desire of any kind that a Conservative government would ever send troops to Iraq.
"But we have also made it clear that we think that when our traditional allies like Australia, the U.S., Great Britain feel threatened or compromised, we’re not going to start bad mouthing them in the press and calling them morons, and bastards, and losers of different kinds and that’s what’s happened – especially at crisis moments for the Americans.
"We just think that’s a poor way to treat our biggest trading partner and strongest ally.
"We also think we should stay in NORAD and NATO because we think there’s a need to stand together for commonly-held beliefs but when you do that in a meaningful way, like in any relationship, there’s times when you can say, ‘I’ve stood shoulder to shoulder with you on a lot of things but this time I have to tell you you’re wrong’.
"You can do that if you have a good working relationship with your allies.
"But it just seems to me with the Iraq war all we did in Canada was harm our relationship with the Americans to the degree that it’s spilled over into everything else, from softwood lumber to mad cow negotiations to border traffic to investment, and all of it was unnecessary."
