Day eager to take role as PPC candidate in Prince Albert

Kelly Day took the long road to becoming a political
candidate.

Day, who’s running as the People’s Party of Canada
representative in Prince Albert, originally planned on working behind the
scenes as a member of the local party executive. However, she changed course when
no one stepped forward to take the riding nomination.

“There was no way I could leave this riding sitting
open,” Day said during a campaign event with PPC leader Max Bernier on
Wednesday. “We need to get Max in the debates. We need to have representation
across the board, so I stepped up and did it.”

Originally from Estevan, Day spent her 20s living on
the West Coast before moving back to Saskatchewan. Although she wasn’t involved
in politics at the time, she describes herself as a left-leaning supporter of
big government programs. She even voted for Justin Trudeau in the last
election.

However, things changed following a health scare about
a year ago. She was a starting to recover when she began watching videos and
reading articles by Canadian author and university professor Jordan Peterson.
She began to reevaluate her beliefs, and returned to her family’s conservative
roots.

“I wasn’t political, but I believed that the
government was responsible for helping us out—the bigger the government, the
better we could be,” Day said in an interview following the event. “It was this
idea of everything coming from the top down, but having lived through that and
going through that experience, I’ve come to see that’s not necessarily true.”

The PPC’s national program focuses largely on
immigration, equalization and free speech. Although he addresses a variety of
topics, Bernier talks about them the most during his stop in Prince Albert.

Day agrees that all of those issues are important ones
that need to be addressed, something she does regularly on her YouTube channel.
When it comes to Prince Albert, however, she sees healthcare, the federal
Carbon Tax and the federal government’s relationship with Indigenous
communities as the main issues voters are concerned about.

Like Bernier, Day advocates for replacing the Indian
Act with something that will foster a better partnership with the federal
government. She said it will help address poverty in First Nations communities,
while improving communication with First Nations leadership. She’s also eager
to meet with any local Indigenous leaders who have suggestions or concerns.

“We need to all work together and we need to move
forward,” she said. “We have some bad history, but we need to move forward
together.”

Day also wants to see tax reform, something she said
is desperately needed for poorer communities like Prince Albert. The PPC
platform calls for reducing Canada’s five income tax brackets down to two,
while also exempting Canadians from paying tax on their first $15,000 of
income. The PPC says that move would free up roughly 1.5-million Canadians from
paying any income tax.

“We don’t have a hugely rich city, so anything we can
do to reduce unnecessary taxes on people is (a positive),” she explained.

Day said she’s proud to be a PPC candidate, and hopes
voters will judge the party on its policies, and not on celebrity supporters.
The party has already removed one candidate, Fawzi Bidawi, after posting
controversial links on his twitter account.

Day supports moves to remove any extremist or racist
candidates from the party. However, she notes that it’s important to discuss issues
like immigration, and hopes Canadians can discuss them respectfully.

“There are certain things that we are tackling that
are very taboo, but I feel like they will become less taboo if we can
respectfully keep talking about them,” she said. “Islamism is not the same as
Islam, for example. Concerns with immigration is not the same as wanting no
immigration. These are important distinctions, and it takes people to have the
fortitude to do their research. Ultimately, I believe in good faith
conversations.”