Sturgeon River-Parkland MP Dane Lloyd was kept busy this year serving on committees, representing his riding and winning another term as MP.
Lloyd said winning his re-election was a high point of his year, but was followed shortly by the disappointment of finding out the Liberals won power again at the federal level.
Lloyd said the election kept him “tremendously busy” even though people said he had a safe riding to win as a Conservative.
“The historical data shows that it is a very strong Conservative riding,” Lloyd said. “But once people believe that you are taking them for granted, it's very hard to disprove. And so I worked just as hard, if not harder, (in 2019) because I never want to be accused of taking it for granted."
Lloyd won his election with a resounding 77.6 per cent of the vote and 52,163 votes during the October race. The NDP candidate in the riding, Guy Desforges, earned second place with 10.1 per cent (6,794 votes) and Ronald Brochu of the Liberal Party came in third with 6.8 per cent (4,590 votes). Cass Romyn of the Green Party earned 2.5 per cent (1,686 votes). The People’s Party of Canada candidate Tyler Beauchamp earned 2.3 per cent (1,577 votes) and Ernest Chauvet of the Christian Heritage Party finished in sixth place with 0.6 per cent (421 votes).
Lloyd said it helps to win an election when you are running under a good brand, like the Conservative Party, but this time around voters were also more familiar with him.
“Definitely this time around, I was running a bit on my record over the last two years.,” Lloyd said.
“They might have bought a conservative anyways, but it's good to hear that you're doing a good job.”
One of the high points for Lloyd personally this year was his marriage. He tied the knot with his new wife in August.
Copyright laws, rural broadband
The MP also serves on the federal standing committee on industry, science and technology, where he spent the year studying the Copyright Act.“We conducted a pretty sweeping review of the Copyright Act, which affects everything from the books that you read to the shows you watch, whether you're streaming or downloading them. We were really looking to update it for the digital age,” Lloyd said.
The committee also looked at rural broadband services this year. Lloyd said as soon as you drive out of St. Albert and into Sturgeon County, you will hit areas where you can’t get a cell signal.
“Obviously people in rural areas want to participate in the digital economy as well. But if they can't get access to broadband, then they can't participate. And so our economy is really losing out when we don't get the government helping to invest in infrastructure for internet in rural areas,” Lloyd said.
The MP has also been busy trying to get McCann’s Law passed, a bill that was motivated by the deaths of St. Albert seniors Lyle and Marie McCann, and got the stamp of approval from their son Bret. The bill would require convicted killers to disclose the locations of the remains of their victims or face consequences.
Travis Vader was convicted of manslaughter in their deaths in 2017 and received a life sentence, but the remains of the couple have never been found. Vader will be eligible for parole in 2020.
The proposed bill would create penalties for those convicted of an offence related to the death of a person or persons and who refuses to provide information regarding the location of the body or remains of the victim. The bill aims to impose consequences at sentencing, parole eligibility and conditional release applications if the location of the remains is not disclosed.
Lloyd plans to continue to work hard to get the bill passed under this minority government but is low on the list to introduce private members bills. MPs participate in a lottery system to determine what order they can introduce private members bills throughout the course of the government term. Lloyd is around two-thirds of the way down the list, but because this is a minority government, he is concerned he won’t get a chance to introduce his legislation.
“I'm working with some colleagues over the Christmas holidays to see if any of my colleagues (would) be interested in switching with me or introducing the bill on my behalf, and then we'll work on it together. That was a bit of a setback, one that I couldn’t control obviously,” Lloyd said.
Some of the things Lloyd is looking forward to next year include organ donation legislation coming forward that will make it easier for Canadians to donate organs. The MP said it could really make a difference in the lives of Canadians waiting on transplant lists.
Lloyd also looks forward to continuing to boost and champion as many companies as he can to come to his riding and tries to boost the area's great regulations, taxes and educated workforce to anyone interested in investing.
“We know that there's an unemployment problem in this province, especially for young men, and I just want to encourage them not to lose hope, because there are jobs out there. And maybe they're not jobs where they were paying $50 an hour for unskilled labor, but there are good paying jobs out there and I just encourage them to seek these out because there are opportunities in our region.”
Lloyd said next year he is looking forward to solid economic growth, having more pipeline capacity come online and having work come back to the oil and gas sector.
