The Ridge interviews Marc Dalton, Conservative candidate and incumbent for Pitt Meadows-Maple Ridge

The Ridge interviewed Marc Dalton, the incumbent MP in the Pitt-Meadows Maple Ridge riding, to talk about he plans to support his constituents, if he is elected again.

This interview has lightly edited for length and clarity.

The Ridge: Why are you running for re-election in the Pitt Meadows-Maple Ridge riding?

Marc Dalton: Well, I’ve been a long time resident here in the community. I lived a decade in Pitt Meadows and over 20 years in Maple Ridge. So, I know it very well. My children went to school here, and I’m passionate about our community and representing it and bringing forward the needs at the national level. I was an MLA for eight years, also representing both Maple Ridge–it was Maple Ridge and Mission. And then I’ve been the MP for the past six years. I’m a school teacher by profession in this riding, teaching at both secondary and elementary levels for numerous years.

The Ridge: What are those needs of Pitt Meadows-Maple Ridge that you want to bring to the national level? What are you seeing in your community?

Marc Dalton: It’s things that I do on an ongoing basis. And a lot of the activities I do, is what I’m hearing  in my engagement with the community, with the people over many years. When I was an MLA and was able to—one of the needs was getting a new MRI machine in the hospital. So I was able to advocate for that, or a new school or new infrastructure programs. That’s on the provincial level. 

On the federal level, I’m in the opposition. I am in the Conservative Party. And so, we’ve seen, pretty much everybody that I’ve talked to is–no matter who they vote for–are pretty much of the same mind. The past 10 years have not been great for Canada. And have not been great for here. I mean, I love this community. It’s a postcard, in many respects, you look at the mountains, it’s like paradise. But when you’re in the downtown core, there’s a lot of things that have been happening that have you know been a reflection of the government, the federal government, the provincial government, I’d say, but particularly on the federal government, that has really brought about, I would say, a decline in our core. And that would be, things such as crimes, such as drugs. And we don’t like to talk about it, but it’s the reality. 

So, I have brought forward things that, such as–and I influenced our party–to speak about and to put forward the policy platform on recovery and on treatment. We’ve seen 50,000 people that have died to overdoses in Canada since the Liberals were first elected. There are hundreds of deaths throughout the country every month. That’s one important piece. There’s numerous other issues that I’m able to advocate and bring forward to the national level.

The Ridge: And if you were elected again, what are you hoping to focus on to support the folks in the Pitt Meadows-Maple Ridge riding?

Marc Dalton: Well, I’m part of a team. The conservative team, Conservative party. It’s become very difficult for young people to get ahead. I bought a brand new townhouse in Pitt Meadows when I was a first year teacher, and my wife was primary at home, with the—help with the children. And that’s an impossibility nowadays. It is so hard, it is so hard–not just for one income—and I worked very hard. I had to get other jobs and things like that too, but we could do it on my income. 

And that has changed now. And there’s a tremendous amount of frustration.  You go to the rallies we’re seeing 1000s and 1000s of people attend. And I would say  that a good, a very high percentage, those are younger people. I’m in my 60s now, so when I say younger, I mean anywhere from 20 to 45, that age group. There’s been a massive shift, because they want opportunities. They want the economy to get going. They want strong paychecks. They want to be able to afford a home. And the government has made that very difficult.

I do place this upon the Liberal government, much of their policies. So the Conservatives will bring about policies even, for example, in housing that can save a lot of money, reduce regulation and help get people into homes and good paying jobs.

The Ridge: What specifically would your party do, or what would you do to make homes and things more accessible and things more affordable?

Marc Dalton: Well, for one thing, what we’ve done is we are taking off the GST, off of all new homes, whether it’s purchased by a new home buyer or an existing home buyer. It’s about $100,000, it’s up to 1.3 million. So take you off the GST, but when you include the interest payments that have to be made of the savings, you’re looking at probably about $100,000. But also we’re going to incentivize cities to reduce a lot of their regulations to also bring about a reduction in the cost. This will help in a significant way. But also it will help to get the construction industry moving and build more homes. 

Because right now we have a housing crisis, and a lot has to do with the uncontrolled immigration—the Liberals have, under them we’ve had over 1 million people come to Canada every year. Now, Conservative are are fully supportive of immigration, but we want to ensure that it’s according to the level of our housing and the jobs that are here. So that newcomers come and they are not in a really bad position. And also it leaves everybody – it doesn’t put stresses on the whole system, so we want to make sure it’s according to the number of housing starts we have and according to our economy. So that’s an important factor also. So we support immigration, but we just want to make sure that it is measured according to the number of housing starts we have in Canada and the economic growth and all that ability.

[Editor’s note: From 2017 to 2019, the Trudeau government admitted 300,000 immigrants, and from 2021 to 2023, about 430,000 per year. There has also been an increase in international students (who enter on student visas and can apply for their permanent residency and citizenship afterwards), from 300,000 when the Liberals were elected to 1 million in 2023. Read analysis on immigration here.]

The Ridge: From my understanding, part of the [housing] problem is people retiring–like lack of labour–and cost of construction. What are your plans to address those issues for housing? 

Marc Dalton: I’m not quite sure I understand that question. You’re saying it’s because of seniors wanting to sell their houses?

The Ridge: No, I’m sorry, a labour shortage in the construction industry, so not enough workers, and then high cost of construction.

Marc Dalton: Yes, but the primary cause–one of the most significant is actually all the taxes, the bureaucracy, the regulation. I talked to builders, and they’re saying it used to be that you could get a house plate approved, you’ll get the permits in, and you can actually get moving within six months. Now it’s a couple of years. And those costs, those holding costs — and a lot of the reason why it’s taking so long these approvals – is because of red tape and regulations and changes. The builders have to hold on, pay the interest and then pass it on. They have to make a living also. So that’s one thing, all the red tape like that, honestly, if you’re looking probably at least one third of the cost or more is having to do with taxes, bureaucracy, and all sorts of fees and all that that is the major part. And that is something that can be controlled a lot better than it has in the past, and that can change.

The Ridge: Right now there’s a lot of uncertainty for voters, in light of the U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war and threats to Canadian sovereignty as well. So why are you the best person for the job in Pitt Meadows-Maple Ridge at this time. Or why is the Conservative Party the best party?

Marc Dalton: The problems we’ve had in Canada in Pitt Meadows, Maple Ridge, in Mission, in the Lower Mainland has gone on way before Donald Trump came into the picture. Whether it be crime, whether it be economic stagnation, whether it be the cost of living, whether all these sort of things, they’ve been going for a long time. And Donald Trump, they’re going to do what they’re going to do. I’m not happy at all. We’re not happy at all. We’ll stand up for Canada first. But it’s very important to understand that the reason why we are in—or very large reasons that we’re in–is because of the Liberal policies. 

And why do I say that? We have been beholden to the Americans, basically, to be blackmailed by Trump. And how is that? Well, we didn’t expand our markets. It hasn’t been that long ago that Europe came to us. Japan came to us. They wanted our natural resources, our fossil fuels export, and the Liberal governments basically have said that they’ll see if there’s a business case. Well, those other countries went to Qatar, went to the United States, and they got it. So Canada missed out. And has been missing out, and we have, under the Liberals no more pipeline bill, essentially, it has forced 98 per cent of our number one export, which is oil, going down to the States. And we don’t have other markets. So we are in a real bad position. So Conservative government will get our country fired up. We have different platforms, different policy we brought forward that will reinvigorate, bring investments back to Canada.

[Editor’s note: 97 per cent of Canadian crude oil was exported to the United States as of 2023]

And keep in mind that Mark Carney has been the chief economic advisor for them since 2020. Things have been stagnant. Mark Carney is a very strong proponent of something called net zero. Which has a couple aspects, one of them being the carbon tax, which they didn’t take off of our businesses and industries. And that is a tariff that we impose upon ourselves. So that is one thing, and also what is done. So we have this tariff on ourselves. And secondly, what the issue is, the net zero, is that it has really put a break on all our industries. It could be forestry, it is fishing, agriculture, oil and gas, mining, all these things have had a real pressure against. And I talked to farmers, for example, and it’s become very tough under the Liberals. And so we want to unleash the source of wealth that that Canada has to offer and has been suppressed. So you’re going to see a country that is reinvigorated. And you know,  that will be strong and can stand up on its own two feet. It won’t be so vulnerable to blackmail by Trump.

The Ridge:  What are the plans exactly for that? How does that look?  

Mark Dalton: We have a number of different things. Number one—not in any particular order—we have something called the Canada First TFSAs. So Canadians brought in TFSAs, which basically shelters investments that everyday Canadians make from taxation on their interest up to $7,000 a year. Now we’re going to do another $5,000 a year, and those are you can, you can put into a new TFSA, but that money has to be going into a Canadian company that pays taxes in Canada. We’re not wanting people to go shelter their taxes, like Mark Carney and his company that he did bring it down to Cayman Islands, to Bahamas, and we want the taxes to go in Canada. So that’s one thing that will bring investments. 

Secondly, where capital gains taxes. We’re going to make sure that there is no capital gains increase, which the Liberals were going to do, which has been a real—now they’re backing down a bit. But also, capital gains will be for companies if they sell dormant land and they reinvest it into a new property, a new business in Canada, they can defer their capital gains, so that will help with reinvestment.  

Third, it takes about 20 years for a new mine or projects to get established in Canada because it’s so laborious. They have been like I said, the Liberals have been very much against the expansion of energy, expansion of projects. We’ve lost toward I believe, $200 billion–towards that–of investments in these things in Canada. So we are going to basically pre-clear areas for energy, for development, and make sure that the appropriate environmental assessments are made, that there’s discussions with the First Nations. And then we’re going to put up an open market for companies to come in and say, ‘Listen, these criteria are already made. You don’t have to spend 20 years and spend billions of dollars on doing this, something that will actually end up failing and never happen.’ And this will attract investment and job opportunities. And that’s what the people are crying for in Canada. 

[Editor’s note: It takes about 17 years for a mine to get approved].

Like I said, we have in the past 10 years, we call the lost Liberal decade, we have been flat. We’ve only grown in per capita terms and real terms about one per cent. And so we have fallen. We used to have the richest, according to the New York Times, the richest middle class in the world. Now our per capita income is about one third less than the United States. We are declining in world standings, and this is because of the economic and poor leadership of the Liberal government. And Mark Carney has been in the background during this time.

[Editor’s Note: Here’s the New York Times article. Since the Liberals were elected, annual per-person GDP growth has been 0.3 per cent].

The Ridge: You mentioned net zero. What is the Conservative Party plan to adapt to, mitigate climate change?

Marc Dalton: Well, first of all, the Liberals have finally taken off the carbon tax. They’ve been saying for years and years, whenever we brought this up. ‘Oh the whole planet is going to burn down if the carbon tax goes away.’ But it’s been very obvious that this is not an environmental plan. It’s a tax plan, because even here in British Columbia, most of that money has gone just to general revenues. So our plan is to see innovation happen. And there’s so many different examples all around of business innovation that actually improves climate and climate change and pollution. I think of one company in Pitt Meadows that has the ability to provide enough leafy greens for all of B.C., Alberta and Northwest, and just reusing all of the carbon right there, that comes from the plants. It is amazing. 

Also, the development of our LNG [liquid natural gas], export of our—we’re one of the biggest, have most reserves for liquid natural gas. If Canada was to provide India with half of the expected growth in their electrical growth in the next 20 years, okay, so Canada was able to provide through liquid natural gas to India, that would be about 2.5 billion tonnes. And that is three times more than if we totally shut down our entire economy. So it’s in the world’s interests, because climate is not just—it doesn’t have borders. It’s global. It’s in the interest of the world for us to develop and export this regarding climate change, and it’s great for Canada also.

The Ridge: Those are all my questions Marc, but is there anything else you wanted to add?

Marc Dalton: I guarantee that a Conservative government will turn this country around for the better in every way, for everyone, and we will put Canada first and see a change. And this country does need a change, and Mark Carney does not represent that change. I recognize that it’s a new face, but he has been the same person, the same party, same people around him, a lot of the same policies that brought Canada to its knees. A change means a vote for Conservative party. And here in Pitt Meadows, Maple Ridge, Mission, it is a vote for me, for Marc Dalton.

Read the rest of the candidate interviews.

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The Ridge interviews Daniel Heydenrych, NDP candidate for Pitt Meadows-Maple Ridge

The Ridge interviews Chris Lehner, PPC candidate for Pitt-Meadows- Maple Ridge

The Ridge interviews Peter Buddle, Rhino candidate for Pitt-Meadows-Maple Ridge