Conservative leader and Regina—Qu’Appelle MP Andrew Scheer has ferociously criticized Prime Minster Trudeau’s lack of political ethics re SNC-Lavalin, blackface and even for skipping some leader’s debates. But Scheer’s righteous pedestal seems built on quicksand.

For 15 years, since elected here in 2004, he has misrepresented his work history; he never worked as a licensed insurance broker. While in past years his party has attacked other leaders for dual citizenship, he failed to mention that he was also an American citizen. He consistently hedges on his social conservative views.

Scheer was injected into the Regina—Qu’Appelle riding by Harper’s political machine, and consistently evades transparency in the riding he is supposed to represent.

Though our member of Parliament, he refused to attend the May 16, 2012 meeting in Indian Head about Harper’s elimination of the Prairie Shelter Belt Program that was located in this riding; he refused to attend the Treaty 4 First Nations’ meeting Jan. 11, 2013 on Harper’s deregulation of the Qu’Appelle Valley watershed that flows through Scheer’s riding; he refused to come here for a huge August 20, 2014 cottager’s meeting after Regina dumped hundreds of thousands of cubic metres of raw sewage into the lakes that flow through his riding.

Scheer would not attend the national Climate Forum held in his riding this last March 21, and he didn’t even reply to the invitation to attend the one and only all-candidates debate held in his riding on Oct. 4. The NDP, Liberal and Green candidates all attended.

It is a predictable pattern of irresponsibly evading transparency and accountability in his riding.

Do we really want someone who turns his nose up at constituency participation and accountability as the prime minister of this splendid country?

Jim Harding, retired professor
Moderator, Regina-Qu’Appelle all-candidates debate, Fort Qu’Appelle