Catherine McKenna returns to door-knock in Victoria
A familiar face was waiting for Carney when he showed up at the Victoria Edelweiss Club Sunday night: former environment minister Catherine McKenna.
McKenna, who left federal politics in 2021, said she came out to Vancouver Island on her own volition to door-knock with candidates and campaign.
“We’ll see what happens on election day. But I think we’ve got a real shot,” she told reporters.
The area historically votes NDP (or for Green Party co-leader Elizabeth May in Saanich-Gulf Islands), but as the NDP appears to be floundering in the polls, Liberals are hopeful they can flip the region red.
It’s something McKenna knows how to do. She beat popular incumbent NDP MP Paul Dewar in the Ottawa Centre riding in 2015.
“Even people that had supported the NDP in the past, they recognized that the election was really consequential and that was why they took a shot at me,” she said.
She did get asked about Carney’s move to scrap the carbon tax — a policy she brought in under former prime minister Justin Trudeau.
“It was really hard. I’m not going to deny it,” she said. “But the reality is, at this moment in time, [we] cannot divide Canadians.”
