Conservative MP David Bexte in his maiden speech to the commons on Thursday said Westerners would like to “rip this place down” and rebuild Canada. “Alberta separatism is no longer a fringe idea,” said Bexte, who won the Bow River riding with 78.9% of the vote.“I come to the House with one of the strongest mandates in the nation.”“I earned it by promising to rip this place down to the studs and start rebuilding a country we can recognize again,” said Bexte, a farmer and former oil executive.“Alberta separatism is no longer a fringe idea. I heard it at the doors more times than I can count. I can tell it plainly. Alberta staying in Confederation is not up to me and it is not up to the Liberal government, it is up to the people of Alberta, and the Albertans know they have options.”“If the House continues to insult, abuse and neglect Alberta, if it refuses to treat our people and our industries with the respect they have earned, then the future of this country is not a guarantee.”.Liberal MP Kevin Lamoureux retorted, “I am not too sure what side of the issue of separation he is actually on.”“Does the member not believe that Canada working together can have a positive outcome for everyone in all regions of the country and that the federal government does have a very important role in society?” asked Lamoureux.“The government is failing,” replied Bexte.Bloc Québécois MP Martin Champoux said the spectre of Alberta’s separation was pause for thought.“It’s not for me to judge whether this is justified,” he said.Bexte told the Commons that schoolchildren in the hamlet of Lyalta, AB, were listening to the Throne Speech debate.“These students are paying attention,” he said.“We need Ottawa to get out of the way. I ran to represent the people who built this country and now watch it being dismantled by people who do not understand it and, worse, do not even like it.”“I am the son of a farmer who survived communism with nothing but his hands, his family and the hope that Alberta would be a place where his children could speak freely, live safely, and never bow to a state that hated them,” said Bexte, son of an East German refugee, per Blacklock’s Reporter.“My father did not come to Canada in 1953 for a handout. He did not arrive on a student visa or as part of some bureaucratic temporary foreign worker program.”There was “no welfare, no hotel rooms and no Liberal-sponsored welcome package,” said Bexte.“Just sweat, sacrifice and a belief that what Canada could be was what we should aspire to.”
