Conservative candidate pledges to do away with red tape and gun registry

Ken Johnston

Conservative candidate for the Thunder Bay-Rainy River riding, David Leskowski, was busy working the streets of Rainy River last Thursday trying to drum up support for his bid to become the next Member of Parliament here.
Leskowski, a native of Saskatchewan, has resided just outside of Thunder Bay in Kaministiqua since the late 1980s.
He has extensive experience in the logging industry and also worked a number of years with the Federal Department of the Environment.
Having been at the government level and on the ground with logging companies Leskowski has seen that there is too much red tape for small businesses and especially loggers.
He hopes that if elected to work at changing that situation for the better.
Leskowski has also worked with the farming community to improve things for them. The Walkerton water tragedy saw technology he had worked on in 1975 become very relevant again. Anaerobic Digesters get rid of fecal waste from cattle and capture the methane gas from it to make electricity.
He said that the technology is ready to roll but government red tape has made it difficult to get government assistance for the implementation at the farm level. He feels that as an MP for Thunder Bay-Rainy River he would in a position to cut that tape and help farmers with this very important issue.
Leskowski feels that once that happens there would be tremendous spin-off jobs created as with all the machine shops in the region working 100% on building the Digesters, “They could only produce 5% of the needed digesters.”
He noted that this technology could also be used to produce electricity from human waste on northern reserves.
Leskowski said that he would also work towards the complete abolishment of the federal gun registry. “The focus on legitimate sportsmen (with the registry) was ludicrous and shameful.”
Leskowski also argues that Northern Ontario has never been a focus of the Liberals and he promises to change that.
Leskowski has served as the Vice-president of the Canadian Alliance Party and now sits on the national executive of the new Conservative Party.
He has also served as the president of the Thunder Bay Unorganized Townships Chair of the Northern Ontario Social Services Board.
He ran in the last election for the Alliance against Stan Drominsky in Thunder Bay-Atikokan and lost.
Leskowski considers himself a rural guy and pledges not to let Thunder Bay dominate the interests of the riding over the smaller Rainy River District communities.
He favours a fixed federal election date every four years.
He also believes government should be grass roots driven and that is why he chose to join the Alliance Party and eventually participate in the Alliance-Conservative merger. He feels none of the other parties listen to the grass roots; even the NDP who Leskowski accuses of being, “Bought out by special interest groups.”
He hopes that people will see him as a grass roots candidate that will, “bring democracy back down to the people’s level.”