Medicine Hat-Cardston-Warner People's Party of Canada candidate Jordan Harris looks on after an interview on March 25, 2025. Eli J. Ridder/CHAT News

By Eli J. Ridder

CANADA'S CHOICE 2025

Medicine Hat-area PPC candidate names corruption as top 2025 election issue

Mar 26, 2025 | 12:09 PM

The People’s Party of Canada candidate for the Medicine Hat-area riding says that widespread government corruption is the top issue of a federal election that is dominated by Canada’s ongoing trade war with the U.S. and uncertainty around the economy.

“Corruption is number one because it rolls downhill, it really does,” said Jordan Harris, who was born in Calgary but spent some time in Medicine Hat later in life.

“All we get in politics these days is a lot of talk, a lot of these committees where they grandstand for a long time. And it would just be nice to see some action and to dig deep into these.”

Harris said voters in Medicine Hat-Cardston-Warner should consider the right-wing PPC to bring an end to the consecutive Liberal and Conservative governments.

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“The ‘uni-party’ has led us down into this stagnation for some 50 to 100 years,” he said, referencing a term often used by PPC leader Maxime Bernier to insinuate there’s little difference between the two biggest parties.

“Even just one riding like Medicine Hat would give some fresh perspective to the House (of Commons). And I think just having that option, even being there, makes a world of difference.”

Harris said general corruption extends to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, too, without providing evidence.

On the U.S. trade war and threats from Donald Trump to make Canada the 51st state, Harris said Canada shouldn’t be part of a country that allows for attempts on a president’s life.

The People’s Party was created by Bernier in September 2018 after he left the Conservative Party. Since its creation, the PPC has failed to elect a candidate anywhere across Canada and has yet to receive more than five per cent of the national ballot.

Bernier lost the Beauce riding he represented as a Tory in his first election as part of the PPC.

The People’s Party is known for its fiscally conservative approach to the economy, strict immigration policy, free market policies, skepticism of climate change and opposition to political correctness.

Harris said he shares many of the same values.

The 31-year-old said Canada should only accept highly-skilled and educated immigrants while also dismissing the importance of his own education.

Part of the reason Harris dropped out of a college in B.C. was because the school tried to convince him that having men in women’s sports was acceptable, he said.

Harris claimed he wouldn’t be able to learn anything and that schools are “brainwashing” their students.

“If you look at the stats on higher educated people in Canada, they almost unanimously vote Liberal. And there’s just a really interesting correlation between there,” he said.

“It needs to be investigated at the very least, or looked into.”

Harris didn’t expect to be in the election, saying he was offered the candidacy for the southeast Alberta riding after asking the PPC how he could help.

His original plan was to vote Conservative, a party he continues to be a member of while running as a PPC candidate.

“I’m still a Conservative member, but we’ll see how that goes,” said Harris.

Should he get elected, Harris said he would give away 75 per cent of his salary to charities and food banks in the riding.

“I don’t need $200,000 or whatever MPs are paid, it’s roughly that,” he said.