Tuesday December 19, 2023 | LANGFORD, BC [Updated December 20, 2023]
by Mary P Brooke | Island Social Trends
This evening Alistair MacGregor, MP (Cowichan-Malahat-Langford) held his holiday season open house in Langford. Another event will be held at the other end of the large riding — in Duncan, tomorrow night.
The two-hour casual chat-and-snack evening was attended by about 70 people in the Langford Legion main hall, with a slideshow of Alistair’s accomplishments displaying images in the background on stage. A relaxed and low-key event, MacGregor had a chance to mingle with everyone in the room — one after the other, and some even twice.
Many well-established NDP and community-level supporters were there. Some people brought along teens and young children.
MacGregor introduced his six staffers by name, giving them accolades for the work of serving a large constituency of about 100,000 people: Robert Martin, Leanne, Ashley and Lucas were in the room; Sean and Adam work in Ottawa.
Speech to the room:
At a microphone from the front of the room, MacGregor noted right off the top in a six-minute speech that inflation and the cost of food “has hit a lot of our families really tough”. He highlighted his role as the NDP’s Food Price Inflation Critic and said that calling grocery executives to Ottawa was “one of the most important pieces of my work in Ottawa to try and hold them to account”. In context: “Because I think what we need to do in this country is to stop being so deferential to corporations,” said MacGregor, to some vigorous applause.
“In these times where so many people are going through trials and tribulations… so many families are bearing the burden while so many corporate sectors have been making record profits over the last three years,” he added.
“One of my missions as a member of parliament is trying to expose that and find ways where we can challenge the status quo, and think of ways that we can put power back into the pockets of working families, labour unions, and the people who built the middle class 50 years ago,” said Alistair MacGregor who has now been an elected MP for eight years (first elected in 2015, then again in 2019 and 2021).
“In the last 30 to 40 years of unrestrained neo-liberalism we have seen the pendulum swing too far one way,” said MacGregor. “That’s why, as I see labour unions across this country and workers standing up for their rights, better wages, better working conditions… back in the favour of working families, I will stand by the rights of workers and their efforts to fight for better working conditions.”
The Fall session in the House of Commons was a raucous one: “I have never seen a more topsy-turvy session in the last eight years. We stood up for working families over this last fall session. It was a long 30-hour voting marathon… which left our team with a real sense of team spirit and accomplishment of fighting against what would have been Conservative cuts to programs and policies that many people depend on,” said MacGregor about the filibuster-style antics by the Conservatives and the pushback by Liberals and NDP on December 8 and 9.
Describing himself as a Vancouver Islander through and through, MacGregor bookmarked the start of his constituency time by saying how glad he was to get home Friday evening December 15, back to the community. While he has built a presence in Langford over the past eight years, MacGregor has now lived more than 30 years in Cowichan Valley where he lives on a farm with his wife and three daughters. “Returning here really reinvigorates my sense of why I’m doing this work,” said the 44-year-old politician.
MacGregor encouraged everyone to take a break, get some rest and relaxation with friends and family, and to “hold strong”.
Aiming toward election year 2025:
“Together we’re going to pull through and we’re going to make 2024 a better year, through community solidarity, resiliency and spirit,” said MacGregor to the crowd.
He didn’t specifically mention the housing crisis in his speech, and didn’t directly bash the Liberal government with which the NDP has a Supply and Confidence Agreement that lasts into 2025. No specific mention of seniors or health care.
The next federal election is presently scheduled to take place in October 2025.
Coming up in the new year:
MacGregor will have a chance to bring a bill forward in the 2024 winter session. This week his office sent out a postal mailer about Bill C-277 regarding a national strategy on brain injuries.
MacGregor will continue to sit on the House of Commons Agriculture and Agri-Food Committee. He also has a bill aiming to establish a national soil health strategy. | See: Alistair MacGregor’s Private Member Bills
Who was there:
Folks attending this evening included local MLA Ravi Parmar (Langford-Juan de Fuca) and his young staffers Chloe and Hudson, and several long-time NDP staffers and organizers including Sue Stroud, Joanna Lord and Hans Frederiksen.
Others who mingled with the community were former West Shore Chamber of Commerce president Mike Reilly, Royal Roads professor Brian White, local community organizer Kara Middleton, and Island Social Trends publisher Mary Brooke (also now working on urban food resilience).
Unless they were in-and-out right at the start at 4 pm, it appears that no one from Langford city council or the SD62 Sooke School district board attended, but there was a good cross-section of the regular local community. Absolutely no one was there from the housing development or retail sectors.
Back after pandemic and snow:
Last year’s open house was snowed-out at the last minute (remember the snow storm of December 2022!). Before that, the pandemic interrupted holiday mingling.
===== RELATED:
- NDP still pushing for grocery price action (October 18, 2023)
- Alistair MacGregor gearing up for 4th term in Cowichan-Malahat-Langford (September 11, 2023)
- Food prices remain high, consumers hear more about grocery sector (March 11, 2023)
- Three grocery CEOs to address federal agriculture committee (February 26, 2023)
- Grocery chain CEOs being summoned to address Agriculture-AgriFood Committee (February 14, 2023)
- Alistair MacGregor leads NDP investigation into high food prices (February 13, 2023)
- Alistair MacGregor reintroduces national strategy brain injury bill (June 2, 2022)