KANATA - A retired Air Force lieutenant-colonel is seeking the Liberal
nomination for the Carleton-Mississippi Mills riding.
Karen McCrimmon served in the Gulf War, and in the Balkans
and Afghanistan,
and is the first woman to command an operational Canadian Air Force flying
squadron.
The Ottawa-south resident, said she has experience building
teams in the military and as the owner of a management consultant company.
“I’ve learned a lot through the mediation field, so I know
how to start a conversation, how to ask and more importantly, how to listen.”
The 52-year-old woman said she has strong rural connection
having grown up in Timmins,
Ont.
She said there are serious challenges in her riding such as
rural and urban unemployment and a shortage of support and services for
families.
Pension reform will be a major issue in the next federal
election, said McCrimmon.
Nortel pensioners were left out in the cold when the company
went bankrupt, she said.
The federal government must find a way to protect pensioners
even if it means reforming the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act.
“There’s a way to open the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act to
meet the needs of the creditors and the company,” she said, adding that there
are ways of making pensioners secure creditors.
“I think there’s some middle ground.”
McCrimmon said environmental issues will form a big part of
her election platform, such as opposing large-scale expansion of municipal
dumps, and encouraging the growth of green-tech industries in Kanata.
“These high-tech jobs, we need more of them in the energy
sector, green sector,” she said. “We need to focus on the jobs of the future.
It will be too late 10 years from now.”
blair.edwards@metroland.com