Falloon-Austin Manitoba’s first Maverick Party candidate

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This article was published 31/07/2021 (1537 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Western Canada’s fledgling Maverick Party has announced that Foxwarren resident Lori Falloon-Austin has been selected to run for the federal riding of Dauphin-Swan River-Neepawa in the next federal election.

With her selection, Falloon-Austin becomes the first Manitoba candidate to be officially announced for the party.

“It’s such an honour,” Falloon-Austin told the Sun in an interview on Friday afternoon. “I’ve always been Manitoba’s biggest fan. I always call myself a Prairie girl, a Manitoba girl. I love Manitoba to bits, so I’m beyond ecstatic. I’m very proud to represent Maverick as the first Manitoba candidate … and a woman to boot.”

Falloon-Austin also becomes the party’s 19th official candidate, as others have already been chosen in British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan — though she says another seven or eight will be announced shortly.

A press release issued by the Maverick Party Electoral District Association of Dauphin-Swan River-Neepawa states Falloon-Austin is a fourth-generation resident of Foxwarren and a mother of three children. She grew up on a Century grain farm with her parents and two older brothers and it was in the small tight-knit community where she “learned the value of volunteerism.”

Falloon-Austin is a busy stay-at-home mom, having served on the local municipality’s emergency measures organization for the past 15 years as head of social services and registrar, and on her childrens’ francophone school parent-teacher board. She also writes news stories for the local newspaper and is a member of the Royal Canadian Legion.

Though she has often thought to run for public office, it’s her children, she said, who have inspired her to run as a candidate.

“I take a lot of inspiration from my kids,” she said. “That’s our future. You always want to make the world a better place for your kids.”

Until September 2020, the Maverick Party was known as Wexit Canada and gained traction as a movement that advocates for constitutional change for the benefit and betterment of Western Canada. Should that fail, the movement’s leadership has called for Western Canada’s independence from the rest of the country.

For her part, Falloon-Austin would prefer that Manitoba stay part of Canada, and not go it alone. But the independence movement, she says, is “like a safety net.”

“Personally I’m a fan of track A,” she said. “I’m from Manitoba, and I’ve always been a proud Manitoban. And I’ve always considered myself a part of the entire country of Canada.

“My personal thoughts are let’s go with track A. Let’s get ourselves united, let’s get ourselves together as Western Canada as a whole, and work to make track A the biggest success that we can. And that is going to take time.”

She said she believes that any move toward an independent Western Canada — “track B” — would be a difficult, uphill battle, one that “would require an immense amount of support between absolutely every constituent in the four western provinces, and representatives of our party as well. And then you have to get your government officials, your provincial levels on board with that.

“I’m not saying it’s not impossible, but for myself, my focus in on track A.”

Currently, Dauphin-Swan River-Neepawa is held by Conservative Party of Canada MP Dan Mazier, who won his seat during the 2019 federal election that saw the Liberal Party reduced from a majority to a minority government.

Falloon-Austin says she intends to advocate for the agricultural community in her riding, and “championing Manitoba as a whole.”

A former supporter of Conservative Party of Canada leadership candidate Leslyn Lewis, Falloon-Austin says she became disillusioned with the Conservatives when Erin O’Toole took the reins instead.

“I don’t think he has the best interests for Western Canada at heart,” she said.

In the coming weeks, Falloon-Austin says she will be helping to fundraise for the party and selling memberships, while gathering the last number of signatures she needs for her candidacy to be recognized by Elections Canada.

As of Friday, the Trudeau Government had not yet called a federal election, but it’s widely believed that the Liberal Party is preparing for one as talk of an impending election looms large on Parliament Hill.

» mgoerzen@brandonsun.com

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