Conservative Nomination Officially Open: New Members Sign Up By May 16th – Meet Nominee Derek Matisz – He Walks the Talk (and has the record to back it up)

Derek Matisz with his partner Andrea NG. Derek is a strong candidate and a nominee to run under the Conservative Party of Canada banner for Guelph in the October election.
Update: The Conservative Nomination is officially open in Guelph. New members can sign up until May 16th. Contact Website
Background article published May 1, 2019.

Meet Derek Matisz. Not often does one come across a candidate who walks the talk and has the record to back it up.  If you had to describe Derek resilience and vision would come to mind. He faces challenges head on, with a plan. 

A lifelong Guelph resident, Derek has been active in the Guelph political scene. A graduate of Wilfred Laurier University Bachelor of Arts, Political Science and Government, Derek also holds a Master of Arts in Political Science and Government from the University of Guelph. He also attended Schulich School of Business, York University completing Six Sigma Green Belt for Service Organizations

Faced with a stuttering problem from birth he met it head on by public speaking, engaging himself in roles that would require he face it head on.  Currently, Derek is Senior Strategy, PMO People & Culture Executive and Senior Vice President of Platform Operations for Toronto based firm Maru/Matchbox.

Derek has led organizational change and transformation, and consistently successfully rebuilt teams, “with no personnel losses and zero negative client impacts.” 

His successes streamlined operations while improving productivity and cut barriers to business growth. Derek’s rise to his current position within the same corporate culture aptly proves his excellence in strategic planning, financial and people leadership along with exceptional relationship building attributes.

October will see one of the most watched elections in recent Canadian history with an anticipated resounding smack to the ‘sunny ways’ Liberals, with Canadians making a value statement on their lack of leadership, ethics and void respect for our judiciary and parliamentary system. 

Canadian values will return, and the 200 first timer MPs under the Trudeau regime will realize that the water boy partisan approach to running a government with well-timed town halls and photo ops will not carry them through the next term. Good news for the Canadian taxpayers in that this experiment will end and toss the ones who need to transition to the curb before entitled to a pension.  

Guelph needs a MP with vision, a backbone and real-life business experience to navigate us well in the upcoming term.  

Derek is a strong candidate and nominee to run under the Conservative Party of Canada banner in the October election.  Self-described consensus-builder and team motivated by nature, that is well proven as the fact by his personal success in business. 

Our city needs a leader who leads, not follows. Support Derek Matisz to clean up the mess left by the Liberal government. Who better than someone who has demonstratively proven scholarly, personally, and professionally to be the right individual at the right time? 

And, he is a nice guy 🙂 

Q and A with Derek:

Federal budget:

Personally, not inspired by the budget and do not think other Canadians are either.  

The budget was an attempt to distract voters from the Liberal-SNC Lavalin scandal spending tens of billions of dollars, rather than focus on balancing budgets or improve lives for Canadians. 

Breaking a campaign promise, we are still 20 billion dollars in deficit and the budget is not balanced. The interest payment is one of the largest government spending categories taking away from putting the money towards something that will improve our lives. 

We can no longer afford to have free-spending governments without a clear economic vision or well thought through policies.

Housing Strategy: 

I am a perplexed by the housing strategy put forward by the Trudeau Liberals. 

In 2016, the government introduced measures to ensure mortgages went through a stress test to make mortgages harder to get and cool down the market. In the latest budget, we see new measures introduced in the “First time home buyer Incentive program,” allowing homebuyers to finance a part of purchase through home equity mortgage with CMHC (Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation). 

The same budget allowed first time home buyers to borrow up to $35,000 from RRSP. This new incentive program will heat the market by making it easier to get a mortgage increasing the demand in the market leading to higher home prices. 

Allowing people to borrow more money will not help with housing affordability or make housing more accessible unless adding more supply to the market. Without supply, borrowing more money will help fuel higher prices and re-enforcing the system. 

The federal government better serves the electorate by working with provincial and municipal levels to hasten the homebuilding approval process and ensuring a unified strategy. 

Carbon Tax: 

Overall, I do not understand the Carbon tax and do not think it is transparent as a tax. 

The levels will increase over time and could potentially keep rising until we hit the rumored $50 a tonne by 2022. 

I would work repeal the tax once in office and work with the Provinces to better build a national strategy suitable to each province and municipality. Further, I would continue to promote a green economy, continually investing in companies with green technology both improving our environment and fueling our economy. 

I breathe the same air, drink the same water, and affected by the same weather as everyone else in Guelph. The environment matters a great deal to me and needs to have a national strategy that will aim to reduce emissions but is also fair to Canadians. 

Guelph Economy: 

Guelph has a strong economy with a high employment rate. However, the success of our manufacturing is at risk due to a lack of foreign investment, the inability to move products out of city and trade issues. 

Canadian’s are losing competitive advantage as we are making it harder to get Corporate investment both domestically and internationally due to higher taxes, massive debt, and government interference.

We need to help our companies attract more investment and build better roads out of the city and make better connections with essential hubs in the province and the world by improving our transit system. 

If elected, I would look to lower the business tax rates to be more competitive with the US, which would help to bring in higher paying jobs and increase investment in Guelph. I would also fight to make the regulatory system less of a barrier for construction and significant projects bringing them in line with other OECD countries. Lessening the regulatory regime will ensure that when companies want to invest funding in Canada the overall time of investment to implementation will be much less. 

Follow Derek here.

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