Liberal Party candidate for Kelowna Stephen Fuhr/ Liberal Party of Canada

By Glenn Hicks

Back for another race

‘All hands on deck moment for country’: Liberal candidate Stephen Fuhr

Apr 1, 2025 | 12:05 PM

Former Liberal MP for Kelowna, Stephen Fuhr is back in the national political game calling the current trade dilemma with the United States, and uncertainty about the longer term, a key moment in the country’s history.

“It’s an all hands on deck moment for the country; we all realize that now, ” he said. “I’m back because I think there’s a necessity for all of us to come together and do what we can to keep our country moving forward.”

Fuhr was in the Royal Canadian Air Force for 20 years and also flew corporate jets, before becoming the local MP from 2015-2019. He ran again, unsuccessfully, in 2019.

Fuhr acknowledged the extraordinary reversal of fortunes for the Liberal Party (if the opinion polls are to be believed), since the replacement of former leader Justin Trudeau by Mark Carney. But he adds he always had concerns about what the second Donald Trump administration might bring and rejects the notion of Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre being given the chance to take that on.

“The closest alligator to our boat right now is our economic relationship with the United States,” Fuhr said. “We have two choices: we have one [Mark Carney] that’s uniquely qualified to handle the situation, who has demonstrated he can do it on multiple fronts in the past – critically acclaimed by the Conservatives – and we have the alternative, which is a career politician who hasn’t really done much other than that.”

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Speaking to his own record as an MP, Fuhr said he helped bring $160 million in investment into the region and brought the national Liberal caucus to town in 2017 to connect directly with local residents and business.

A common Conservative argument levelled against the Carney Liberals is that they have flip-flopped on matters of energy, carbon tax, and inheritance tax among others, and the party has not changed, only its leader.

Fuhr insists Carney is a completely different person than Trudeau.

“His take is that Canada has the potential to be an energy superpower…and the situation demands that the premiers come together on interprovincial trade. Mark Carney is the personality that can bring them together,” he said, pointing to what he sees as a flaw in Poilievre’s ability to connect across the provinces after learning the Conservative leader’s conversation with Ontario Premier Doug Ford recently was their very first.

“How can it be possible that the premier of the biggest province in the country- and a Conservative – has never had a conversation with the leader of the official opposition?”

Asked if Carney and the Liberals could be trusted to run the country in the years to come, especially if the trade tariff friction with Trump is resolved quickly, Fuhr insists what he calls the ‘MAGA sentiment’ and line of Trump political succession in VP JD Vance and Speaker Mike Johnson is not going to be a short-lived problem.

“This issue is not going away, and it’s going to be up to Canada to figure out how to manage it and it keeps bringing me back to Carney because he’s the best option we have – on its own merit and on a comparative merit to what the Conservatives are offering.”