It's been a big year for Portage-Lisgar MP Candice Bergen. She was reinstalled as House Leader for the Conservative party in Ottawa in 2018. She outlines some other highlights.

"We have very much held the government and the Liberals to account on a number of issues, even to the point where they had to back down and change some of their decisions," explains Bergen. "We had a very successful convention in Halifax which I helped moderate. We recently had Andrew Scheer, our leader, in Manitoba for townhall meetings."

Locally, Bergen says she was able to travel quite a bit around her riding and attend events. She notes they included meth roundtables she hosted, as well as a big Defending Local Jobs tour.

She notes during this holiday time she'll be hosting some family skate times, including Morden-Winkler area in the south of her riding, and one in Portage. All in all, Bergen says some very positive things came out of this year.

However, Bergen adds, there have also been some challenges. She explains we saw Justin Trudeau and the Liberals fail on many fronts where Canadians expected him to do better. Bergen says these include the failure of the building of the pipeline, linked together with the negative effect of a carbon tax, and his policies on energy whereby he's seeking to phase out our oil and gas sector. She says this will be the result of investing literally $10-billion leaving Canada over the last two years. She notes she thinks this has really been hard for Canadians to watch.

Bergen says 2018 saw Trudeau fail on the economy, rack up deficit with no plan to bring it back to balance, and he couldn't answer the question as to when the budget would be balanced. She adds there haven't been any fixes on the border issue where illegal border crossers are entering the country from upstate New York and North Dakota, either. Bergen explains Trudeau's created a huge cost of over a billion dollars in just a year as reported by the Parliamentary Budget Officer. She says all of these billions of dollars in Liberal spending are mounting up, causing jobs and investments to leave. She notes the average taxpayer is also left on the hook to pay for it.

Having been House Leader, Bergen says, her appointment was made after Andrew Scheer became leader, and she's been doing it now for just over two years. She says it's a great opportunity for her, and she's leading the entire caucus of 99 people in Ottawa in the House as regarding issues including strategy, what's done in question period, and coordinating and organizing their debates and question periods. Bergen adds many of the votes they put forward are ones she initiated. She says it makes her happy to know her leader has confidence in her, and it's an honour to work with Scheer. She explains while he's traveling and meeting people, he's counting on her to keep things going in Ottawa, and to maintain a focus on what's important.

Bergen adds she doesn't take her position lightly, noting it's a position of honour and privilege. She says she hears from her constituents who let her know they support her and recognize what she's doing.

Rona Ambrose initially appointed her as House Leader, and there was no guarantee she'd get the position again, seeing as Scheer could put anybody among the 99, but chose her. Bergen says it's basically the highest position in opposition. Bergen notes officers of Parliament are the Leader, House Leader, and the Whip. So, she notes she's honoured to be in the Leader's team as his House Leader.