Cathy McLeod, Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo MP, is home for the summer and looking forward to meeting with her constituents.

The rookie MP made quite a name for herself after she criticized her governments’ advertising campaign targeting Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff and his commitment to Canada in an interview with Kamloops This Week.

At the time, she said she didn’t like the ads and would prefer to take the political high road; she favoured political discourse to revolve around policy.

When McLeod was asked if the prime minister rebuked her for those comments she said that conversations in caucus are confidential.

“Two days later, the prime minister had me to 24 Sussex to have a conversation about health so, what I’d like to say is, when you get an invitation as a small group to the prime minister’s house to talk about health care issues, things are all very good,” she said.

McLeod is a member of the Standing Committee on Health.

She said she is pleased that there won’t be a federal election in the near future because it’s the government’s opportunity to move forward with the economic action plan.

McLeod said a lot of that plan includes programs that people have already applied for and an election could mean those applications would be in a holding pattern.

She said that a number of people look at Parliament’s question period and think that’s what Ottawa is all about.

“In actual fact, in Ottawa, we’ve introduced over 50 pieces of new legislation of which 20 have received royal assent and in a short time frame we’ve made really good progress on pieces of legislation that are important to Canadians.”

McLeod said the government has a number of measures for the forestry industry including $170 million to look at new markets.

“The forest association gave some specific recommendations on what we should be doing for the forestry industry and we’re following through on many of them,” she said.

The other thing the government is doing is the $1 billion community adjustment fund that gives opportunities for communities to either bridge through the forestry crisis or provide opportunities for diversification.

Health and education are both provincial responsibilities but McLeod said the federal government is doing all it can.

“Federally, we have made a commitment and we continue with our commitment in terms of our health transfers and our social service transfers; we have actually increased funding to the provinces.”

McLeod said the federal government is putting significant dollars into Aboriginal education, housing and infrastructure.

She said when the Conservative government took over in 2008 there were about 600 First Nation water systems on boil water advisories and they have decreased that by over half.

McLeod plans to be in 100 Mile House once every two weeks during the summer and anyone who wants to meet with her can call her 100 Mile House office at 250-395-4381 on Thursdays or Fridays or her Kamloops office at 1-877-619-3332.