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OTTAWA – The Conservative leadership contest is heating up one week before the party’s first debate, with Ontario MP and former cabinet minister Lisa Raitt officially entering the race, and fellow candidate Michael Chong proposing sweeping tax cuts funded by taxing carbon emissions.

Raitt submitted her paperwork to Conservative party headquarters on Tuesday and officially announced her leadership bid Wednesday with a video message posted to Facebook and Twitter that trumpets her humble roots and takes a shot at Prime Minister Justin Trudeau – vowing she can beat the Liberal PM in the 2019 election.

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The 75-second video is interspersed with grainy pictures of her childhood in Cape Breton, N.S., as well as clips of her as an MP and federal cabinet minister, and some with her two sons playing hockey. The video ends with her apparent campaign slogan: Victory in 2019.

“They tell us it’s the era of sunny ways, yet so many can’t see the sun. Canada needs a leader who is going to fight for the striving many, not just the privileged few,” Raitt says in the video, a version of which was made in English and French.

“We need a leader who will beat Trudeau in the next election, who knows what Canada looks like from the bottom, who will work to create opportunity for every striver at every age. I will be that leader.”