Liberal Success in Calgary SW!

It seems we have a sudden surge in interest in Liberals in Alberta; positive, supportive interest, no less!

I don’t know what the cause has been.

Robocalls seemed to be sort of interesting but not motivating to action.

Hyper-partisanship verging on political hatism seemed to be just more of the same, hardly worthy of thought or comment.

Hyper-election spending much beyond the laws of the land seemed to be, “Yeah, that’s just politics isn’t it.”.

Senate scandal, “Well that’s what the senate is all about isn’t it?”.  No real biggie.

Alleged crooks working in the PMO and in various federal government agencies?  “Yeah well, they’re all crooks aren’t they.”  No biggie.

Silencing of our expert civil servants in the sciences and policy research arms of the government?  “Well those elitist smart alecs need to be brought down a peg or two.”

Diane Ablonczy will not be running again.  “Well, it has been 20 years and she seemed to not be one of Harper’s favourite people.  No biggie.”

Rob Ford and stuff?  “That’s Toronto.  What do you expect?”

Ted Menzies quit his parliamentary position to move to the private sector.  “Wait a minute!  Ted quit direct involvement in active politics with the CPC and Harper?!?!?  What the heck is that about?  He’s been a stalwart and shining light for the movement for a long time and was clearly elected on his own merits, not simply because he was supported by and supporting the CPC.”

That seems to have been the determining factor in having people say that enough is enough.  All that other stuff might be used as an excuse for abandoning the CPC but the real motivation to action was to follow a leader out the door.

Why do I say all this?

Well, I’m probably reading too much in this really minor incident, but here it is.

The Liberal EDA in Calgary SW, a riding presently represented by S. J. Harper, The Right Honourable Prime Minister of Canada, likes to struggle along like the little engine that could.  So an idea emerged some time ago to mark the Grey Cup Day celebration with a little Liberal gathering of fun and frolic and football.  If a few bucks were raised, great!

The idea was to have the event at Schanks, a local sports bar.  So in 2013 momentum was being built up for this event and the LPC officialdom dropped a bit of bad news on the good folks of the Calgary SW Liberal EDA, there is not enough interest to make this a breakeven proposition for the party so it has been cancelled until next year.  Officialdom held on to very late in the day to make this announcement in order to give the event all the chance it could get to succeed.

So some members decided to hold a less formal event that did not require any seed capital with the venue.  The event was then to be held at the Point and Feather pub.  Same idea but no formal ticket prices.  The tickets for the original event were really meant to cover the venue’s cover charge and would likely have made no or little positive difference to the party coffers in any case.  So at the Point and Feather, if members decided to make donations, great!  Those could be handled in the normal manner.

What do you know and 6 days before Grey Cup Day, there appeared to be a flurry of interest enough to have Liberal officialdom announce the event at Schanks was going to be held after all!

The timing of all this is such that I then had to wonder what triggered this newfound popularity among the good folks of Calgary SW.  Hence the above discussion and the realization was that the one truly significant factor must have been Ted Menzies’ resignation.

So Calgary SW Liberals now have to choose, Point and Feather without cover; or advance $45.00 per person through the Treasurer, Dawn Litzenberger to go to the event at Schanks!

Politically speaking, Schanks will reach more politically nonaligned people than the Point and Feather as the Point and Feather is smack dab in the middle of both federal and provincial electoral polls that tend to vote predominately Liberal.

Mike