Thursday afternoon started with lunch at the Elephant and Castle. One of my riding delegates has known Rahim Jaffer for several years and with a second one having worked for him, we took a few minutes to congratulate him on his recent marriage.
While waiting for our food, BT co-founder Stephen Taylor passed by and we chatted for a few. I may be way off base here, but I got the feeling that he is more comfortable in his own skin these days compared to when I first met him at the Manning Centre sessions in Ottawa earlier this year. This is good news because he has a lot to give the movement and will be even more effective when sharing his ideas and passion for the “E” aspects of campaigning.
After a late lunch, things slowed a bit for me until the prep for the keynote speech.
I made my way to the grand ballroom for the keynote speech and as I sat there reading messages on my blackberry, I quickly discovered that with all the different flights in, and all the different hotels, and all the different floors and all the different convention rooms, (and even all the different sections within the grand ballrooms), that the most popular message being texted/emailed to and from friends was “Where r u?”.
The keynote speech was great and pumped everyone up and what I gleened from the various comments made were the following:
a) The Party is working hard to rebrand itself with the phrase “The Conservative Party is Canada’s Party.” This quick, easy to remember phrase, will appear more and more and help to overtake the believe that the Liberals are “Canada’s natural ruling party”.
b) The PM made comments about not being stuck in idealogy and dogma. Translated, to me this meant that the party will be going into deficit and possibly even bailing out specific sectors, which may include the auto sector.
and
c) Laureen Harper truly is the Party’s secret weapon. Having met her on several occasions, I can truly say she is a warm and charming lady with a down to earth attitude that may be more effective at winning people over than any policy that the party will move on.
After the speech, we made our way to Jim Flaherty’s suite for a glass of wine and a toast to the recent election win and after that we slipped down two floors to Peter Van Loan’s party. As I arrived I got a chance to tell him that I would be disappointed that he would not be fielding the bulk of the questions in QP because anyone who can smoothly call Liberal Mark Holland a Nancy Drew deserves credit. His new role as Minister of Public Safety was hyped with some posters with his top “political” safety tips and number 5 was the most humourous. Tip for Garth Turner: When crossing the street, look both ways and walk. But if you are crossing the floor, you must run!!
That wrapped my Thursday.