Saturday started out with breakfast in the main ballroom. My friend running for National Council arrived at the ballroom 15 minutes early and asked if he could put some flyers out on the breakfast tables. He was told he could not. Yet when the doors opened at 8am, there were already advertisements for several of the other candidates on every table. So we split up and put 1 or 2 of his brochures out on each table as people rolled in for their repast.
After breakfast we were entertained with our financial situation by Irving and then got to watch the Maple Leaf awards get presented. Following that, 3 ridings were recognized for providing over $100,000 in financial assistance to other EDA’s. This gave me great pleasure as our Association made an effort and provided some assistance to three ridings as well. One of those was Egmont where Gale Shea won by 55 votes (which means we probably made a difference), and another was West Nova where we were glad to help throw Robert Thibeault out on his ear.
The late morning had us voting on all the constitutional changes which was televised on CPAC and is probably already out in the press should anyone want to know what changes were made.
Between 12 and 130 we were allowed to eat lunch and vote for national councillors. I arrived early and lined up to vote and the line up quickly formed and wound around and up the stairs back to the main ballroom level which had many of us thinking that some would surely not get in to vote in time or have time for lunch but the layout of the voting room was so well planned that the line outside the door was literally gone within 10 minutes. I must commend whomever planned the voting procedures because they were truly fantastic.
Lunch was lunch and it was off to the Policy Plenary session where we passed several apple pie resolutions. A few controversial ones came up, and there were a few linguistic challenges to overcome but they managed the situation very well. Having watched the NDP plenary a couple of years ago and seeing how they only got through a few motions, I was pleased to see that our party got through 30 in under 3 hours.
They then let us know who the national councillors were. The Ontario list was truly a great list. There were 9 people running and I can safely say that I was impressed with each and every one of them in some manner. The convention was then officially closed and it was off to dinner at Hy’s Steakhouse in the Richardson building where I was disappointed to see that they did not have any Fort Garry Dark!!
After dinner we made our way to the Campaign Research hospitality suite where I spoke to Richard Ciano and got to meet Nick Kouvalis. Blue Blogging Soapbox (blogger) told me Nick would be here and it was a pleasure to run into a fellow Greek conservative. At this suite I also got a chance to spend quite a bit of time to talk to Christian Conservative (blogger) and I also discovered another nice local beer called Two Rivers Lager. This was a really fresh tasting light lager that a non beer drinker would probably find quite nice.
After discovering I had lost my room key, I made my way downstairs where I got stuck in the hotel bar with my friends for a few more Fort Garry Darks. In the hotel bar, we ran into Tom Lukiwski. I congratulated him on his win and we found our seats. Gerry Ritz was nearby with a couple of friends so I went and congratulated him as well and let him know that several of our members watch him as we have a strong agricultural part of our riding and I let him know that I thought Mike Duffy was a bit over the edge with remarks in an interview with Mr. Ritz. Mike was talking about how U.S. protectionist measures albeit not taxes, were putting several small barriers up to trade and he said to Mr. Ritz: “It’s like a death of….” and then he caught himself and changed his wording. Apparently it was on the 5pm MDL, but edited out of the 8pm repeat.
Sunday was an early rise and our flight back was packed with people again. MP’s Stephen Fletcher, Pierre Poilievre and Jason Kenney were all on board, along with La Presse journalist Joel Denis Bellevance and numerous staffers.
Thus ends my journey to Winnipeg. The Convention experience was fantastic and with it being my first political one, I was quite impressed with how down to earth many of the MPs are and how approachable they are.
I did not mention all of them, but below is a list of MP’s/Senators whom I had the chance to meet while I was there.
Diane Ablonczy
Rona Ambrose
John Baird
Lois Brown
Patrick Brown
Rod Bruinooge
Lawrence Cannon
Michael Chong
Tony Clement
Dean Del Mastro
Barry Devolin
Jay Hill
Peter Kent
Tom Lukiwski
Rob Nicholson
Deepak Obhrai
Gordon O’Connor
Pierre Poilievre
Scott Reid
Chris Warkentin
Senator Marjory LeBreton
Senator Terry Stratton
Candidates (who lost)
Elie Salibi
Rob Zandee
