Right in the centre - A life in politics

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Published on Friday, June 3, 2016

By Ken Waddell

Neepawa Banner/Neepawa Press

I have often urged people to get involved in a political party. It’s a bit of a stretch for many as about 40 per cent of our population don’t even vote in elections.

I have been involved, or at least interested in politics since I was about seven years old. It was at that stage of my life that I met the premier of Manitoba, D.L. Campbell. I will never forget that meeting and the short conversation. He asked me, as I am sure he asked every little boy he met, if I wanted to become premier of Manitoba. I told him that I did and indeed I tried to achieve that goal. 

I still am interested in politics and my wife and I just returned on Monday from the Vancouver convention of the Conservative Party of Canada. Yes, it’s expensive and it takes up a lot of time. However, we have chosen to let our names stand as delegates to the CPC conventions in Manitoba, Winnipeg, Ottawa and Vancouver. We missed the Calgary convention. 

There were some highlights that are worth noting, but first, let me explain how political parties work. No one party will embody all of a person’s beliefs. It will never happen. That said, it is incumbent on a person to pick the party (and leader) that most closely upholds a person’s set of beliefs. Parties change and people change and it’s a good thing that they do.

I had the opportunity to meet with four of the CPC leadership candidates and have one-on-one conversations with them, namely Kellie Leitch, Maxime Bernier, Michael Chong and Tony Clement. They are all very good at engaging people and gathering opinions. Several more leadership candidates are expressing interest.

Political conventions are jam-packed with events, both social and political. The heart and soul of a convention is the debates that take place over constitution and policy. The CPC had a huge number of motions to change parts of the constitution. Only a few made it through to the plenary session where everyone gets to vote on them. There was also a policy review. One resolution that received particular notice was to drop the definition of marriage from the policy manual. I, along with a majority of people, voted to drop it. Parliament and the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that marriage is of a wider definition than a “man and a woman.” I voted to drop it for two reasons. It is doubtful that political parties or governments should be defining marriage anyway. The other is that we can spin our tires forever on a decision that the court has placed beyond the reach of political parties or parliament. I don’t think the Supreme Court should have the power to over rule parliament, but they do, so we need to move on to other issues. The revised CPC marriage policy protects the rights of churches to maintain their own stand and that is essential. This right will likely come under attack in the future though.

The other interesting thing is that while every delegate had a bar-code tag to get into the sessions, a lapse may have happened. A woman came to the microphone and spoke at the session that evaluated the last election. She said she was a Muslim and tearfully said she was hurt by the party’s stand on Muslim women. Her speech received a large amount of media attention. Last Monday night, it was revealed that she was a Liberal who somehow got into the sessions to speak against the CPC party. Interestingly, only one media outlet picked up on it and called her out. 

Politics can be very interesting.