Familiar Land

We drove the Kidder Campaign Camper up to Logan Lake and then on the entrance to Highland Valley Copper.   Planted a few campaign signs, and stood by the side of the road in the cool of the morning waving at people as they drove in for dayshift or headed home after graveyard.  Mostly friendly honks and waves, a few thumbs down and a couple of emphatic fingers up.

After shift change, there's very little traffic.  I took the crew of David Bell (official agent, driver, keeper-of-the-candidate's-schedule) and Saul Ramey (videographer) on a ten-minute tour to see the very large hole in the ground out of which the copper ore comes, and the even larger lake of tailings, the sterile sand that's left after the copper has been concentrated and separated for shipping to Japan.  Look at it on Google Earth, if you can - just type "Highland Valley Copper" into the search window - you'll be amazed.

I wrote a bit earlier about how profoundly I feel at home here.  I was telling David that I'm almost certainly the only guy on the planet who has first chased cows over two big chunks of country, at Hatheume for Douglas Lake and in the Highland Valley for Bjorn Neilsen's Mesa Vista Ranch, only to come back to work in mines digging up the same pieces of ground.  Sky, sun, rain, snow, trees, grasses, soil, overburden, rock, and ore.  An unusual continuity in a fortunate life.

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Guest Blogger - Robert Handfield - Conservatives from Kaleden for Kidder

Conservatives from Kaleden for Kidder

Letter to the editor published in the Penticton Herald - Wednesday, April 20th, 2011

Dear sir;

It’s time to take a stand.  I feel so strongly that a Harper majority government  would be bad  for Canada that this election has brought me to several firsts:  this will be the  first Federal election since the mid 1980’s that I haven’t voted Conservative;  it is the first time that I have made a donation to a political candidate and it is the first election in which I have put a candidate’s sign in my front lawn.

Mr. Harper seems to think that parliamentary rules and tradition apply elsewhere but not here in Canada when’s he’s the one in power.   If the leader of some third-world country, including Afghanistan where Canadians are dying to bring democracy to the people, did the things that Harper’s government has done over the past few years we would probably shrug our shoulders and say something like – “what do you expect in a tribal society ruled by despots”?    Well pardon me, but I expect better in Canada!

The Harper government has been chastised by the Speaker of the House who knows the rules – our representatives are supposed to be the bosses  - not the minions to be cast aside and ignored like so many sheep.  If Harper knew any history he would also know that coalitions are not illegal or evil,  but rather have a long tradition in the British parliamentary system.  Churchill served in several coalitions and led one himself.  The British government right now is a coalition; Australia has had coalitions; heck, Canada has had coalitions in the past.  Coalitions may not always be perfect but they are not to be feared (unless you are the one who might lose power).

Some of my friends argue that in uncertain economic times we must have a strong majority government and at the same time argue that our relatively good performance over the past two years vis a vis the rest of the world was because we had the Harper government.  But that was a minority government!  In fact, we didn’t have the economic meltdown of the US and Europe because for more than one hundred years Canadian governments have subjected Canadian banks to very stringent rules so they couldn’t play fast and loose with our money the way other banks could. And the recent Liberal governments, despite their shortcomings, did leave Harper a balanced budget.   The only credit Harper can claim is that he didn’t undo the banking rules.

The list of things Harper has done to thumb his nose at Parliament and us (while in a minority position) is extensive.  I worry that someone who ignores the rules when he’s in a minority is not going to suddenly become a law abiding citizen if he gets a majority.

I’m giving my support to John Kidder.

Sincerely,

Robert Handfield
Kaleden

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Guest Blogger - Peter Kidder - The Kidder Anthem

Peter Kidder writes Kidder Anthem while maintaining 620 signs and organizing his older brother's rally's!!!  audio recording coming soon...

big tory blue is getting’ pretty bitter, the south Okanagans' votin' John Kidder
pull out the picket, don't be a fence sitter, just check your blog or stick it in your twitter

u-tube, my-tube, in the van, apply him liberally when you can

a wave's a comin' and he's your man, got great big ears and a brand new plan
    
So mark an ex for the heavy hitter, the entire riding’s  votin' John Kidder
         
maybe it's time that you did too



John Kidder rocks, no way round it

the gods themselves seem somewhat astounded

the choice that's right when all things consider

you can make right here - John Kidder



the entire nation got a little crazy, rich white folk got occasionally lazy

sat on thrones, agendas hazy, while what we were, pushed up a daisy
a couple of jets, a clinic closed, we all sat back while we got hosed

with our opinions presupposed, the emperor, he stole our clothes
  
So mark an ex for the heavy hitter, the entire riding’s votin' John Kidder
         
maybe it's time that you did too.

John Kidder rocks, no way round it

the gods themselves seem somewhat astounded
the choice that's right when all things consider

you can make right here - John Kidder

Questions from a Local Newspaper

Two birds with one stone tonight – I received an email from a local reporter asking for short answers to 6 questions.  The questions are all reasonable and relevant, so I will answer them here in this blog as well.

Q1: If elected, in the event your constituents’ demands are at odds with party policy, how will you vote/where do your loyalties lie?
Above both party loyalty and demands of constituents are ethical issues - I will never vote, no matter who demands it, in a way that violates my principles.  As an example, I would never vote to re-instate the death penalty even if it were demanded by all my constituents or by my party.

In a more conventional case, for example a bill which affected spending on a highways project, I would do my best to get a feel for my constituents’ wishes – if there was an overwhelming feeling one way or the other, then I would respect it, even if it went against my party’s wishes.   But this would be a most unusual situation – even in a general election, there is seldom a truly obvious expression of the constituents’ will.  So generally I will make my best judgment about an issue and vote accordingly.  

Q2: As no one person can be educated on all federal issues you will face, on what will you base your decisions when you vote, representing your riding?
While no-one can be expert on all the federal issues, it is a primary duty of a Member of Parliament to get at least a basic understanding of all of them.  There is no excuse for not doing the homework.
I have a good education and a broad background in agriculture, economics, environment, business, community organization and politics.  I believe in making decisions based on evidence and logic, not on ideology.   I will do my research thoroughly, and base my decisions on the best information available to me, and on my sense of the wishes of my constituents.

Q3: How will you be available to constituents, if elected?   Will you be available for one-on-one meetings, hold town hall meetings . . . ?
An MP is the servant of his or her constituents, and must be available as much as possible.  My constituency offices will be in Merritt, Westside and Penticton and will be staffed with first-class assistants who will deal with routine issues, and will schedule meetings for me for more difficult matters.   When I am in the riding, I will work out of those offices and from my mobile office in my motorhome.  When in Ottawa, I will be in regular touch with constituents with pressing problems by telephone and email.

Any MP will be asked for help by constituents with personal problems, and such meetings must of course be one-on-one to ensure confidentiality.   In addition, I will make myself widely available to community groups, schools, fraternal organizations, environmental roundtables, industry and agricultural associations, and to the local press.   Townhall meetings will be regular features in all our communities.

Q4: What is one of your favourite memories of the Westside?
Not quite in Westbank/West Kelowna/Westside, but in Peachland, our house was up on Lipsett Avenue, directly across from Rattlesnake Island.  We had a view from the front window almost from Naramata to Mission.  One day, it was blustery and rainy in Peachland, but I could see the sun shining on the mountains to the south, and I remarked to my wife Marion that it seemed as if the sun was always shining in Naramata.  She said “Oh, didn’t you know?  That’s what Naramata means in the Okanagan language.”  I took her at her word, and over the course of the next few months I told lots of people what I had learned.  Then one night we had company over, and someone saw the sun once again shining to the south, and told us that they had recently heard what the name “Naramata” meant.  Marion nearly slid under the table with embarrassment, and I learned how fast an “urban myth” can spread.

Q5: Why do you think the public has a general mistrust of politicians, and what might you do differently?
The public has not always had such a general mistrust.  Canadians used to believe that Members of Parliament were honest, ethical, hard-working people.  I think almost all MPs still are.

A Liberal MP from Toronto told me that when he was first elected his family celebrated with him that he could now enter Parliament to do his best to act in the service of his country and his constituents.  Soon after the election, his daughter came home crying from her Grade 10 class – the students had been asked to describe what their parents did for a living, and when she said proudly that her father was a new Member of Parliament, other students booed and shouted her down.  What a horrible thing to happen to a child and to her father, and what a horrible reflection on how politicians are viewed.

I think we have been greatly affected by the “Americanization” of Canadian politics, with a much more confrontational style than we were used to – attack ads, personal vilification, etc.  One of the great geniuses of this country has always been our ability to compromise, to understand that while we hold differing views, we have more in common than we have in conflict.  We have been able to maintain the political will that holds this widely disparate country together because we are polite and civil, because we can disagree but remain friends, because we can, unlike many of our neighbours to the south, have fierce but enjoyable political arguments around the supper table.

I will do my best to bring back this sort of discourse to political life.  It is vital to the future of our democracy that politicians earn once again the trust of their constituents, and that public service is once again seen as enobling rather than degrading.  

Q6: If there’s anything else you’d like to say, here’s your opportunity.
An election is an extended job interview – I am applying for the job of Member of Parliament, and the voters are the selection committee and ultimate boss.  I have excellent qualifications and training, a demonstrated ability to build consensus, to serve and to lead, and a full commitment to excellence and integrity in all my work.  I know the country and the riding from the ground up.  I have been active in federal politics for years, I know many of the players and I know how the system works.  I will be an effective MP, and the constituents of Okanagan-Coquihalla will be well served.  
There’s more about my views and feelings on my website www.johnkidder.ca, and I will personally answer any questions sent to me on john@johnkidder.ca, or by toll-free telephone at my office 1-888-387-5034.

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Back Home in the Nicola Valley

We came over the Okanagan Connector yesterday from Peachland to Merritt.  I lived in Peachland in 1970 and 1971 where I worked at Brenda Mines – coming up the highway we passed the snow-covered wall of the old Brenda tailings dam.  Then we drove along the western slope of Pennask Mountain above Hatheume Lake, where our summer cow camp was, and where I met my first wife Marion – she had come from England to experience life in the wilderness, leaving her executive secretary job to do laundry at Hatheume Lake Lodge.  Then farther along past Elkhart Lake, which was a 14-mile pack horse trip from the old camp at Mud Lake, itself 35 miles on a track through the bush from the Home Ranch at Douglas Lake.

We lived then in old mountain homesteads, cooked on wood fires and drank water from the creeks, and a trip to town was a full day’s effort.  And now we whistle past at 110 kilometres an hour, from point to point with barely a nod to the country around us.  Scotty Holmes, past Chief at Spahomin (or “Upper Nicola Band Indian Reserve #3”, as it’s called by various paternalizing government bodies) said to me the other day that when were riding in that country we never knew that we were in paradise, and now it’s gone.

Then down into Merritt for an all-candidates forum at the remarkable Nicola Valley Institute of Technology – more about NVIT later.  Lots of excellent discussion with good people, and there will be more about that later too.

I walked out this morning through the bunchgrass slopes above the beautiful home John and Barbara Yellowlees have built high on the hillside above the Nicola River.  It’s good to remind oneself every now and then that the grasses have been around, unchanged, for twenty million years or so.   Human beings are astonishingly arrogant as we imagine ourselves to be the bosses of the planet.  The grasses and the birds and the insects were here long before we arrived, and they’ll be here long after we’re gone.

Last night I pulled on my boots to go out and get something from the Kidder Camper, and John said something about me looking like a real cowboy now, with my boots outside my pants.  I laughed and remembered this great poem by Gale Gardner.  I had enormous fun reciting this once to my friend Tim Williams, who was wrangling dudes at the old Bar Q guest ranch in Ashcroft, while I was chasing cows for Bjorn Nielsen at the Mesa Vista.  Tim wrote and sang great cowboy tunes, but never got to be a working cowboy – he laughed and laughed when I gave him this:




The Dude Wrangler
by Gale Gardner

I’ll tell you a sad, sad story
Of how a cowboy fell from grace.
Now this really is something awful,
There never was so sad a case.

One time I had myself a pardner,
I never knowed one quite so good;
We throwed our outfits in together,
And lived the way that cowboys should.

He savvied about wild cattle
Ad he was handy with a rope.
For a gentle well-reined pony,
Just give me one that he had broke.

He never owned no clothes but Levis,
He wore them until they was slick,
And he never wore no great big Stetson,
Cause where we rode the brush was thick.

He never had no time for women,
So bashful and shy was he,
Besides he knowed that they was poison
And so he always let them be.

Well he went to work on distant ranges;
I did not see him for a year.
But then I had no cause to worry,
For I knowed that one day he’d appear.

One day I rode in from the mountains,
A-feeling good and steppin’ light,
For I had just sold all my yearlin’s
And the price was out of sight.

But soon I seen a sight so awful
It caused my joy to fade away.
It filled my very soul with sorrow.
I will never forgit that day.

For down the street there come a-walkin’
My oldtime pardner of yore,
And although I know you will not believe me,
Let me tell you what he wore.


He had his boots outside his britches;
They was made of leather, green and red.
His shirt was of a dozen colours,
Loud enough to wake the dead.

Around his neck he had a ‘kerchief,
Knotted through a silver ring;
And I swear to Gawd he had a wrist-watch,
Who ever heard of such a thing!

Sez I, “Old scout now what’s the trouble?
You must have et some loco weed.
If you will tell me how to help you
I’ll get you anything you need.”

Well he looked at me for half a minute,
And then he begin to bawl;
He sez, “Bear with while I tell you
What made me take this awful fall.

“It was a woman from Chicago
Who put the Injun sign on me;
She told me that I was romantic,
And just as handsome as could be.”

Sez he, “I’m afraid there ain’t nothin’
That you can do to save my hide
I’m wrangling dudes instead of cattle,
I’m what they call a first-class guide.

“Oh I saddles up their pump-tailed ponies,
I fix their stirrups for them, too.
I boost them up on their saddles, and
They give me tips when I am through.

“It’s just like horses gone loco,
You cannot quit it if you try.
I’ll go on wranglin’ dudes forever,
Until the day that I shall die.”

So I drawed my gun and throwed it on him,
I had to turn my face away.
I shot him squarely through the middle,
And where he fell I left him lay.

I shorely hated for to do it,
For things that’s done you can’t recall,
But when a cowboy turns dude wrangler,
He ain’t no good no more at all.

Guest Blogger - George Neilson - RISE UP!

Good evening neighbours,

Anyone who knows me knows that after my family and my faith, my two biggest passions are: MY COUNTRY CANADA and THE BOSS, BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN.

I felt the emotional pride swelling inside of me when Michael Ignatieff told us to RISE UP.

Yes in the words of the poet Bruce Springsteen, Ignatieff said to us we need to RISE UP.

RISE UP to save democracy here in the Okanagan and all across our land.

This election is not a sure thing for Harper as some will tell us.

I look to other events and indicators to take my resolve from and I ignore the Rupert Murdoch agenda of the CTV and Nanos Polling.

I see teenagers, university students, unemployed youth organizing flash mobs across this country.

I see a website put out by 5 young people from BC called www.ShitHarperDid.com that went viral in hours with over a million hits before crashing and then after getting back up adding another half million before the day was done.

I see scandal after scandal coming from the Tories on issues of every kind and they are being reported on.

I see that one and a half million Canadians have taken the CBC vote compass and the Conservatives are angry because the vast majority discover they are Liberals.

I see that 4 million Canadian voters tuned into the English language debate, the same number of Canadians that watched last year's Stanley Cup, a clear indicator people are watching and forming opinions.

Who are those people?

To me it means that the great undecided voters (over 30% of all voters) and those that used to vote but have stayed away lately (some 20% of all voters) are taking notice and not just a casual interest.

Those people, the forgotten people are watching, they are adding their voice, they are taking action be it with YouTube, Margaret Atwood twitters getting a twit, flash mobs and watching the debates but now it is real and we can measure it.

In political history when a movement forms that has the power to turn a campaign around the first things that always appears is larger public involvement matched with the growth of the undecided voter.

They don't like what is happening, they want to be included and their involvement leads to change.

At a point unknown to most pundits and spinners that vote jells and makes a decision that will upset what most had thought was a sure thing.

Michael Ignatieff and John Kidder say to them and they say to us RISE UP.

Across Canada other Liberal candidates are saying RISE UP.

There are certainly plenty of issues to RISE UP for but today I discovered one more that makes me echo THE BOSS.

Jean Chretien and Paul Martin took huge Conservative deficits and debts and turned them into surpluses. For Seven years yes count them 7 years in a row Canada was voted the best country in the world to live in all under Liberal Leadership.

So who and when was the Last Conservative Prime Minister who managed to take a Canadian Deficit and turn it into a surplus?

The Right Hon. John A Macdonald in 1889.

That's a hell of a long time ago. Never before and never since.


Each one of us can help, we each need to do a little more. This is the time for all good Liberals to come to the aid of our party and.........

Join with me RISE UP.

Join with John Kidder RISE UP

Join with Michael Ignatieff RISE UP

BUT most of all, join with Canadians and RISE UP.


Thank you and God Bless
George Nielson

www.johnkidder.ca
John Kidder our next MP.

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It’s A Family Pack, All Right

No blogs for a few days, but action galore. We are having a grand time, momentum building every day, listening and laughing and learning.

Now I’m sitting in the back of the Kiddermobile, brother Peter driving, sister Margot in the passenger seat, Peter’s partner Josėe across the table from me. The Liberal platform is being called “The Family Package” – it shows a real focused dedication to families from early childhood education through to post-secondary education, emphasis on health care for families and seniors and on to home care for sick loved ones. What a shift, long-overdue, from the market fundamentalism that now drives right-wing governments around the world. Compare and contrast, our English teachers used to say, compare and contrast.

Here in the van, it’s the Kidder Family Package. Peter has been managing our sign campaign – we’re placing only large signs around the riding, not contributing to the forest of plastic bags all over this beautiful landscape – I don’t take plastic bags home with a store’s name all over them, and I don’t really want a lot of plastic signs with my name on them either. The “sign wars” of campaigns in the past will, one hopes, fade into history soon. But in the meantime, it remains a surprise every time to see my name on a big red 4 foot by 4 foot sign by the side of the highway. Peter, John Rawkins, George Neilson and John and Barbara Yellowlees are having a fine time, and visibility is rising every day along the highways in this highway-intensive riding, and red “Vote Kidder” signs are blossoming on lawns and gardens along with the spring flowers. Momentum, momentum. It was Peter’s birthday yesterday – you’ve got to be dedicated to spend your birthday driving a brother around in a gaily decorated van – I do love my brothers, and it makes me very happy to have my family around me.

And campaigning with dear sister Margot is just a treat. Margie has been active in every Democratic and Progressive democrat campaign in the US – she’s knowledgeable, articulate and passionate – when we do interviews and meetings together, it’s like the old days at home, when loud and long political discussions were the main course at every family dinner. Between us, Margie and I were working on “Conservatives for Kidder” – a local civic politician and her husband, both original Reform Party members, are, like many other Reformers, so disillusioned with Mr. Harper’s betrayal of their fundamental principles on openness, ground–up decision making and public accountability that they’ll vote for me because I’m honest – that’s local politics of the best kind.

Our original families happen to us.  We make other families throughout our lives.  Running the campaign, not (regretfully) here in the van with us, is my partner Allie.  We’re taking the acid test approach to a new partnership – if we’re going to be together for the rest of our lives, let’s start by testing ourselves as candidate and campaign manager in the crucible of a campaign.  This particular campaign depends on all of us, but Allie is the sparkplug that fires the engine.  We build families of choice this way, with love in good times and adversity.  And we build communities this way as well, especially in smaller cities and towns.  We build together, we work together, we find ways around difficulties, we get it done.

I’m gaining personal confidence every day – I am the best candidate for this riding, with far and away the best prospect for bringing the progressive vote together to defeat the Conservative here. And I’m learning to say that without embarrassment – I am the best candidate for the original Reformers who want trust and transparency, for the Progressive conservatives who want tight fiscal management and
unity across the country, for Liberals old and new, for social democrats who want equity, fairness and equality and a voice in a governing party, and for Greens who work tirelessly to put the environment at  the top of the national agenda. I have personal resonance with people of the First Nations who saw their two years of work to put together the Kelowna Accord tossed away with spiteful disrespect, I was well trained by my grandmother and my mother and my sisters and my late wife Siri and my partner Allie to have an understanding of women’s issues, and I’m proud that Siri described me to her friends as a feminist. I have huge fun with new voters and young families – together we will Rock the Vote. I am honest and ethical and I love this riding and this country. I’m the best man for the job.

Together we will win this riding. There has not been a Liberal elected here since 1972 – it’s time for a generational turning.

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Guest Blogger - George Neilson - Everywhere Signs

Peter Kidder and John Rawkins - his amigos in signs



On typical Spring Morning in the Okanagan Three Amigos left downtown Penticton with a truck full of signs, lumber, a few loose screws and a large sledge hammer. Traveling up and down and all around the valley from Naramata to Westbank, with frequent stops in Summerland, Peachland and Fantasyland the Amigos went. Before their arrival the countryside was a dull blue, with a wee splash of orange and absolutely no green. But after they did their work the valley was covered with brilliant RED and WHITE signs speaking of a coming wave of democracy. That democracy was in the form of a man called John Kidder who is a modern day " TRUE GRIT ". By the end of the day no stone was unturned, no person was left out and no vantage point was without a Liberal sign. The Three Amigos had left their mark up and down the valley from the Floating Bridge to the Naramata Bench.

For your viewing pleasure here are a few photos to mark the occasion.

Another Campaign Saturday

This was the first day of real spring warmth, sunshine, and conversation.

Spring is about change, renewal, fresh new growth. A perfect metaphor for this campaign.

A few years ago I was at an event in Vancouver where people were invited to name their favourite season - I was astonished that not everyone picked spring.  For us cowboy types, spring is when the year's cycle begins - the grass is green, new calves are born, the colts are fresh and the old horses are limber again, and you get away from the home ranch and back out to cow camp.  Couldn't be better than that.

This morning, I had a pleasant interview with a local paper, then a wonderful set of conversations with folks who came by our "official" office opening.  One man turned up with a Rhinoceros Party button - I laughed, and remembered the single best plank I ever heard in a campaign platform:  when Mr.  Trudeau promised to "twin-track" the Canadian National Railway through BC, Richard the Troll went one better.  The Rhinos, he promised, would build a railroad all the way to Japan to facilitate Asian trade. They would mine the Rocky Mountains to get the material for the fill - this would unearth a vast trove of valuable minerals that would pay for the railway and at the same time remove an enormous barrier to communication between BC and the rest of the country.  Now that's visionary politics, no namby-pamby incrementalism for the Rhinos.

The Rhino button-wearer and I had a good discussion about the relevance of government, the value (or not) of voting, and eventually got on to the environment.  He maintained that is was incredibly egotistical for humans to claim that we had the power to disturb a huge system like the biosphere, I maintained that it was incredibly self-centred for the climate change deniers to maintain that their economic interest was more important than the health of the planet, and the old familiar (to me) argument began again.  We parted company, me thinking that there was one person who would never support me, and I carried on listening to other visitors and friends.  

Then, lo and behold, my climate change discussant turned up again, and made a $400 donation to my campaign.  A man who was chatting with me and who had heard us get a bit loud in our argument, said "Wow - imagine what he might have donated if he'd liked you?"

Of course, when one is campaigning one is never supposed to argue, but that doesn't work so well for me.   And it turns out that some people are looking for politicians who speak their truth, even when it may cost them a vote.

We had a lovely party at the office, "unveiled" the Kidder Campaign Camper - prizes will be awarded for a better name - and then on to a gathering in Naramata where, among other good people and fine conversation, I met a woman who had known my grandfather Jack Wilson when he was Chief Justice of BC - she told me first that she would vote for me for the DNA - after our talk, she'll be voting for me because of me.  And then I met the mother of the man who I hired to be CEO of my governance company, and was able to thank her for her DNA and the fine man who carries it on.  She told me that she and her husband were moving from their Naramata home into a facility that would provide better care for them on the last leg of their journey – such fine people are our elders, such a legacy of generosity, tolerance, ethical discipline and joyous effort.

Then back to the campaign office and more work with my dear Allie.  We are giving the lie to the old adage about partners working together - it's not recommended that people start a new relationship as candidate and campaign manager.  But, after a couple of hours of catching up on messages and volunteer requests and new meetings and visitors' travel schedules, we turned on the CBC and danced for a few minutes in the empty office facing the dark street of a Penticton Saturday night.  That's campaigning with the one you love.  I recommend it, highly.

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The Personal Responsibilities of a Member of Parliament

Yesterday was a set of lessons, straight to my heart, about the responsibilities of a Member of Parliament.

I spoke with Elaine, an elderly woman in West Kelowna who had invested her life savings after her husband died in a condominium in Vancouver – it turned out to be a “leaky condo”, and she lost her life savings.  She had been a long-time worker for a subsidiary of Bell Canada which ended up as part of Nortel.  When Nortel went bankrupt she lost her pension.  Now she lives in a trailer park in West Kelowna, with a limited and fixed income.  As she draws down her RRSPs, $90 a month in income taxes are deducted.  And while she may get this back in a refund at tax time, her need for the cash every month causes her real hardship and anxiety.

Later in the day,  Jodie came to our campaign office in her wheelchair.  She had a disabling stroke when she was 30.  She got disability pay from her employer for 15 weeks.  She hadn’t worked long enough to earn a disability pension from Canada Pension Plan.  She told me that her Social Assistance from the BC government has been at the same level, $900 per month, since 1994.  She is way below the poverty line, living in a bachelor “suite” in subsidized housing, has no prospects for work, and gets fifteen minutes with a doctor who just prescribes increasing levels of her medications for depression and anxiety.

I met with a man who wants to volunteer on my campaign, as part of bringing his life back to normal after a prison term for some offence unknown to me, but, I hear in whispers, offensive to the community.  I had to tell him that I could not accept his offer, that my campaign could not be part of his return to society.

No single Member of Parliament can fix all the elements of Canadian society that give people such profound disadvantages, modify laws and practices in provincial jurisdictions, or give to ex-convicts all the ways to rebuild their lives.  But every Member of Parliament must feel in their hearts an enormous personal responsibility when they’re asked for assistance that they can’t give, and a sense of personal frustration  when they meet people who are prepared to blame government for all the ills of society but choose not to participate.

It is truly humbling, and a necessary recognition of reality, to take into one’s heart the effects of the inequities in our society, to recognize that $30 billion for fighter jets is in a different universe than an elderly woman for whom a loss of $90 a month is a real hardship, to hear a disabled person talk about her total income of $900 a month in the context of cuts in taxes for the wealthiest corporations, to have to refuse assistance from a man whose past will forever cut him off from normal society in the context of $6 billion for new prisons.   The voice of an individual Member of Parliament must be loud and clear, speaking where others can’t, and always on the side of equity and fairness.   How could it be otherwise?

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Engaging, Caring, Working

I dropped some dry cleaning today.  When I asked the woman behind the counter if she voted, she looked down and said “No, I’m bad.  I’m 23 and I’ve never voted yet.”  We talked a bit more, and she thought she might, perhaps, maybe consider voting this time.

We old farts are great at telling people what they need and how we’re going to make sure they get it.  But I’ll bet no one has yet caught her attention, spoken in a language that reaches her, or listened to her about her hopes and wants.  And then we complain that those who are not just like us are “not engaged”, or “don’t care”, or “won’t make the effort”.

But (young) Michael Franti and Ani de Franco and (old) Utah Phillips had no problem “engaging” thousands of people at the Vancouver Folk Music Festival, celebrating together as they laughed and sang and played and danced and ranted about the work we all need to do.  My dear niece Sara Kendall and her friends from the Power of Hope had no problem delivering her beat-box spoken-word charges to folks to care and to get up and get moving and make a difference for the disadvantaged and dispossessed.  The old-time folk singers had no problem delivering their messages about the effort needed for equity and fairness and rights for women and girls and children sent to war.  I didn’t see people who were unengaged, or who didn’t care, or who wouldn’t make an effort.  I saw huge energy and commitment and joy and passion and full willing hearts, all ready and willing and looking for a way to make a better world.  If we politicians aren’t able to make contact, we’d better examine the messages we try to deliver and the means we use to deliver them.

Let’s talk about our planet and our communities, and the way we treat people without power or money, let’s talk about our universities and schools as something more than training plants to mass-produce workers, let’s talk about the power of fun and music and art and culture to bring us together, let’s get together and shout out that the old ways of working with each other and with the world haven’t served a lot of people very well, let’s expand our sights past our borders to check in with the rest of people of the world, let’s get our acts together just a little bit.  Then let’s see who get engaged, who cares, who makes the effort.

We’re going to be part of a “Rock the Vote” event here in Penticton at the Shatford Centre at 6:00 pm on the 16th of April, rocking until midnight.  Politics can be huge fun.  We’re going to make it so.  Come one, come all.

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The Water of Life

I had the privilege last night of attending a fundraising dinner for the Nicola Watershed Community Roundtable.  I first heard of this organization 5 years ago in Vancouver from Evelyn Armstrong, who was a fellow student in Graduate Liberal Studies at Simon Fraser University.  I was delighted then to hear about the group, and even more pleased to spend time with Evelyn and her colleagues last night.

I have the great pleasure to know the Nicola River intimately. I have ridden all over its upper watershed, and along the river itself from its very beginning in Beak Creek, down the mountainside, out of the timber and through Bull Canyon, then to fill Douglas Lake, out again through the Spahomin reserve and my old cow camp at the Morton, then into Nicola Lake, then down again through Merritt and out to join the Thompson at Spences Bridge.   It is the main artery of this most beautiful valley in this most beautiful province in this most beautiful country. Whenever I drive or ride or sit by the Nicola River I feel profoundly at home.

Politicians spend a lot of time talking about things which are important to people's lives.  But I don't think we pay enough attention to our living environment in general, and we certainly don't think enough about water.

Here in Okanagan-Coquihalla lots of people spend a lot of time thinking about water.  This glorious dry country is completely dependent on water from our creeks and rivers - without them, there would be no human habitation here at all. And the creeks and rivers are completely dependent on snowpack and rainfall in the mountains, and on the grasses and trees and soil that capture it temporarily before it rushes on again to the sea.  We're getting better at managing the watersheds, the creeks and the rivers.

And outfits like the Nicola Valley Watershed Conversation Roundtable are part of the reason why.  Ranchers, farmers, fruit growers, winemakers, fishermen, loggers, kayakers and people of the first nations who have lived along these rivers for thousands of years, come together in a non-confrontational non-partisan way to examine the rivers, understand how they work, decode the signals they give about the environment, and recommend to users and residents and governments how to work more easily with the natural systems that drive everything we depend on.

Elsewhere in the riding, people are concerned about the effects of enormous hydro-electric projects like the Columbia River Treaty, and about BC Hydro's "run-of-river" private-public-partnerships.   We deal with these as if they were just about the electricity, not about the rivers and the farms and the fish - those just need to be dealt with, compensated, mollified - but they're rarely prime concerns.

I hear from a lot of people in these valleys a call for an environmental ethic, for an understanding of natural systems as the basis for all our lives, and for government to take notice of and act with care and respect for the earth.  I promise that if I am elected MP for this riding my voice will be clear and persistent, and my arguments gentle but persuasive.  I will examine every action of government through an environmental lens.  The Nicola and Okanagan valleys are in my heart and soul, and I will help all those who live here to take good care of our home.

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Listening, learning, laughing.

Listening, learning, laughing.  It's obvious, but it still surprises: the more people I listen to, the more I learn. And the harder we work, the easier it is to laugh.


On the street, I'm getting a better early response than I anticipated. I had conditioned myself to meet almost no-one but Conservative supporters. But I find that business owners don't feel that they've been heard in Ottawa, that many who supported the previous MP did so out of personal loyalty, not loyalty to the Conservative party, and that people are hungering for a change.


I attended an event today which was attended by about 100 NDP and Green supporters.  Five people, all NDP members and one key organizer told me that I would have their vote.  They're following the key element of Jack Layton's advice "I'm asking you to [join with me to] defeat Stephen Harper, regardless of who you've voted for in the past."  Although Mr. Layton intended that advice to encourage more people to vote NDP in key ridings, his supporters here know that the main chance is to vote Liberal. They're hearing it as "I'm asking you to defeat Stephen Harper, regardless of who you've voted for in the past." And they've chosen to vote for me.


Campaign Director Allie and I got out of the office late last night, as usual, and went looking for dinner at 10:30 in the evening.  Just down Main Street we went into the parking lot at a very popular Greek restaurant, hoping against hope that they would still be open.  There were three members of the restaurant staff outside in the alley having a smoke - when we asked if they were still open, we were initially told no - when Allie said that we were on the Liberal campaign, that we'd been there the night before, that we were tired and starving, one person hollered into the kitchen to get one chicken souvlaki and one shoulder of lamb on the go, and we were told that there would be no problem, just go on in.


One of the staff then said to me. "But you know, I don't think much of that guy, your leader, you know, what's his name?" "Michael Ignatieff", I said. "Yeah, that's the guy, I don't like him."  "Why not?" said I.  "Well, I hear from a lot of people that they don't like him." "Where do you think they got their information?"  I asked.  "Well, I don't know".  "So,"  I said, "what if I opened a restaurant across the street here and put up a great big screen and ran ads over and over and over again saying that your restaurant served plodge, that the owners didn't care about the customers, just about personal profit, that everyone who ate here got sick, and just said that over and over again.  Would that be a good way for a lot of people to form an opinion of you guys?"  And everybody laughed, and one young man said "Well, he's got my vote."  Not so hard, really.  One or one thousand at a time.

Time to get the vote out.

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Almost exactly 96 hours since I was nominated...

It’s almost exactly 96 hours since I was nominated the Liberal candidate for Okanagan-Coquihalla.   Oh, what a feeling; what a rush.  Confident, concerned, excited, apprehensive, humbled, exalted.

The amount of work required to get this campaign running has exceeded my expectations by a large margin.  Just like any startup, there is no way of understanding before one gets down to work just how much work there actually is.

I learned from the manager of a furniture rental business that her business is growing rapidly, and that she knows that’s because people are increasingly unable to buy the bits and pieces they need for their homes.  So they get her stuff – “No Credit Checks” – and pay much more on a weekly or monthly rental than they would if they were able to buy.   I learned that the thrift shops and consignment stores are getting more high-end clothes every day, as people find that they just don’t really need those extra jackets and purses and scarves, or at least that perhaps they have a better use for the money they represent.   I learned that all the people who run these operations all care about their businesses and their customers, that they all vote, and that they all feel forgotten by the powers that be.

I’m learning that discussions about fine points of budgets and tax points and jurisdictions and foreign policy pales in importance when compared to working for the people of the riding.  There is work to do here – I’m beginning to understand the real meaning of “representation” – to stand in Parliament as the representative of the people of this riding is a real and solemn duty.  And I’m learning that attack ads and the “blood sport” of politics are irrelevant to the needs of the voters.  They’re just manipulation of emotions, pure and simple.  There is no need to be unkind to anyone, and there is no need to appeal to dislike and division to win “power”.   When I’m on the street listening to people, all that crapola just vanishes into the haze.  There is real work to do – it has nothing to do with position or power or prestige - just plain old-fashioned work.

And I’m learning that I’m ready for it.  It’s not imaginary anymore, not just a fantasy or a dream.  This is my work.  I’m looking across the room at an empty wall chart, 10 feet wide by 5 feet high, “Kidder Campaign Schedule”.  Now it’s blank.  Now it’s time to fill it in.  Here we go.

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