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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