Noteworthy: Pushed out in Carleton, Pierre Poilievre comes West to safety
By Bruce Penton on May 7, 2025.
Pierre Poilievre may have deserved a better fate April 28 than to be defeated by Liberal Bruce Fanjoy in his own Ontario riding of Carleton. After all, he had been the constituency’s Member of Parliament since 2004, was a popular leader within his Conservative Party and, it could be suggested, his re-election bid was hijacked by a movement to make voting in Carleton difficult, thanks to a 91-person ballot that while legal, bordered on unethical. Certainly underhanded. Poilievre, who helped the Conservatives increase their popular vote and riding totals, has declared he intends to stay on as leader, and should have no trouble doing that now that Damien Kurek, Conservative MP re-elected in the Alberta riding of Battle River-Crowfoot, said he would resign to allow Poilievre to run in a byelection in one of the safest ridings in the country. A few days before Kurek made his announcement, this column was half-written with the suggestion that the MP for our area, Glen Motz, might consider resigning his seat to fast-track Poilievre into the House of Commons. After all, I had written, he has almost a decade as an MP, is slightly past the standard retirement age of 67, and is on the receiving end of a nice pension after a 35-year career in policing. An inspector when he retired about 10 years ago, Motz moved right into politics and will be eligible for a nice MP’s pension, too, when he calls it quits. But Kurek is the party’s sacrificial lamb, so Motz can carry on with his work in Medicine Hat-Cardston-Warner. I haven’t heard many negative comments about the work he’s done. He went out of his way to make my wife and I comfortable during a visit to the House of Commons while we were in Ottawa a few years ago, and his re-election numbers (around 77 per cent this time) indicate two things: He’s a Conservative in an ultra-conservative area of Canada; and people are happy with the job he’s doing. In 1983, Conservative Brian Mulroney was selected as party leader, but didn’t have a seat in the House. Longtime MP Elmer McKay graciously stepped aside, allowing Mulroney to run in his Atlantic Canada Conservative stronghold of Central Nova. Mulroney won easily, of course, and McKay coasted into retirement as a Progressive Conservative hero. Medicine Hat politicians ceding a seat to make way for a party leader is certainly not unprecedented. Michaela Frey gave up her Brooks-Medicine Hat provincial seat to allow Danielle Smith to score an easy byelection victory and gain admission to the Alberta Legislature. Had Motz beaten Kurek to the resignation punch, Medicine Hat could have then changed its nickname from the Gas City to the City of Political Leaders. • Terence Kowalchuk of the Medicine Hat Skateboard Association said his organization will be announcing plans in the next few days about this July’s Canada Day celebration. Kowalchuk says his group and the Connection intercultural association are teaming up with a number of other local organizations to “bring the official Canada Day celebration back down to Kin Coulee.” “We are hearing a lot of great reports about the return to Kin Coulee,” said Kowalchuk. “Especially in a year like this where we need to come together and celebrate our country.” • Short snappers: My computer spellcheck feature turned footballer Elic Ayomanor’s name to Eric last week and my normally sharp editing eye took a holiday before the column was published. … Mark Carney trivia: He was college hockey-team buddies with Peter Chiarelli, the former general manager of the Edmonton Oilers, and was best man at Chiarelli’s wedding. … Separatist chatter is getting attention in Alberta while new PM Carney is preaching national unity. Which movement will gain more of a foothold? … Thirty balloons, the largest number ever, are scheduled to take to the air in Medicine Hat during the annual Rise Up Festival May 22-25. … Every game of the WHL final between the Tigers and Spokane Chiefs will be broadcast live on TSN, starting this Friday. Will that have a negative effect on attendance? Knowing how avid the fans are in Medicine Hat, the answer is probably no. On Monday, in fact, the ‘sold out’ sign had been posted for the first two games, with ‘overflow'(standing room only) tickets being sold. Bruce Penton is a retired News editor who may be reached at brucepenton2003@yahoo.ca 14-13
Apparently unlike us true conservatives Bruce has bought into the lies these Reformers have been feeding him and he’s willing to ignore how Poilievre tried to help Reformer Stephen Harper destroy our Public Healthcare system.
My late parents and two sisters spent countless hours volunteering for the Lougheed and Getty governments. Lougheed’s energy minister Bill Dickie was a brother in-law of one of my uncles. One of my brother in-laws voluntarily flew the government plane for them in his spare time and dad donated around $30,000.to their party.
We were all proud Conservative supporters until the conservative MLAS we knew taught us about how dangerous these Reformers were to the well being of the people and boy have they been right.
Maybe Bruce Penton can explain where our children and grandchildren are going to find the $500 billion to cover the oil well cleanup mess, we are told it will soon be at, or the $85 billion debt these Reformers have created by deliberately destroying Lougheed’s oil royalties and corporate tax structures
. When I was involved with the oil well cleanup mess for 8 years Lougheed and Getty made the oil industry pay for it, so why was Klein allowed to dump it on our children’s laps to benefit the rich oil industry? Like he did with the Power Industry?
The point is we are furious about the lack of respect these Reformers have shown our children, grandchildren, doctors , nurses, teachers and students, and know Lougheed would never have done it, would he?
“Royalties Down 32% Billions in Federal Revenue Lost”, That’s why we are in financial ruin and Alaska and Norway aren’t isn’t it? We have lost $1.2 billion.
We have lost $1.2 TRILLION not Billion my mistake.
typical Liberal tactics. Took a page from their best friends, the US democrats
We are told the $260 Billion oil well cleanup mess will soon be a $500 Billion nightmare for our children to face. Add in the $85 Billion debt, the 60 new schools we desperately need and the $20billion needed for road and bridge repairs and we are bankrupt and we have these Reform Party Supporters to thank, don’t we?
As much as we weren’t fans of Trudeau we have to agree with lawyers he was a hero to Alberta with the billions he poured into this province and bad mouthing him doesn’t make us look very smart, does it?
While these Reformers make him out to be the bad guy it’s them that have put us in this financial ruin by destroying what Lougheed created for us, isn’t it?