NEWS PHOTO ZOE MASON
Kat Boynton is one of the volunteer canvassers for the Smith campaign at McBride's Bakery. She thought this petition would be more controversial than the Forever Canadian one, which she volunteered for this summer, but she says so far her conversations with Hatters as a canvasser for this campaign have been overwhelmingly positive.
The recall petition against Premier Danielle Smith is in its second week of collecting signatures. With winter weather here to stay in southern Alberta, local businesses have opened their doors to canvassers to set up shop. McBride’s Bakery on Dunmore Road is one of them.
Since McBride’s owner Brendan Hillson posted on social media he had volunteered the bakery as a space to collect signatures on Nov. 30, he has received some pushback. The resistance has mostly taken the form of social media commentary, and a loosely coordinated effort to bomb the McBride’s Facebook page with bad reviews began to take shape last week.
In the last 24 hours, a counter-campaign has begun filling the page with messages of support.
Hillson sees the negative messages, but he isn’t too troubled. He feels fortunate his business is fairly insulated against this kind of critique.
“I’ve had this bakery for a long time, and we’ve got a lot of regular customers. And the customers that we have are not really sensitive to online reviews,” he said.
He says his business benefits from its location, its longevity and the fact that there aren’t many bakeries in town.
“We’re not located on the highway, so it’s not like people are just driving into town and looking up the bakery,” he said.
“It would maybe have more of an effect in a big city like Calgary, where you’ve got 30 bakeries to choose from.”
Hillson says he expected some response to his hosting canvassers. This isn’t his first time making a political statement as a business owner.
When the province was setting policies concerned with gay-straight alliances in schools about ten years ago, Hillson says he sent a tray of donuts that said, “it’s okay to be gay” to then-MLA Drew Barnes’s office.
When Danielle Smith first ran for premier, he also started a campaign opposing her election and gave away free buttons that read “Not Danielle.”
Both times, he says the impact on his business was negligible.
“You know what happened business wise? Nothing. I didn’t get a boost, but I didn’t get a drop. This is going the same way,” he said.
“When I put up a political post and I get a surge of negative comments, what am I gonna do? Spend two or three days on my phone trying to argue with them? I can’t, and I don’t need to, because I already know from experience, it’s not going to affect me.”
Meghan Bidinger, who works at the bakery, says she isn’t quite as immune to the online comments.
Some of the comments specifically target staff, putting down their service or demeanour. She says the tone of the some of the messages does make her uncomfortable.
“The language they use is sometimes really mean. I’ve blocked a couple people. It’s pretty much harmless, but you never know,” she said.
Overall, though, Bidinger says she shares Hillson’s attitude, and she’s happy that the business isn’t afraid of getting a little political.
Canvasser Kat Boynton collected signatures for the Forever Canadian petition in the summer, and she’s put in three shifts collecting signatures for the Smith recall.
So far, she hasn’t dealt with any anger or disagreement from the people she’s spoken to. It’s a departure from her experience as a canvasser for Forever Canadian, when she said people let their disagreement be known.
While she’s greeted a steady stream of signers – while she spoke to the News for about five minutes, three came by — she worries that the wintertime collection period will affect the number of signatures canvassers are able to collect.
Hillson is flattered that a counter-campaign has been launched against the politically motivated reviews. There is still 10 weeks left in the collection period for the recall petition. As for more backlash in the future, he’s not too worried.
“We’ve been out as progressive for a long time,” said Hillson. “I think the reaction to how progressive I am, or how progressive this bakery is, has probably already passed.”
