Martha Hall Findlay and an Opportunity Missed

by Dana Osiowy

It was a poor showing for a rare opportunity in this riding – a visit from a Federal leadership race candidate. We had Martha Hall Findlay in our community on the weekend, and one can examine the poor showing as being a result of a Conservative entrenched federal riding or as a sign of systemic lack of engagement in our community.  Either way it was a great opportunity for those of us who showed up to meet with her. There were attendees at the luncheon who were radical Québécois separatists and embattled Liberals who are waiting for the second coming and everyone was enamoured with Hall Findlay and the “celebrity-free” approach she is taking to the leadership race. She asked for a round table of introductions and for all there to elaborate on what the do and what they are interested in, she then gave a brief overview of her platform and opened to a wide range of questions.

When discussing the free-fall of the liberal party she touched on the fact that the environment is a hot button issue and yet in the 2008 election when the Libs ran an entirely environmental platform the electorate either voted elsewhere or stayed home. This was a segue into discussing voter engagement, women in politics and whether or not Canada is ready for a female Prime Minister. To the last question the response from the attendees and Martha was “Why are we still asking that question?”.

Hall Findlay relayed stories of her ski racing days and even had an elaborate metaphor for ski racing being like politics – although it isn’t always like crashing at 120 km/hr!

The culture of campaigning in Canada today was brought up when we discussed how the attack ads on Stephane Dion and Michael Ignatieff were not addressed. As a country we always say that we loathe those kinds of ads but they work! The narrative around Michael Ignatieff was that he was only here for a short time.  Another opportunity gap was for the Liberals to rally around the NDP to protest the abolishment of the long-form census – that will be a heritage of missed data and a struggle for statisticians and historians trying to study the real state of the union.

The luncheon was a stellar opportunity to connect with someone who could be the future Prime Minister of Canada and that was a huge opportunity missed for our community.