Area Progressive Conservative Party members have selected the group which represent them at next year’s leadership convention.
Around 125 card-carrying PCs from the Barrhead-Morinville-Westlock constituency were at the Westlock Inn Monday, Dec. 5 and selected 15 delegates to attend the March 18, 2017 PC convention in Calgary.
“It was a very good turn out — a lot of young people,” said Geri Savage, president of the Barrhead-Morinville-Westlock PCAA (Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta) Constituency Association.
“It’s nice to see people come forward and want to get interested,” he added.
Fifteen delegates from each of the province’s 87 constituencies are chosen by the party membership to head to the spring PC convention to cast their ballots for one of four leadership candidates: MP Jason Kenney, former St. Albert MLA Stephen Khan, Vermilion-Lloydminster MLA Richard Starke and Calgary lawyer Byron Nelson.
Town of Westlock mayor Ralph Leriger and Coun. Clem Fagnan are two of the 15 from this constituency, while Westlock County reeve Don Savage and County of Barrhead Coun. Doug Drozd are alternates.
Delegates include Leriger, Craig Wilson, Richard Bouwman and Wes Werkman, while the remaining members are Fagnan, John Vander Deen, Jacqueline Hamoen, Gary Golby, Stanley Vierson, John Tyrell, Roelof Janssen, and Jason Zwarg.
Alternates are Drozd, Savage, Helmut Jantz and Ken Jersch, while Rae-Lynn Hamoen was selected as the alternate youth.
“It’s very important to get the youth involved, and youth is up to age 25,” Savage noted.
“They might not think they’re a youth anymore, but that’s what was allowed.”
Savage assured that unlike a Nov. 16 delegation selection meeting in Edmonton where Kenney’s campaign hosted a party down the hall and he was subsequently fined $5,000 for breaking the rules, that wasn’t the situation in Westlock.
“As far as politicians being there that were running for the party, they weren’t allowed to be there,” she said. “There wasn’t supposed to be any canvassing for votes within that room.”
“The door was locked,” she added. “You had to be a member to come through that door. You had to be registered.”
Leriger, who was selected for the delegate board after putting his name forward, explained why he chose to get involved, quoting French philosopher Joseph de Maistre who said, “The nation gets the government that they deserve.”
“I’m trying to do what I can do to influence positive change in my community and further,” Leriger said. “My generation lived through some of the best times that we’ll see in the history of the planet. We lived through post-war times of growth and prosperity, we lived in a country where we worried not for our safety, we had freedom and safety from violence. We lived charmed lives. And the world is changing.”
As well, he found it somewhat discouraging that many of the issues that were around when he was young, like the east-west conflict and the urban and rural divide, hasn’t improved over time.
“If you think the responsibility stops at 25 per cent of the people bothering to vote every four years, you’re wrong,” he said. “If you want to be governed well, then you need to be involved, you need to understand the issues, you need to talk to others about the issues, you need to see things from other people’s perspectives, you need to grow and cultivate and support leaders for the future, it’s important.”
Indeed two youth delegates, Benjamin Vierson and Hinne Janssen, were selected last Monday — a requirement of the party.
