Tag: rex murphy

Media Day

What a day! Final memberships to vote for leader of the new Conservative Party of Canada and to vote for my nomination are due tonight at midnight. As I’ve been working selling memberships for my nomination, I had the opportunity to speak with both the Kingston Whig Standard and to Rex Murphy on Cross Country Checkup on CBC Radio One.

The Whig reporter called today to find out a little bit more about who I am and why I’m running. I mentioned that the new Conservative Party represents a chance for previously sidelined conservatives to be heard and that the formation of the party represents “a real opportunity for democratic change in this country”.

On Rex’s call-in show, Rex introduced me to the country and again to Stephen Harper. Subsequently, I asked him the following question, “Hi Mr. Harper, I’m seeking the Conservative nomination here in Kingston and the Islands. I’m 23 years old and when we had the opportunity to meet and discuss the issues we didn’t have the chance to discuss youth issues. Now, I think that this new party can be the party of youth in this country and I’ve been working hard to realize this goal. I’d like to ask you what your commitment is for the sustainment of a youth wing of the party and whether you’ll be seeking youth input if you’re the leader.” Now, I know what I said, but I can’t begin to present Mr. Harper’s response without a transcript, so I’ll present the exchange when it becomes available from CBC.

Update:I can do one better than a transcript. Here’s the audio of the interview with Stephen Harper. I’m on the air at around the 44 minute mark.

Click here to listen to the audio

Busy day…

Rex, ask your editors

rex.jpgIn a recent column concerning the Conservative Party of Canada leadership race, Rex Murphy mused perplexedly over the paucity of confabulatory prose by this nation’s columnists and news writers on the topic of the race.

Rex, the leadership race is not dead. Your editors have merely found another story and they’re running with it. I’m talking, of course, about the American Democratic Party Leadership Race. Why is our nation’s news media so focused on a topic that they usually abhor? Indeed, our national news peddlers tend to give American news less attention than its worth. Yet, why does our opposition’s leadership race get so much less coverage than the American’s opposition leadership race receives? The American Democrats and the Canadian Conservatives are trying to do the same thing, in effect: change the government. However, Peter Mansbridge has spoken more about John Kerry than Belinda Stronach, and we’ve heard more about Lieberman’s Joementum (or lack thereof) than we have heard about Tony Clement.

Our leadership race is news. Rex, you should ask your editors why they’re choosing to ignore the story. Without media coverage, our leadership contenders can only be heard as far as they can shout. Mr. Murphy has declared that Belinda Stronach, Tony Clement and Stephen Harper have all climbed inside a “Trojan horse”, ready to attack the Liberal party’s stranglehold on power. It’s not that the three intend to stay within the horse, rather, it’s that nobody has told the city of Troy that the horse is waiting outside its gates.