Were any Conservative women candidates elected?

[Darth_Kitten]

I'm just curious, or were they all mostly upper middle class white guys?

(not that I have anything against upper middle class white guys, especially when they are moderate.) ;)

[SixStrings]

1. Diane Finley, for Norfolk Cty. (North shore Lake Erie)

Already talk of her becoming the next Agriculture Minister. She won against an 'upper middle class white guy', by 6000 votes. We had a 68% voter turnout which translates into 25,000 pissed off people who didn't vote.

[Telly Savalas]

2. Off the top of my head

Oda, Ambrose, Ablonzcy (spelling?), Stronach

[daleo]

3. Stronach isn't Conservative Party anymore

But, I suppose the point is somewhat debatable.

[Telly Savalas]

4. I know.

I just couldn't pass up an opportunity to get a dig in.

[iverglas]

5. how can anyone forget

Cheryl pigwoman Gallant?

http://ottsun.canoe.ca/News/Election/2006/01/24/1408737-sun.html

Good grief, I hadn't heard this one:

Gallant, 45, made headlines last month when it was alleged that her office used personal information from passport applications to send birthday cards to her constituents.

No corruption here, folks. No use of the government apparatus/resources for one's own / one's party's private benefit. 'Course not. Certainly no violations of any privacy legislation to that end. Move along now.

[telstar]

6. Josée Verner (Louis St. Laurent, Quebec)

Josée Verner won Louis St. Laurent in Quebec.
there's talk by the pundits of a possible cabinet position for her.

[Wabbajack]

7. I hate to say it but

She's hot.

[V. Kid]

21. I think Rona Ambrose is way hotter.

They should make her Minister of 51st stat-inization, it'll make it easier to take. ;-)

[Mother Jones]

8. Helena Guergis won too (Ontario)

(pronounced Georgis)

Talk of her getting a cabinet position too.


I continue to be amazed that Cheryl Gallant could win anything. I think she's in Nepean, which I always thought was a decent place.

[iverglas]

9. how did your Liberal do?

You might have said and I missed it.

My NDPer did just fine. Quite a healthy margin of victory.

But damn, I know I should have voted Liberal ...

[Mother Jones]

10. lol

Now, now, I was not part of the "vote lib or else" faction. I understood what needed to be done.


Sadly, she was crushed. And I mean crushed. More surprisingly, I think, is that the NDP finished 4th out here, behind the Greens. (I think this may have been the strongest finish for the Greens - they secured over 6,000 votes)


I'm still in shock at having heard many of the comments from people in this riding. Truly unbelievable. I'm working hard to convince my husband that we need to move. I just can't live here.

[iverglas]

11. I know, I know!

and I knew you wouldn't think I was talking to you. Just talking at you. ;)

Greens. At the poll I was in for the count at ... for some reason, I got banished to the ends of the earth, a poll consisting of a condo building with precisely 67 voters, one of whom voted during the 2 hours I was there, 10 minutes before polls closed -- thought I'd hit a personal record, no one voted on my watch ... anyhow, the tally was:

Lib 24
CPC 12
NDP 10
Green 6

and I thought I heard a bell tolling myself. Not the size of the Lib or CPC vote; that was expected in a poll like that. The Green. If an upscale condo had that many people voting for the bastards, what about my homely neighbourhood of low-income tenants, immigrant Canadians, civil service yuppies and old hippies? I could see the overt right-wing strategy of splitting the "left" (i.e. NDP and Green, Green being "left", lest anyone be confused!) vote working, and us losing because of the votes that went to the Greens.

'Twas not to be, though. Several thousands of votes difference between the NDP and the second-ran Liberal, and about as many between the Liberal and the Conservative, with the Green trailing along well behind.

I did have some fun earlier in the evening. I was running stuff to scrutineers, and as I was leaving the first polling station after handing it out to each of them and explaining it, I realized the elevator had stopped working. Three polls were on the 3rd+ floor (odd building, it was actually more than 2 floors of stairs to climb). And nobody was doing anything about it except listen to the building manager assure everyone, every 5 minutes, that the technicians would be there in 10 minutes. People were apparently leaving because they couldn't climb the stairs.

So I grabbed a cell phone from an old friend (you always run into some old friend you haven't seen in 5 years when you scrutineer) and called campaign HQ and got a sort of ho-hum response from the manager and said get onto Elections Canada and get this fixed. Went back to my zone house, was informed that there was apparently a problem with the elevator at that polling station (duh! yes!) and I should go back and stand guard to make sure the officials were arranging for everybody to vote at an accessible poll in the bldg by transfer. So I went and hung around the front door ready to explain to anyone trying to get away without voting that they could do it downstairs, and after a half hour or so a woman came zipping in with the forms they needed to do that. She turned out to be quite interesting and very effective and thanked me warmly for making sure they were informed of the problem ... and when she started to gently chide the nice lady who was the poll supervisor and who had done nothing at all to get the problem fixed, I stepped away. Cripey! This is people's *votes* we're talking about here! Let's just wait for an elevator technician ...

She was talking about how she tries really hard to impress on DROs and poll clerks that scrutineers are a good thing, and they should not be obstructive about letting them get the info they need. I said yeah, and that way we won't be needing UN observers. And y'know what? It turns out we had UN observers for this election, doing their actual election observing thing. I've tried google news to see whether any mention has been made of this, but haven't found anything.

Anyhow -- my condolences. A beating like that sometimes comes as a real surprise, and a nasty one. Looking for progressive places in BC to move to? ;)

[Monkeybumper]

12. Pigwoman ?

This from someone who thinks mind your knitting is sexist ?

[iverglas]

14. are pigs female?

I thought sows were female. Even if I'd said "sow", I would have simply been using correct nomenclature, anyhow.

Here's somebody needing your attentions:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=190&topic_id=11577&mesg_id=11577

Ooooh ... perhaps you thought I was referring to Gallant's physical characteristics. Given that I don't have a very firm idea of what she looks like, that would have been unlikely.

And I'm sure you could never have figured out that I was using "pig" in the sense that many people who've been around for any of the last 50 or so years might really be expected to recognize, as it is used in expressions like "capitalist pig", "male chauvinist pig", and various other formulations referring to what the Concise Oxford calls more generally "a greedy, dirty, obstinate, sulky or annoying person". Perhaps one might sum it up as "nasty".

I tried to find a picture of her in one of her piggier moments:

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20040607/exln_cheryl_gallant_040606/20040607/

The Western Catholic Reporter, in an article on an anti-abortion rally on Parliament Hill last month, quotes Gallant as saying the world was horrified at the murder of American contractor Nicholas Berg. He was beheaded by terrorists, and video of the incident was posted on an al-Qaeda affiliated website.

"She compared the killing to the abortions performed in Canada over 35 years and said it is 'absolutely no different'," the article said.

but we'll just have to settle for text. Perhaps Oxford should add "stupid" to its list of adjectives.

Stephen Harper rose to that occasion, you may recall:

Stephen Harper responded immediately from Calgary, but refused to condemn his MP's remarks.

"Cheryl Gallant is a very strong pro-life MP, and this is the rhetoric that the pro-life movement often uses," Harper told reporters in Calgary. "It's their business. I don't think it's particularly effective in changing public opinion."

Not *his* business, no ma'am.

But wait, there's more:

This is not first controversial remark from Gallant. In April, 2002, she was forced to apologize for a comment she made in the House of Commons, telling Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham to "Ask your boyfriend" about Mideast policy.

The remark was picked up by Commons microphones. After a firestorm of criticism, Gallant released a statement saying the remark "was inappropriate."

No, it was pig-like.

But hey, I'll be glad to call a few Liberal / male MPs pigs too if you like:

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060116/elxn_campaign_crossfire_060116/20060116?s_name=election2006&no_ads=

Toronto MP Tom Wappel said in 1994 that homosexuality is "statistically abnormal, physically abnormal and morally immoral."

Toronto MP Jim Karygiannis said last June he might never have become an MP without the help of the anti-abortion group Campaign Life Coalition. "I think in 1988 when I was first elected, Campaign Life probably turned things in my favour."

Pretty sure I could have dug up more damning stuff, but I'm a bit busy and I figure you get the idea.

Notice how Bev Desjarlais isn't an NDP MP anymore?

[Mother Jones]

13. Some good stories

to be had from election volunteering, that's for sure! All in all, it was a great experience and I would do it again in a heartbeat.....I did get some answers I was looking for around here too.

After seeing the results, it's obvious why so many of the other women volunteering were NDP too...they don't stand a chance in a riding like this. I had been wracking my brain trying to figure out why the NDP weren't more popular here...Handguns are too important, and the farmers don't want more government intervention affecting their business. (which seems to be happening in the industry as a whole anyway)


Still sad though, when a highly educated, articlate woman is trounced on by an ignorant, bloated, redneck, who is a notorious wife-beater. *Sigh*

B.C sounds great to me...I need a progressive rural community. I hope that isn't an oxymoron.

[Monkeybumper]

15. I guess we just come from different schools

We would say mind your knitting but never refer to a woman as a pig .

[iverglas]

16. whatever

I assume you were talking to me. Mother Jones may have been righter than she thought (no, no, MJ, not that righter!); you inevitably reply to her. Maybe she just shouldn't take it personally.

Edit. Whoops. Wrong poster. Maybe it's a trend.



We would say mind your knitting but never refer to a woman as a pig.

Congratulations.

If you *would* refer to a man as a pig, but would not refer to a woman as a pig, then you appear to be just plain sexist. Up to you.

Gallant and her ilk are misogynists, and pigs.

[V. Kid]

18. Progressive, rural, BC?

Sure there are a few, I don't have time to list them off though, I think I saw a thred on "progressive communities in BC", I'll add to it later. One off the top of my head is Nelson, well small town. The riding its in is pretty rural, and it went 50% NDP.

[Mother Jones]

19. I did see that thread

thanks for the input V. Kid.....I'm shocked that a rural riding would go 50% to the NDP, particularly after what happened here in my riding.....pleasantly surprised, that is.


I wonder what the difference between there and here is.

[V. Kid]

20. Well, Southern-Interior...

...the riding its in, is a pretty NDP friendly area. It's more of a western phenomenon, and Northern Ontario, where certain rural areas go NDP. It's not so much something that happens in the rest of the country. But this place isn't just labour friendly, it's actually quite hippy-riffic too. Also check out Vancouver Island, places like Tofino, Uculet, anything except Qualicum beach and North Nanaimo which is a more conservative enclave, due to Alberta Retiree's and what not, on an other wise progressive Island.

[V. Kid]

17. Unfortunatley she was elected as a Canadian-Alliance member!

In 2000, only one of two in Ontario at the time.

[HEyHEY]

22. Rona Ambrose