Everyone Loves Hockey, Even Our MP's!

This is hockey for a great cause! Go out and support the Boys and Girls Club of Leduc! As a bonus, you get to heckle some MP's!

Nothing goes better together than a good 'ol hockey game and raising money for a good cause, so on Saturday, Nov. 14, why not grab the family and head on down to the Leduc Recreation Centre (LRC) to watch some local businessmen take on Conservative Members of Parliament in a charity hockey fundraiser for the Boys and Girls Club (B&GC) of Leduc.

"It was an idea that came out of a discussion with Mayor Krischke," said Edmonton-Leduc MP James Rajotte on the idea to hold the fundraising game.

Rajotte said he and Krischke talked about the idea for over a year and tried to find a good time to put it together, but election timing and speculation kept getting in the way.

He said the timing turned out well because of the opening of the LRC.

"We are quite excited about it."

The team made up of MPs includes Minister of Defence Peter MacKay, Minister of the Environment Jim Prentice and some the local MPs as well, including Blaine Calkins (Wetaskiwin) and Brian Storseth (Westlock-St. Paul).

If I remember correctly, didn't MP MacKay, break his arm last time he participated in a sports event? Hope he stays on his feet and scores some goals this time!

"We have a few Ontario MPs: our goalie Dean Del Mastro was my roommate and is from Peterborough, Gord Brown is an MP from Grenville, Ontario, Patrick Brown, who is our fastest player and in the best shape, is from Barrie, Ontario."

The opposing team is made up of community members. Each paid $500 to enter the fundraiser, with all the proceeds going to the B&GC.

Their team will be known as the Boys and Girls Dream Team.

I remember when Monte and Strahl roomed together, their blog posts were hilarious. Something is fundamentally wrong with grown men and women having to room to together like in university. People wonder why more women don't go into politics, here's one of the big drawbacks. You leave your family for the week, to go and live with some other woman and only get back home on the weekends. That doesn't sound very appealing to me. I would prefer to be at home every night with my family, cooking them wholesome meals and helping with homework. Then again I could be wrong and the wives might actually like having their husbands gone all week.

Maybe it would save us taxpayers money if they put up dorms in Ottawa, so that every MP could have their own apartment, maybe they would be healthier too. All those chicken fund raisers seem to put the pounds on our MP's. Maybe a hockey game is a good idea, gets them out of the banquet halls and into some badly needed exercise.

Anyways, this sounds like a great cause, and good fun. HT to JEN for sending me the article. Sometimes Edmonton and Leduc can be light years away, one part of the riding has no clue what the other part is doing.

Good Time Was Had By All!

The Edmonton Leduc barbecue was very well attended and a great success! The weather was beautiful and the location in Leduc was very nice.

James Rajotte stood out in the hot sun from noon to 2:00, talking to his constituents without even a break for a burger. He gets votes from all political groups because he is one of the hardest working MP's of all political stripes. Every polling station last election showed more than 50% support for James, and that includes the new areas in the riding with many people who have moved here from other provinces. He is even respected by Liberal MP's. We met Liberal MP Shawn Murphy when we were in PEI last summer and he had nothing but praise for James.

James also chairs the most powerful committee in Parliament, the finance committee, and has even kept NDP Mulclair in line, not a small feat by any means.



If there is an election this summer, you can bet that James Rajotte will again be the MP from Edmonton Leduc, thanks to all the people of the riding, not just Conservatives. He serves everyone in the riding with fairness and care for the issues.

My only disappointment was that I didn't meet Jen. Jen, if you were there, I was the one handing out the ice cream!

Rigger Meets PM Harper!

What a day Rigger and I had! We got to meet PM Harper! I was very impressed with him. He is very down to earth and for all you dog lovers, I have it straight from the Prime Minister that he loves dogs and would someday, like to get a Labrador.



The first thing he wanted to do was pet Rigger. During the picture of the Edmonton Leduc participants, (edited from the picture because I do not have permission to post their pictures), PM Harper made sure the photographer got Riggers attention. This photo is by my friend, Ardvark. Thanks Ardvark, it was really nice meeting you. He can now attest to the fact that I am a real person, and that I am a female. He put together the fact that I had a "Dogs with Wings" dog with me, and that I was from Edmonton Leduc, so he came up and introduced himself. And here I thought I was all anonymous and everything, sheesh! It's going to be fun now because I can put a face to Ardvark when I read his blog.

The event was really enjoyable because you were in a room full of Conservatives, with not a single troll in sight. With only about 150 people in the room, and an hour and a half delay because of the protesters, not a single person complained. I met Rona Ambrose and Peter Goldring, both loved Rigger. You could walk up to anyone there and just start talking, of course Rigger is an excellent icebreaker, as my 15 year old son knows.

The Tamil protesters were out in force (10), with their terrorist flags waving, not a single Canadian flag in sight, it was frankly disgusting to see. How they expect Canadians to support their cause is beyond me. How they found out about this meeting is a mystery too, because it was thrown together in 2 days by the organizer, I only found out about it last night.

The Prime Minister gave a short speech, then met everyone for photos. He got in some good shots about Iffy changing his speeches from province to province, issue to issue, and how Liberals are all about getting back into power and only need two positive polls to force an election. PM Harper was very relaxed. He makes great eye contact, and is obviously very comfortable with who he is and what he wants to accomplish. I can picture sitting down with him over a beer and a good curling game and having a nice relaxing time. The whole gathering was very casual but reaffirming for Conservatives.

Rigger of course is oblivious to the fact that he met a very special person today, he thinks all people are special, especially if they pay attention to him. There was a real seeing eye dog there and Rigger ignored him, which is what he is supposed to do. So Rigger was the star of the day, and he doesn't even know it.