Dear Editor;
Having read your columns for the past several months, would it be fair to guess that you spent your Sunday afternoon in front of a Roughrider’s game – if there was one? My afternoon involved a sport of quite a different sort. Coming home from Rimbey, in the vicinity of Winfield, I observed (again) the evidence that there is an idiot living in the area.
Witness: the willful trampling and destruction of political signs. Although I am not a member of the federal Liberal party, nor any other federal party, I take serious exception to people who will drive their big pick-up trucks off the road, into the ditch for the purpose of mangling a campaign sign. Here, in the land of the free, such activity is against the law. If caught, said idiot could be facing a well-deserved jail term, and a criminal record.
I may never actually see this person in the act of committing this destruction against our freedom of political association, but I can imagine that on his tailgate he sports a sticker bearing the inscription “Support our Troops”. If that is the case, may I point out that our troops are risking their lives to bring that very freedom of political will to an oppressed people? This has been the purpose of Canadian troops, including my father in the Second World War, throughout history. Shame! This is how we support our troops?
So my Sunday afternoon was taken, in part, repositioning red election signs, and thinking about two things: first, how lucky I am to live in a country where elections are held that provide freedom of choice for our citizens, and where democracy could prevail if we would only participate; and second, how often I have witnessed the Liberal candidate, Rita Dillon, at many events in the community and the Wetaskiwin riding over the past two years, in an effort to learn about the issues and the people she would be willing to represent. My hat is off to her, and to her campaign team.
Finally, I suggest that this coward, who is so intent on vandalizing election signs, would be a much better person if he would spend his energies in learning the issues, questioning his assumptions, talking to all the candidates in the riding, and in participating openly and honourably in the political process through becoming involved in support of a candidate of his choice. This is how we support our troops, and our society.
Connie Jensen
Buck Lake, Alta.