Federal win, regional loss for Medicine Hat-Cardston-Warner’s Liberal Tom Rooke

The Liberal party saw success across Canada with a win for a minority government, but Rooke’s own region wasn’t quite ready to let the Conservative riding go.

“I think what we have shown once again is that there is a solid core of progressive thinking people in this particular riding,” Rooke told CHAT News Monday.

“I wish there were a lot more.”

The Liberals received around 9,500 votes in the region, considerably more than the Green Party, which received just over 400.

Rooke said what the Liberal campaign hopes to do in the future is show the people that what they’re missing is they “never seem to want to put anybody into the government of the day”.

“That was one of my aims, is to say, ‘People, you could have a representative in the government that will carry your concerns there’,” he said.

“Now they will still have just a backbencher, absolutely no power to him at all to say anything on their behalf.”

Rooke said regional results showed a solid core of progressive thinking people in particular riding. Jayk Sterkenburg/CHAT News

Rooke’s volunteer coordinator Gwendoline Dirk previously seeked nomination as an NDP candidate for Alberta in the last provincial election in 2023.

She said federal campaigns in this area tend to be smaller scale compared to provincial, and the Liberal campaign hopes to grow the progressive movement in the riding.

“‘Doesn’t it get tiring swimming upstream?’ And some answer is, ‘It does’,” she said.

“But at the same time, I truly believe that one conversation at a time, one more thing, eventually, I think people can come to realize that maybe your values don’t align with the political party you’re voting for.”

Dirk said she used to think she was Conservative herself.

She said it wasn’t until she had a deep look at where her values were as a human being and where she wanted society to be, when she realizes she wasn’t.

“[The more] I really passionately want us to move forward progressively with compassion and empathy for people around us, the more I realize that I’m not a Conservative,” she said.

Dirk said the Liberal campaign hopes to grow the progressive movement in the Medicine Hat-Cardston-Warner riding.. Jayk Sterkenburg/CHAT News

Supporter Peter Mueller said Rooke deserves a pat on the back for taking the position of Liberal candidate for the riding, stepping up to the opposition.

“What have we in Medicine Hat gained by having a backbencher for four elections? Nothing, I would say,” he said.

Mueller said “the ghost of the previous Liberal leader” left a large impact on the population in Canada.

He said the Trudeau name is one that’s “poisonous” in Alberta particularly, but didn’t do the Liberal party much favour in general.

“They had to fight against that ghost in the closet, I guess you could say. The Trudeau ghost in the closet,” he said.

Mueller said Medicine Hat has gained nothing by having a Conservative backbencher for four elections. Jayk Sterkenburg/CHAT News

Rooke said to change people’s minds from blue to red would take a “major catastrophe”.

He said the Medicine Hat-Cardston-Warner riding is such a huge region, and has regional differences.

“I would like to see that changed,” he said.

“I don’t see Medicine Hat being large enough to just be a riding on its own. But for us to stretch all the way down to the American border, that’s a kind of chunk of it,” he added.

“I don’t know what the plans are for anything like that.”

Rooke said in rural areas, people like him are needed to get out and talk to those populations, to hear their problems and concerns.

He said this should happen on a regular basis, and not only at election time.

by Jayk Sterkenburg

Federal win, regional loss for Medicine Hat-Cardston-Warner’s Liberal Tom Rooke

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