[ADMIN NOTE: Yesterday, I extended an offer to independant London North Centre candidate Robert Ede to contribute to this site and tell the rest of us what he’s about. Well, Rob took me up on it so here, unedited as promised (and longwinded as forewarned), is his first post. Any other would-be MPs wanna chime in? -Dennis]
Dennis,
Thanks for this opportunity to contribute to your blog.
I’m canvassing today in s/e corner of riding and attending an all campaign pow-wow with the E-Canada Returning officer.
As some of your readers might have seen in my announcement and platform, I see this election as a very unique set of circumstances that may create impossible-to-predict results.
I started to do a precis of what I’m about … but instead I’ll shoot you the Press Release my wife didn’t like … and I’ve not sent anywhere else (yet … or maybe ever … are you married?)
Press Release Nov 09 2006
Independent Candidate – Sees By-election as ‘perfect storm’ opportunity for Harmony, Education & Understanding
Robert Ede, 53 a Realtor from Thornhill, ON has joined with 6 other candidates to contest the Federal By-election to be held Nov 27, 2006 in the riding of London North Centre.
Ede, as an independent, is not affiliated with any political party and is conducting a campaign of his own design and content.
Themes include a discussion on the definition of the Crown, re-establishment of the 1867 as-written in BNA Act roles for the Governor General, Privy Council, Senate, House of Commons and Prime Minister.
Robert, aided by his wife and official agent Keum-Ra Strachan-Ede, are presenting 11 foundational points about Canadian governance that he feels “are never discussed at elections and will never be on any party’s platform” .
Ede admits the points he raises are “too complicated and too fundamentally important for conventional political strategists to want to present – it’s not possible to reduce the concepts to a catchy slogan”.
Based on his door to door campaign to obtain the written consent of 120 voters for his official nomination “Londoners are fed up with being fed pablum & platitudes at election time – they’re skeptical of any party’s election promises”
Ede’s campaign entitled “Money, Power & Simplicity – Understanding Canada’s Government System and then Doing Something to remedy its shortcomings” is the culmination of Robert’s 14 year personal study of the BNA/Constitution Acts and their predecessor documents dating from 1763. Ede says he’s “so boring that I enjoy poring over the Public Accounts & Annual Financial Reports”.
No stranger to politics Robert established a Charlottetown Referendum Committee in 1992 (hence the BNA/Constitutional predisposition of his program) and ran for a small party in Richmond Hill ON, nationally in 1993 and provincially in 1995. Ede moved to the Federal Progressive Conservatives from 1995 until 2003 serving on the Riding Executives in Richmond Hill and Markham and attending their Policy Convention in Winnipeg in 1996.
Most recently, Robert attended the Calgary Congress in late September 2006, intrigued by the Conference’s agenda including Western alienation, Alberta Separation and Senate Reform.
Ede says he was “abandoned” by the P.C. & Reform/Alliance merger and has been conducting his writing and research projects “without any of that baggage – I don’t feel obligated to oppose or support any existing idea or program, just because some former Party or its Leader did or didn’t — I consider each issue on its own, depending on whether it fits or is incompatible with my own overarching vision for Canada”
Quite gung-ho and positive about his prospects, Robert says London is the most-perfect setting possible because London Canada is thought of as the city most truly representative of cross-Canada sentiments and values – many large firms run their market-trial programs here. Ede calls the timing of these By-elections a “perfect storm”, presenting the ideal conditions for his independent campaign, “We have (and will probably have next time) a Minority-government Parliament – no party will be significantly raised up or no government will fall, based on the results of the 2 by-elections. Further, in a minority Parliament, every MP’s vote counts … an independent member will have a significant role to play on every vote in the House.”
“In addition, and best of all, there will be no Leaders Tour, no Leaders Debate, no national advertising campaign (with the 308 local elections just riding the coattails) – these By-election will solely be about what the individual Candidates represent and how the Voters of London North Centre and Repentigny react to those people and ideas”.
Presenting a tightly-spaced 4 page platform, Ede says his campaign boils down “to finishing the Patriation-of-Sovereignty that was started by the 1982 Constitutional changes” and asking Canadians to consider 3 essential questions:
“Whose Dominion is the Dominion of Canada?”
“How shall we live?”
“Who will decide?”
Admitting that an intellectual campaign has never been tried before, he says “Londoners have a well-established pride and sophisticated knowledge about their city, its history and Canada and its history, I’m not concerned about anyone not understanding what I saying nor missing the point on why I’m saying it – the University is smack in the middle of the riding, many professors and staff live here”
Ede counts “a partial victory every time a voter says to me, Really, I didn’t know that or Thanks, nobody ever explained it to me like that” and suggests that with “several of those epiphanies each day, along with a little they tell two friends, who then tell two friends … all things are possible.”
Robert maintains that the campaign “will be a success, if only 9 or 6 or 3 of my 11 points become an integral part of this by-election and are introduced to the nation-wide political discussion … even if I am not elected.”
As an example of his unique and outside-the-box approach to communicating his message, Ede is borrowing from and adapting two historic events, first by suggesting that this election could become know as the beginning of the “Great Peace of the Canadian Confederation” he alludes to the pledges of co-operation and unity the Six Nations made to each other when they established their Confederacy and its bi-cameral governance system. His ” U.C.L. United Canadian Loyalist” designation is of course modern version of the honour bestowed on post-Revolutionary, Crown subjects who fled the new republic and helped hurry the establishment of Canada.
Unrattled by nay-sayers who “wonder where he gets the energy to fight such an uphill battle” Robert Ede is ready willing and able to take on “the giants” even on unfamiliar turf.
“I know that if enough people get a chance to read what I’ve put in my handouts and on my blog or come to an All-Candidates meeting – they’ll be convinced that I can win and that an independent MP is probably the best thing they can have represent them in Ottawa”
— 30 —
Bio, Pictures, Platform on
London By-election Contact Info:Robert Ede
25 Dersingham Cres
Thornhill ON
L3T 4P5
Direct 416-819-7333
London 519-282-8303
Whew. Okay… here we go… one election down, one to go. Is it just me, or is anyone else around here starting to get a slight case of politico burnout? 
Between the mayoral race, having all of our wards redrawn, and now the federal race in London North Centre beginning in ernest, I’m starting to feel like I’ve been fed meatloaf too many days in a row (anybody else remember that one)?
