The tweet: “If @ElectDanielle likes young and growing families so much, why doesn’t she have children of her own? #wrp family pack = insincere” – Amanda Wilkie, "Executive Assistant to the Executive Director of the Office of the Premier (Southern Alberta Office)". March 30, 2012 (via Twitter).
The response:
March 31, 2012 (Calgary, AB): Today Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith issued the following statement in response to comments made by a Staffer in Premier Redford’s Calgary office regarding the Wildrose Family Pack.
“In the last day the question has been raised about why I don’t have children of my own. When David and I married in 2006 we intended to have children together. After a few years we sought help from the Calgary Regional Fertility Clinic. I appreciated the support and assistance of the caring staff as we went through tests and treatments, but in the end we were not successful.
“I consider myself very fortunate to have a terrific stepson, Jonathan, David’s son from a previous marriage. I am also blessed to have grown up in a large family with four siblings who have given me the opportunity to be the auntie of 5 terrific nieces and nephews: Emily, Sam, Chloe, Seyenna and Logan.
“Family is very important to me and I consider this to be a very personal matter. I will not be commenting on it further.”
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Say goodbye to the positive campaign: Redford:“We’re working really hard to make it a positive campaign & we’re going to keep doing that." as there is no spinning that one anymore and the PCs might want to think twice about the "scary" "angry" Wildrose meme they are using as well.
After the poor last few weeks the PCs had and now this, which will be covered by ALL the media, there will be no recovery.
It's over.
Saturday, March 31, 2012
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And within minutes of the posting of this blog post, the offending twitter account has been deleted!
Here is a link to an archive of the Wikwikkie twitter account.
http://www2.macleans.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/wikwikkie.html
Deleted or not, that tweet will never die, methinks. Absolutely appalling.
Thank you for posting this! It should be noted that in addition to Ms. Wilkie attacking infertile women for not having babies, she also has a very disturbing view of Wildrose Alliance member and their supporters. Look at the Feb 1st tweet of hers, which I included here. It reads: "@evmenzies I called #wrp ignorant rednecks, not conservatives. Literacy is a great thing. #pcaa"
One wonders if these "ignorant rednecks" (aka Alberta voters) that Ms. Wilkies refers to are the same ones that Alison Redford wants to push out of the province with the "change" she has in mind?
How on earth did such hateful people ever get to the highest echelons of the once great Alberta PC Party?!
The PC's deserve everything they get, or don't get, when it comes to votes this election.
Just plain stupidity, ignorance and arrogance have sealed their fate, this tweet just makes the rest of the campaign irrelevant. IMO.
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Bigoted, arrogant and narrow minded. Why would you want people like this in ay position of power over you?
Dump them all
Amanda Wilkie's comment has accomplished one thing: united the women of this province against the PC party regardless of which party they choose to support. Perhaps Ms. Wilkie was under the misguided impression that women in this province aren't on Twitter. Or that we don't care about politics because we are too busy, barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, cooking dinner for our men. The overwhelming response from women I've been discussing this with online has been one of support for Ms Smith, regardless of political ideology, and outright furor that one of our own, a "sister", made this comment.
One can't help but wonder if Stephen Carter and Amanda Wilkie aren't still working for the WRP. Their sabotage of the PC party from the inside is completely inexplicable. With every tweet they ensure the removal of this party from our legislature. Power to them. I look forward to more idiocy from Carter on Twitter and Wilkie in whichever new form she chooses to display her ignorance.
The PC Party has become a place where people go when they want a cushy, guaranteed job. No skill required, obviously little compassion, obviously you must want entitlements and you can be politically, a closet anything.
When the leadership race occurred, I was already in the WRA camp but I was also open minded enough that if they had chosen the right person, I'd take a look. They needed renewal, fresh blood and for me there was only one person that offered that reality. Instead the leadership went to the person whose campaign signs said "Alison Redford for Premier". That I found a statement to this now LEADERS, arrogance.
Her campaign has been hateful so far and so yes, I do believe that this is most certainly THE nail in the coffin. It's a metaphor for this entire group that Redford has assembled and if this is good enough for her now, imagine what type of people would be advising her should she be elected. A very scary thought!
Now she resigns:
http://www.calgarysun.com/2012/03/31/pc-staffer-resigns-over-twitter-attack
This is what happens when Liberals looking for power try to be Conservatives.
The hubris of the APC party seemingly knows no bounds. Forty-some years of virtually unbridled power have corrupted them from within - they have obviously lost control of their own and should be turfed to wander the political desert for the next 40 years.
One can only hope that this story grows legs in the MSM
Will any female PC candidates quit over this, I doubt it. And a strong family centered man should also quit.
As the aunt of two wonderful grown kids, who arrived with the help of a fertility clinic, I understand the pain Danielle and hubby went thru, and the expense.
Exactly who was her boss? Executive Director of the Office of the Premier (Southern Alberta Office). Can't seem to find a listing?
I would hope that this serves as a lesson for all political parties: You don't hire a person because they are partisan - you hire them because they are politically astute. The now resigned twit(terer) is about as politically astute as Alison Redford.
I live in New Brunswick,and I always read the blogs and comments about Alberta politics.If I was an Albertan,I'd certainly vote for Danielle Smith.She is a lovely lady.
The twits father is also some honcho in the premiers office, and both of them were kicked out of positions with the WRA. Where will she go next, the ndp or libs. Did she resign on her own, better for redali if she fired her.
Her boss was Hunter Wight. Going forward he would be wise to stay away from the highfalutin' titles for 23-year old know-it-alls. Don't have to pay as much and won't feed their over-inflated sense of self-importance.
http://alberta.ca/albertaFiles/includes/DirectorySearch/goaBrowse.cfm?txtSearch=amanda%20Wilkie&Ministry=EXC&LevelID=17744&UserID=103246#103246
The entire PC team, starting with Alison REDford, dont know the difference between right and wrong.
I don't know if this is the final nail to the REDford campaign,
but I do know that Albertans feel alot closer to Danielle Smith and her family today than we did yesterday.
I have patients who have fertility issues. It is a deeply personal and often heartbreaking situation. I know Danielle Smith and consider her a friend. I was horrified by the tweet and struck by the dignity of Danielle Smith. This is nobody's business but the couple involved.This will be the final straw.
Alberta , we have an option.
If there were still people out there who had doubts about the bullying nature of the PCs, I think this will clear it up for them.
Devastating.
Just tell us when its over.
All we need to know is the seat count.
One thing that has not been highlighted is the class shown by Ms. Smith in this affair. Such a personal matter and she handled it so well.
If you support the WRA, you need to spend an hour while Joe Anglin (WRA Rocky Mountain House-Sundre.) walks you through Bill 50 et al, your property rights and what's going to happen to your power rates in Alberta:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLD2D7C9639BB2AE65&feature=view_all
Your PC Party at work.
This twits tweets about diddly is just that. There are important issues, and this garbage is what media people focus on. People don't let the same media that brought you "hole in the ozone, acid rain, ice age, Y2K, and the grand daddy of all media scams so far ta da Global Warming, direct your thinking. There have been mistakes, but Alberta is still the best place to be in the country. Don't, let the media that so loved Dion Layton Ignatieff Cretien and Martin, pick an Alberta leader.
So if they weren't ripping us off for $1000.00 a month for sitting on commitees that never met , why is Redford telling them to pay it bsack . If they aren't running a huge deficet by building $3,000,000,000.00 pipelines to nowhere ,to pump air from Ft.McMurray into the ground in southern Saskatchewan ,where they already have air without building a $3,000,000,000.00 pipeline where'd the three billion bucks go ?How many "minor incidents " does it take ? I'd go on but ...
BC Blue looks at the PC spin and finds someone is again not teling the entire truth.
Redford or PC campaign manager was untruthful about idiotic Tweeting staffer
This helps to reinforce the image of the Alberta Tories as a bunch of bullies. It's also the kind of thing that gets the attention of people for a few days who do not closely follow politics. But because it's happened early in the campaign I doubt it will have much effect on election results in April 23. It may actually be a net gain for Redford that Wilkie is sidelined now rather than continuing to work in an official capacity while tweeting for the next 3 weeks.
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