Monte is a former federal cabinet minister and MP for Medicine Hat. He is now a Senior Advisor with Fleishman-Hillard, based in Calgary.

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Wednesday
Jul082009

Diane Ablonczy...hung out to dry

I don't know all of the facts on the Gay Pride Parade issue but it's clear that my friend Diane has been treated very unfairly.

The truth is that, for better or worse, the Conservative Government has provided grants for this kind of thing in the past. It was the Liberals who initiated them but it was Conservative Ministers who attended and bragged about the government's support for the Gay Games. That's because half the conservative caucus has a libertarian bent and the other half comes from the more conservative side.

So you can either scrap all grants for all parades, or you can fund the thing like you always have and devote your efforts to fixing the three or four other things that really do make a difference, none of which involves parades, costumes and nudity.

My ideal is to let everyone raise their own money to hold their parades and the police can be there to make sure that most of the people, keep on most of their clothes most of the time. That's never been a problem at the Rodeo Day parade in my town but then again it's usually cold in Alberta at the beginning of June.

Whatever. The bottomline is that after all the years Diane has contributed to building the conservative movement in Canada she deserves better then to be ratted out by a colleague on an issue that is a complete loser for the party.
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