Congratulations are in order for Arnold Viersen.
Last week the 29-year-old Barrhead-area father of two won the right to represent the Conservative Party of Canada in the newly-minted Peace River-Westlock riding in the Oct. 19 federal election.
Viersen, who was born and raised in Neerlandia and works as a mechanic, follows a line of locals who have jumped into the realm of federal politics with little or no past experience.
Good on him for taking the plunge.
Over the past two decades Westlock-area residents have been served federally by the well-respected Dave Chatters (1993-2006), who makes his home in the Dapp/Jarvie area, and most recently Brian Storseth (2006-2015), who originally hails from Barrhead and now lives in St. Paul.
But the political arena Viersen is about to enter is unlike anything Chatters or Storseth ever encountered. In the past, winning the federal nomination in this area for the Conservative/Reform/Alliance party meant you were assured a seat in Parliament. That’s not a knock against any of the other political parties, it was simply a fact of life in rural Alberta.
We’re sure if you asked Dave or Brian to be honest, they’d admit that they faced no real competition in any of their federal campaigns. The numbers don’t lie — in the 2011 election Brian won with 77.8 per cent of the vote in Westlock-St. Paul.
That’s domination.
And then May 5 happened …you remember, the day Albertans gave the finger to 44 years of PC rule and elected a left-wing NDP government.
No one, we repeat, no one predicted that outcome.
Locally, incumbent PC MLA Maureen Kubinec, a good honest woman with strong local ties and a seat in the PC cabinet, finished a distant third behind the Wildrose’s Glenn van Dijken and NDPer Tristan Turner, an 18-year-old first-time-candidate from Morinville.
That dear readers is the definition of a paradigm shift.
And that’s what makes the coming federal election far more intriguing.
Viersen definitely is the front runner — our area hasn’t entirely turned its back on the right wing. But he’s not a lead-pipe, stone-cold lock, which makes this race all-the-more interesting.
