St. Albert’s incumbent MP is prepared to find “solace in a moral victory” if he loses his seat in the next federal election.
Brent Rathgeber left the federal Conservative caucus two years ago. He recently visited the Gazette offices to discuss the anniversary – and look forward to the coming federal election – with the paper’s editorial board.
“There will be no losing on Oct. 19,” Rathgeber said. If he’s convinced a few thousand people to cast their votes for him, “I’ve moved the ball” and will “take solace in a moral victory.”
He said his motivation in running as an independent is to lead a debate on the state of Canadian democracy, something he’s spoken about widely, even authoring a book on the topic, since he publicly quit over the changes the Tory government made to his salary transparency bill.
But make no mistake – the two-term incumbent still wants to win.
There have been other instances of independents winning, he said.
He’s ready to argue the idea that St. Albert needs to elect Tory candidate Michael Cooper to have a seat at the government’s table.
“Nobody knows what that table is going to look like,” Rathgeber said. “There’s no guarantee it’s going to be a Conservative table.”
He says he doesn’t know of any funding opportunities that St. Albert has missed due to him leaving the governing Tories. The only real change, he said, is that he doesn’t get to make the announcements anymore.
“I just find that kind of comical,” he said.
The recent provincial election results may have some bearing on the fall election here in St. Albert, he said, but he’s not quite sure what.
The sudden sweep of NDP MLAs means people aren’t just voting Tory out of default, he said.
He’s got a campaign team together and is ready to hit the ground running when the writ is dropped.
“I’ve never been this well organized this far out,” he said. He’s got all sorts of co-ordinators and volunteers ready.
“We have an office manager, though I doubt we’ll be able to afford to have an office,” he said.
Despite some rumours to the contrary, he said he’s never really contemplated moving to another party. Despite doing so would mean he could start fundraising earlier, since as an independent he can’t fundraise until the election is called and he’s registered as a candidate.
It’d have been more likely for him to start his own party, he said.
As he did at the anniversary editorial board meeting conducted last year, Rathgeber did spend some time reflecting on the circumstances that led him to leave the party and the events since.
Rathgeber had gotten into some trouble with the party already over actions like critical blogs he’d posted when his bill was changed in committee.
He said he told the prime minister he wasn’t a member of the prime minister’s communications staff.
There had been some speculation that Rathgeber would be ejected from the Tory caucus, the MP acknowledged.
“I think we both knew it was time for me to go,” Rathgeber said.
Ultimately, two years after leaving caucus, he thinks he’s a better MP for Edmonton-St. Albert now than he was as a Tory caucus member.
“I believe I am a better representative now,” he said.
