Lawyer may have what it takes to rejuvenate the right
Whenever Marilyn Burns tells how her paternal grandfather fought in Czar Nicholas’ army and how Adam Hohnstein later brought the family to Canada just in time to escape Josef Stalin’s purges, all attention is riveted on her.
The Edmonton lawyer goes on to tell how her father, Steve Oshvalda, settled on one of the last homestead lands offered in Alberta, and carved out a small family farm in the wilderness of Wildwood, west of Edmonton.
Yes, we’re talking true pioneer spirit here.
Marilyn, a blonde-haired, 5-ft.-2 and 110-lb. package of energy, tells of how she drove a tractor through swampland to get to the school bus until a road was built, and when it became too wet to drive the tractor, she’d walk through ponds and watch tadpoles grow into frogs.
All these, Marilyn, now 49, but so vivaciously youthful many initially think she is the girlfriend of one of her three sons, describes as “rich experiences.”
Burns will go on to talk about how she’s lived in Alberta, Saskatchewan and B.C., and before getting her law degree late in life, she waitressed, taught piano lessons, did a stint as a deli clerk, a high school secretary and a nurses’ aide working with mentally and physically handicapped children.
No wonder new acquaintances find her stories riveting.
But soon attention is going to be riveted on her for quite different reasons—she’s running for the leadership of the provincial Alberta Alliance party.
That’s the party that started off with a bang under founder Randy Thorsteinson, seemed to run out of steam, and in the 2004 provincial election elected only one MLA, Cardston’s Paul Hinman, although it pulled in 9% of the popular vote and made Premier Ralph Klein’s Progressive Conservatives gnash its teeth wondering why 200,000 voters deserted them and backed the Alliance or just stayed home.
Burn’s tells us why: “Alberta’s PC party has become Conservative in name only. In reality the leadership of this government is made up of inept liberal Tories.”
Marilyn, you have surely got that right.
The PC government and party is now seemingly compromised of (A) Self-serving individuals in it for the paycheques, (B) Individuals who have run out of ideas, and (C) Individuals who have lost touch with the people who have voted for them since 1971.
No, I haven’t been brainwashed by columnist Rick Bell—I’m just a dedicated Conservative!
The PCs—and I like Ralph personally—are in for one big shock come the next vote unless they get back to basics—for the only foundation they have left is the rightful abhorrence and fear voters have for the provincial Liberals.
If there were a strong, solid Conservative alternative, one with guts to stand up against Ottawa and build that infamous firewall around our province, the PCs could be gone overnight.
Now, I had written off the Alliance, but whenever I chat with Burns, I can see a spark still remains and that Marilyn’s fiery personality and no excuses values, could revitalize the party and make it a formidable machine.
The only other candidate right now is Hinman, who has yet to officially declare himself with a big bang opening, although there are likely to be one or two more candidates, both lacking real clout.
To demonstrate more of Marilyn’s stamina, she didn’t even decide to become a lawyer until after her fourth child, now 16, was born, and at the time began undergraduate studies by correspondence at Athabasca University, making ends meet delivering newspapers in the early morning hours so she could stay home with her children.
Yes, friends, Marilyn gets ever more fascinating, doesn’t she?
She believes the well-being of future generations is being severely compromised by the wishy-washy policies of the Klein government and the answer must come from the Conservative Right not the Liberal Left.
Who can doubt that, for the provincial Liberals would surely go on a wild tax and spending spree and sell us out to Ottawa at every touch and turn.
We simply have to have a strong Conservative alternative to the PCs—either in government or so strong in threat to this weak and wandering administration it will have to wake up to both reality and principle.
Watch Marilyn Burns—she may be going places.
- Suzuki playing gutter politics - Sunday March 4, 2007 at 10:41 am
- Grit record terror-ible - Tuesday February 27, 2007 at 9:51 am
- Britain’s Blair takes tumble - Sunday February 18, 2007 at 10:53 am
