Scott Aitchison: aspiring Conservative leader ‘raised by Huntsville’ | Canada News Media
Connect with us

Politics

Scott Aitchison: aspiring Conservative leader ‘raised by Huntsville’

Published

 on

OTTAWA — Scott Aitchison started knocking on doors at a young age.

While other kids growing up in the beautiful Muskoka region of Ontario spent their Saturdays on the water, at soccer practice or watching cartoons, Aitchison went house to house making his case.

He was not, at the time, trying to convert neighbours to his political cause. He was speaking to them about the virtues of his parents’ faith group: Jehovah’s Witnesses.

“In many strange ways, my experience growing up and the training that I got as a public speaker came from this organization that actually is fundamentally opposed to what I do now,” Aitchison says in an interview.

Now 49 years old, he is one of five candidates hoping to be announced as the new leader of the federal Conservative party on Sept. 10.

The relationship between Aitchison, his family, their faith and their community in the town of Huntsville, Ont., laid the foundation of his political aspirations.

Jehovah’s Witnesses is a denomination of Christianity, but unlike other mainstream Christians, its adherents generally eschew political institutions and anything akin to nationalism.

As a young teen, Aitchison began to pull away from his parents’ religion as he questioned how only one belief system could be the right one. The conflict caused frequent fights with his father.

One evening in November, 1988, his father laid down the law.

“My dad said, ‘listen, I don’t want to fight anymore, but can you accept at least that it’s my house? It’s my home. There has to be rules, and you have to respect those rules in my house,’” Aitchison recalls.

So, at 15 years old, he left home.

Aitchison often says he was raised by Huntsville, a town in the heart of Muskoka, where his story spread quickly through the community. The young teen was taken in by the family of a friend. Others in the community also looked out for him and guided him as grew up.

As president of his student council in high school, Aitchison developed an early interest in running for office. His principal, the town’s former mayor Terry Clarke, encouraged him to run for town council.

He never expected to win, but at 21 years old, he was elected the youngest ever member of the council.

“People kept saying, ‘Oh my goodness, your dad must be so excited and so proud,’” he said.

He said his father’s actual reaction was far more muted.

“He said, ‘Well, you know, I’ve voted only once in my life,’” Aitchison remembers. “He said, ‘I’ve voted for God’s government, and everything else is in direct opposition to that.’”

Aitchison said that hardly fazed him.

But in a way, it was his foray into politics that helped bring Aitchison and his parents closer together again.

He still gets misty-eyed when he remembers the moment, a few days later, when his father congratulated him — something that he says must have been difficult for him to do.

“He was immensely proud that I had accomplished something like that,” says Aitchison.

Though he lost contact with many of his other relatives after leaving his home and faith community, he worked hard to maintain a relationship with his parents, even as the gulf between their world views widened.

“They have deeply held and profound beliefs, and I respect that. They respect me,” he says of their relationship now.

It’s the kind of reconciliation Aitchison has been preaching for the divided Conservative party to achieve.

After that moment of rapprochement with his father in 1994, Aitchison spent the majority of his political career in municipal politics in Huntsville. He worked as a councillor part time, which is typical in small towns, while also holding down full-time jobs elsewhere in the community before serving two terms as mayor from 2014 to 2019.

Aitchison may not have been a Canadian household name at the outset of the Conservative leadership race, but his name is hard to miss in Huntsville. His name and photo are found on buildings and plaques all around the picturesque town.

A small “mayor’s garden” outside of the town’s city hall is named in his honour because of the flowers he planted there.

While Aitchison appeared the sober grown-up during an often fractious performance by other candidates in the first Conservative leadership debate, he’s more relaxed and playful at home.

It’s easy to spot the locals among the sea of tourists on Huntsville’s Main Street one day this summer. They are the ones who greet Aitchison with a wave or a hug as he makes his way through the community.

As he passes by a Coldwell Banker real-estate office where he used to work his day job while serving as a councillor, office administrator Barb Hewittbursts out of the door to chide him for not stopping in to say hello.

On a tour of the town during a reprieve from the campaign trail, he proudly points out projects he helped develop as councillor and mayor that now serve as gathering spaces to bring people together,like the town amphitheatre or dockside park where people can leave their boats and hit a restaurant patio on Main Street.

Aitchison says he learned about the art of consensus-building in Huntsville, first with his family and later with his council.

“It should be a requirement if you want to run for higher office to serve on a municipal council or a school board somewhere, because it is a consensus model,” he says.

Another former mayor of Huntsville, Hugh Mackenzie, says municipal politics can teach anyone a lot about finding common ground and winning people over, but Aitchison is a true expert at it.

Of course, he built that up over time. He brought a certain brashness to his youthful political première, says Mackenzie, who served as mayor while Aitchison was a councillor.

“There was a time when he was a little less patient than he has been in the last few years,” he said.

And even after Aitchison became mayor, his assistant, Crystal Paroschy, came to recognize when he needed a strategically timed Snickers chocolate bar on his desk.

“He does better when he’s fed,” Paroschy jokes.

Now that Aitchison is a member of Parliament and Paroschy is the town’s deputy clerk, the two share a sibling-like bond, she says.

When Aitchison started working in Ottawa after being elected to represent Parry Sound-Muskoka in 2019, he found the atmosphere of the House of Commons far less warm. He wondered how anyone could get anything done when differences of opinion created such deep divisions that people were not even willing to listen to each other’s points of view.

“I wondered to myself, had I made a mistake? Because the place was so broken,” Aitchison said.

The division he saw within the ranks of the Conservative party made him throw his name into the race, he said.

If polls are to be believed, Aitchison is unlikely to find a path to victory. But that won’t stop him from knocking on colleagues’ doors in an attempt to pull the party together, he says. “I’m just gonna keep doing what I’m doing.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 2, 2022.

 

Laura Osman, The Canadian Press

Politics

Harris, Beyoncé team up for a Texas rally on abortion rights and hope battleground states hear them

Published

 on

 

HOUSTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris will team up with Beyoncé on Friday for a rally in solidly Republican Texas aimed at highlighting the medical fallout from the state’s strict abortion ban and putting the blame squarely on Donald Trump.

It’s a message intended to register far beyond Texas in the political battleground states, where Harris is hoping that the aftereffects from the fall of Roe v. Wade will spur voters to turn out to support her quest for the presidency.

Harris will also be joined at the rally by women who have nearly died from sepsis and other pregnancy complications because they were unable to get proper medical care, including women who never intended to end their pregnancies.

Some of them have already been out campaigning for Harris and others have told their harrowing tales in campaign ads that seek to show how the issue has ballooned into something far bigger than the right to end an unwanted pregnancy.

Since abortion was restricted in Texas, the state’s infant death rate has increased, more babies have died of birth defects and maternal mortality has risen.

With the presidential election in a dead heat, the Democratic nominee is banking on abortion rights as a major driver for voters — including for Republican women, particularly since Trump appointed three of the Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn the constitutional right. He has been inconsistent about how he would approach the issue if voters return him to the White House.

Harris’ campaign has taken on Beyonce’s 2016 track “Freedom” as its anthem, and the message dovetails with the vice president’s emphasis on reproductive freedom. The singer’s planned appearance Friday adds a high level of star power to Harris’ visit to the state. She will be the latest celebrity to appear with or on behalf of Harris, including Lizzo, James Taylor, Spike Lee, Tyler Perry, Samuel L. Jackson, Bruce Springsteen and Eminem. While in Texas, Harris also will tape a podcast with host Brené Brown.

Trump is also headed to Texas Friday where he’ll talk immigration, and tape a podcast with host Joe Rogan.

There is some evidence to suggest that abortion rights may drive women to the polls as it did during the 2022 midterm elections. Voters in seven states, including some conservative ones, have either protected abortion rights or defeated attempts to restrict them in statewide votes over the past two years.

“Living in Texas, it feels incredibly important to protect women’s health and safety,” said Colette Clark, an Austin voter. She said voting for Harris is the best way to prevent further abortion restrictions from happening across the country.

Another Austin resident, Daniel Kardish, didn’t know anyone who has been personally affected by the restrictions, but nonetheless views it as a key issue this election.

“I feel strongly about women having bodily autonomy,” he said.

Harris said this week she thought the issue was compelling enough to motivate even Republican women, adding, “for so many of us, our daughter is going to have fewer rights than their grandmother.”

“When the issue of the freedom of a woman to make decisions about her own body is on the ballot, the American people vote for freedom regardless of the party with which they’re registered to vote,” Harris said.

Harris isn’t likely to win Texas, but that isn’t the point of her presence Friday.

“Of all the states in the nation, Texas has been ground zero for harrowing stories of women, including women who have been denied care, who had to leave the state, mothers who have had to leave the state,” said Skye Perryman, president of Democracy Forward, a legal group behind many lawsuits challenging abortion restrictions. “It’s one of the major places where this reality has been so, so devastatingly felt.”

Democrats warn that a winnowing of rights and freedoms will only continue if Trump is elected. Republican lawmakers in states across the U.S. have been rejecting Democrats’ efforts to protect or expand access to birth control, for example.

Democrats also hope Harris’ visit will give a boost to Rep. Colin Allred, who is making a longshot bid to unseat Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. Allred will appear at the rally with Harris.

When Roe was first overturned, Democrats initially focused on the new limitations on access to abortion to end unwanted pregnancies. But the same medical procedures used for abortions are used to treat miscarriages.

And increasingly, in 14 states with strict abortion bans, women cannot get medical care until their condition has become life-threatening. In some states, doctors can face criminal charges if they provide medical care.

About 6 in 10 Americans think their state should generally allow a person to obtain a legal abortion if they don’t want to be pregnant for any reason, according to a July poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Trump has been inconsistent in his message to voters on abortion and reproductive rights. He has repeatedly shifted his stance and offered vague, contradictory and at times nonsensical answers to questions on an issue that has become a major vulnerability for Republicans in this year’s election.

Texas encapsulates the post-Roe landscape. Its strict abortion ban prohibits physicians from performing abortions once cardiac activity is detected, which can happen as early as six weeks or before.

As a result, women, including those who didn’t intend to end a pregnancy, are increasingly suffering worse medical care. That’s in part because doctors cannot intervene unless a woman is facing a life-threatening condition, or to prevent “substantial impairment of major bodily function.”

The state also has become a battleground for litigation. The U.S. Supreme Court weighed in on the side of the state’s ban just two weeks ago.

Complaints of pregnant women in medical distress being turned away from emergency rooms in Texas and elsewhere have spiked as hospitals grapple with whether standard care could violate strict state laws against abortion.

Several Texas women have lodged complaints against hospitals for not terminating their failing and dangerous pregnancies because of the state’s ban. In some cases, women lost reproductive organs.

Of late, Republicans have increasingly tried to place the blame on doctors, alleging that physicians are intentionally denying services in an effort to undercut the bans and make a political point.

Perryman said that was gaslighting.

“Doctors are being placed in a position where they are having to face the prospect of criminal liability, of personal liability, threat to their medical license and their ability to care for people — they’re faced with an untenable position,” she said.

___

Long reported from Washington and Lathan from Austin, Texas.

Source link

Continue Reading

Politics

Nova Scotia premier appoints new finance minister after cabinet resignation

Published

 on

 

HALIFAX – Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston has announced a cabinet shuffle today, appointing Tim Halman as finance minister and deputy premier.

Halman will retain his portfolio as environment minister as he replaces Allan MacMaster who resigned as finance minister and deputy premier on Thursday.

In a statement on Facebook, MacMaster says he wants to seek the federal Conservative nomination in the riding of Cape Breton—Canso—Antigonish.

MacMaster says he will stay on as the member of the provincial legislature for Inverness, but will resign his seat if he wins the federal nomination.

In a short statement, the premier’s office says Halman’s swearing-in ceremony took place on Thursday.

The cabinet change comes as speculation mounts about a snap provincial election call as early as this weekend.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 25, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

Source link

Continue Reading

Politics

Beyoncé, whose ‘Freedom’ is Harris’ campaign anthem, is expected at Democrat’s Texas rally on Friday

Published

 on

 

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Beyoncé is expected to appear Friday in her hometown of Houston at a rally for Vice President Kamala Harris, according to three people familiar with the matter.

Harris’ presidential campaign has taken on Beyonce’s 2016 track “Freedom” as its anthem, and the singer’s planned appearance brings a high-level of star power to what has become a key theme of the Democratic nominee’s bid: freedom.

Harris will head to the reliably Republican state just 10 days before Election Day in an effort to refocus her campaign against former President Donald Trump on reproductive care, which Democrats see as a make-or-break issue this year.

The three people were not authorized to publicly discuss the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity. The Harris campaign did not immediately comment.

Beyoncé‘s appearance was expected to draw even more attention to the event — and to Harris’ closing message.

Harris’ Houston trip is set to feature women who have been affected by Texas’ restrictive abortion laws, which took effect after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. She has campaigned in other states with restrictive abortion laws, including Georgia, among the seven most closely contested states.

Harris has centered her campaign around the idea that Trump is a threat to American freedoms, from reproductive and LGBTQ rights to the freedom to be safe from gun violence.

Beyonce gave Harris permission early in her campaign to use “Freedom,” a soulful track from her 2016 landmark album “Lemonade,” in her debut ad. Harris has used its thumping chorus as a walk-out song at rallies ever since.

Beyoncé’s alignment with Harris isn’t the first time that the Grammy winner has aligned with a Democratic politician. Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, danced as Beyoncé performed at a presidential inaugural ball in 2009.

In 2013, she sang the national anthem at Obama’s second inauguration. Three years later, she and her husband Jay-Z performed at a pre-election concert for Democrat Hillary Clinton in Cleveland.

“Look how far we’ve come from having no voice to being on the brink of history — again,” Beyoncé said at the time. “But we have to vote.”

A January poll by Ipsos for the anti-polarization nonprofit With Honor found that 64% of Democrats had a favorable view of Beyonce compared with just 32% of Republicans. Overall, Americans were more likely to have a favorable opinion than an unfavorable one, 48% to 33%.

Speculation over whether the superstar would appear at this summer’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago reached a fever pitch on the gathering’s final night, with online rumors swirling after celebrity news site TMZ posted a story that said: “Beyoncé is in Chicago, and getting ready to pop out for Kamala Harris on the final night of the Democratic convention.” The site attributed it to “multiple sources in the know,” none of them named.

About an hour after Harris ended her speech, TMZ updated its story to say, “To quote the great Beyoncé: We gotta lay our cards down, down, down … we got this one wrong.” In the end, Harris took the stage to star’s song, but that was its only appearance.

Last year, Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, attended Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour in Maryland after getting tickets from Beyonce herself. “Thanks for a fun date night, @Beyonce,” Harris wrote on Instagram.

___

Long and Kinnard reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Linley Sanders in Washington contributed to this report. Kinnard can be reached at

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

Source link

Continue Reading

Trending

Exit mobile version