Wildrose candidate for Drumheller-Stettler Rick Strankman has apologized and taken down an online advertisement for a fundraiser deemed offensive by many. However, the MLA says most residents of rural Alberta understand the intent of the ad (a copy is shown after the third paragraph below).

   A meet and greet fundraiser advertisement posted to Rick Strankman’s Twitter account made an appeal to supporters to “Take a break from calving, farming, spring work and NHL playoffs” to come the old- fashioned pie auction. At the bottom of the ad it states “BYWP (Bring Your Wife’s Pie!!). Many were quick to suggest the poster displayed a sexist attitude. Strankman saw it differently.

            “It was meant as a completely innocent bunch of comments, and now people are sensitive to that, not necessarily from rural areas, but more of the blowback is from urban areas,” he said. “It was an inappropriate choice of words in some people’s point of view, but those people in rural areas understand what was meant.”

            He says there are more important things to worry about.

            “The province is in monster debt and there are other issues… really, all we want to do is have a little meet and greet, and then it goes viral,” he said.

            He feels the publicity has been valuable.

“It’s been good, we have all the free advertising we can stand,” he said.

He said that the controversy could show the differences between rural and urban voters.

"People have to understand there are differences in many ways - more people need to be tolerant."

“That is a difference in point of view, in a rural areas… primarily in the past, men do the outside work for safety reasons and many other reasons, women do the house work. We don’t take any offense to that, it is more as a specialization.”

  As for the meet and greet, Strankman says it will be going forward.

   “We going to rename it as ‘the partner pie auction,’” he chuckles.

    Those using the word disabled must not have met Drumheller’s five-year old Keagan Farmer.
    The Greentree Elementary kindergarten student is a going concern with his walker, required equipment for the youngster, due to the effects on his muscles from Tri-Spastic Cerebral Palsy, which he was diagnosed with at birth. The “tri” means Keagan has three limbs severely affected-in his case, both legs and an arm.
    We were lucky enough to meet Keagan at a park in Newcastle, which is a few steps away from his grandma's house, and where the Town of Drumheller recently installed a special bucket seat swing for use by kids with mobility concerns. The swing comes complete with its own front harness seat belt for added security.
    “I love that swing,” Keagan said. “I had two times.”
    Newcastle resident and proud grandma Linda Farmer said she and daughter Stacey came across a similar swing at a park in Calgary’s Dalhousie area, where they travel with Keagan regularly for his physical therapy sessions.
    Farmer said they took a photo of the swing with a mobile phone, and contacted the Town’s Allan Kendrick, Director of Infrastructure Services, asking if there was any way the Town could help out.
    The Town had the swing ordered, shipped and installed just over a month later.
    Linda and Stacey are extremely happy at the swing’s installation, and purely delighted at the quick turn around from posing their request to the time it took Public Works staff to install the swing at the little park.
    “With Keagan’s mobility issues,” explains Linda, “everything we try to do or order takes six months. That’s why we were so totally impressed,” she said of the Town’s response.
    “I think we’d like to say, on behalf of the Town, it’s a positive feeling when you can make a positive difference in the quality of someone’s life,” said Infrastructure Operations Manager Kevin Blanchett.