The Meet and Greet

I love to talk politics. Whether it's international, national, provincial or municipal, it's like an addiction. For the last Québec election, I made a big bowl of popcorn and didn't leave the couch until Pauline Marois made her concession speach. I cheered as if I was watching sports. It was great.

Despite this (or maybe because of it), I've never joined a political party nor have I ever attended a meet & greet.

As I mentioned yesterday, our neighbours were hosting mayoral candidate Brian McHattie for just such an event. I was very curious to attend, almost as much to take notes as to listen to the content.

It was nominally scheduled for between 7 and 9 PM, typical political function hours. Starting late enough that people can make it after work and ending early enough that you're not there all night.

We got distracted by signing up the boy for swimming and soccer for the fall and didn't step into our neighbour's yard until 7:30. We were warmly introduced to the crowd almost as if we were entering a formal ball - very nice.

We had just enough time to gather some refreshments before a representative from the McHattie team got up and said a few words by way of an introduction.

We were all more or less seated in a casual circle with Brian sitting at the focal point. Once the introduction had been made, he proceeded to talk about his background and some of his major platform planks (much of which I touched on in yesterday's post).

One thing that I was very excited to learn both as a candidate myself and as a voter was his plan to meet individually with every Councillor after the election and discuss the top three items their Ward needs done over the term. He would then assign that Councillor as the champion of those three causes and pledge his support to make them happen.

He described it as an almost ministerial appointment, like you might see at the Provincial level.

This appeals to me a great deal because it's smart and it capitalizes on the information gathered by the successful candidates. If anyone knows what the priorities are Ward-by-Ward, it will be the newly minted Councillors and the rookies will be especially enthusiastic.

The evening wrapped up on schedule and I socialized with a few of the stragglers since I didn't have all that far to go home.

Overall, it was a lovely evening well spent. Plus, Mr. McHattie just went up a notch in my estimation.