"NEARLY 800 STUDENTS" at UBC for DION!!!

http://www.ubyssey.ca/?p=4345





See the article below! I have never been prouder of the Young Liberals in BC!





"NEARLY 800 STUDENTS" at UBC for DION!!! My own crowd estimate was 780.

This was magical folks, spread the word! Pollsters can't reach these people! Meanwhile, I'm told the PM himself had only 400 people for a "major" rally in Surrey at the exact same time. Long story short, we owned him - but guess which one the conservative media spent more time covering!

The Press and the Pundits clearly love Harper, but I have a feeling the electorate will want to start seeing other people on October 14th, namely STEPHANE DION!!!!!

MIA TAGHIZADEH, JOSH HUTCHINSON, and ALL the volunteers (you folks rock): we pulled this out unimaginably well - it's an honour to campaign with you, and let's keep the momentum building!

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http://www.ubyssey.ca/?p=4345


DION DESCENDS ON UBC

by Kalyeena Makortoff
News Staff

Thursday, September 25th, 2008

It was a Tuesday afternoon and students were gathered outside of Hebb Theater en masse. Music was playing. The megaphones were out. This may have been a campus spectacle typically ignored by passers by, but it was the 23rd, and Liberal leader Stephane Dion was soon to arrive.

The visit was scheduled as a town hall-style meeting: an opportu¬nity for students to question, or challenge the liberal leader and platform. And for over an hour, the nearly 800 students in Hebb Theatre did just that, question¬ing Dion on climate change, Af-ghanistan, education, and a host of other issues. No topic was off limits—something noted by Dion and the other Liberal speakers, who contrasted Dion’s open sessions with Stephen Harper’s heavily planned and scripted campaign events to date.

The Liberal leader and his entourage were met by a crowd mixed with Liberal partisans, and ambivalent undecided students. In an attempt to give a university twist to the event, between speakers Liberal shot¬glasses were handed out to students who answered Liberal-party trivia questions correctly.

Justice Critic Dominic LeBlanc, former BC Premier Ujjal Dosanjh, and Associate Finance Critic Martha Hall Findlay opened the event with the usual party attacks on Stephen Harper. But as has been increasingly the case this campaign, some of the hardest attacks by the Liberals were saved for Jack Layton and the NDP.

LeBlanc, in an attempt to cater to the university audience, repeatedly poked fun at the recent resignations of NDP candidates in BC, saying “their candidates have gone up in smoke” and that the candidates “have gone to pot.” The com¬ments were met by disapproval from the audience, and later, a student asked Dion if the jokes about marijuana were truly nec¬essary when the Liberals had, in her words, a strong platform.

In another attempt to discredit their political rivals, Findlay blamed Jack Layton for the loss of national childcare and the Kelowna Accord.

“Where the hell is Jack Layton’s credibility on this?” Findlay asked the crowd, and claimed that Stephen Harper’s government was a “house that Jack built.”

But then it was time to introduce the Liberal leader—a surprisingly difficult task, as when Findlay described Dion as “a man like Lester B. Pearson,” the audience erupted in laughter rather than applause.

Nonetheless, the Liberal leader’s entrance was greeted with a loud ovation from stu¬dents. Dion began a short stump speech with criticism of Harper’s recent anti-crime proposals, calling it the “most costly plan in this election…at 2.2 billion dollars,” and jokingly talked about Harper’s proposal to jailing petty offenders and minors.
“If you want to know the truth, Stephen Harper’s social housing policy is to build more jails,” he said.

This cursory speech left room for a relatively lengthy question period. And throughout the hour-long session, the recently released Liberal platform, en¬titled: “Richer, Fairer, Greener: Action Plan for the 21st Century” was given it’s fair share of the limelight.

Students who approached the microphone commented on the platform; most of them a fairly friendly group, who asked Dion to elaborate on his policies on a host of student-centred issues.

Vena Sharla, a 4th year po¬litical science/sociology student respected Dion’s acceptance of unplanned questions, “I was really impressed that he talked to students and answered all their questions…it’s really important to be accountable to people in Canada and he did that.”

Halfway through the talk, students were given a moment of levity as the infamous UBC alum Nardwuar, “the human serviette,” tried to ask Dion if he had ever been in a game show. Dion deflected Nardwuar’s ques¬tion by speaking about a book he co-wrote on bureacracies, but was furthered questioned if he would play the “hip-flip,” a game he has previously played with Paul Martin and Jack Layton. Dion’s refusal to participate was met with derision by the crowd, which began chanting “hip-flip” en masse. Unimpressed, Ujjal Dosanjh asked for the next speaker.

Policies on the war in Af¬ghanistan were not touched on until the second to last question. Dion responded to the query by explaining Harper’s planned 2011 pull-out from combat, and comparing it to the Prime Minister’s original open-ended committment to Afghanistan. According to Dion, the switch showed that Harper “told Canadians one thing and NATO another.” Unsatisfied audience members called out “why are we there,” and “Afghani blood” before the next speaker stepped to the microphone.

As the meeting died down, on the request of one student, the attendees in Hebb Theatre sang “O Canada,” giving a patriotic end to Dion’s visit.

Reactions to Dion’s town-hall meeting varied. Student Alex Bueller said, “I haven’t heard much about the Liberal party…they spent more time criticizing the other parties then defend¬ing their own platform,” but added that he had a more positive impression of Dion than he had coming in, a sentiment shared by many who attended the event.

“I think it was great that he came and took the time to come to campus,” said Tyson Grat¬ton, a 3rd year political science student. “I would’ve gone to all the leaders’ if they had come to campus. I would’ve liked to listen to them speak and listen to them answer questions. And I wish the other leaders would come down here and talk and answer questions.”

Others left the event unim¬pressed. Jeremy Wood, a 4th year history student said “I feel like with every question he changed the subject. He didn’t really address…the hard-hitting ques¬tions. He went in circles around everything…especially with the oil sands and taxing them is not nearly enough, especially this time.”

For BC Young Liberals Presi¬dent Braeden Cayley, who orga¬nized the event, the day, which ended with Dion and supporters mingling at Mahony & Sons, was an unqualified success.

“We had to turn 150 people away at the door…it was a great event.”