By Greg Lang
Editor, the Gauntlet,
Re: “There can only be one… election,” October 7, 2004
The article by the Gauntlet news reporter Jodde Mason reads: “I believe the Calgarian City Council about the fault that it’s a totalitarian regime”. The unevenness of this statement should suggest that it is the reporter’s mistranscription. Moreover, though, I kept a verbatim record of my remarks, as previously conceived and then scripted on location.
What I actually said was, “I don’t believe that City Council is about to fall to a totalitarian regime–notwithstanding some ambitious types inside and outside City Council–and aside from a certain former mayor who has gone on to become the premier of this province.”
My immediate prior reference was to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s comment that, “democracy is the worst form of government–except for all the rest of them.” My broader reference may not have been overtly or immediately clear; but it hopefully ended up being implied, that I was attempting to encourage participation amongst students about engaging in the voting process.
Further, although my speech was in fact largely previously thought out–I was going to use the above remarks anyways–an unintended and hopefully apparent effect was to rebut candidate Oscar Fech with his widely reported remarks that City hall was a “dictatorship”.
The point is, my remarks were clearly intended to be the opposite, regardless of the realities or nuances of my comments.