Darcy Henton
The Edmonton Journal
September 29, 2008
Photo: Candace Elliott
EDMONTON -- Naomi Rankin may hold the record for losing the most elections in Alberta history, but she's not half done yet.
The longtime Communist Party supporter, who has run in every federal and provincial general election since 1981 and racked up 16 consecutive losses over that time, says she has run so many times she has lost count.
The 56-year-old computer programmer never thought she might set a record in the process, but she laughs uproariously when it is pointed out.
"I don't know whether to be flattered or not," she says, still chuckling.
In the future, a younger person might have to step up to the plate to carry the Communist torch, but Rankin said, "there's another election or two in me."
John Diefenbaker lost his first five provincial, federal and civic
elections -- and a couple of party leadership races to boot -- but he persevered to become the prime minister of Canada.
Rankin has no such aspirations.
She campaigns for the Communist Party in elections because it is the one time when Albertans are focused on politics and she has a forum to raise issues and challenge other political views.
She also runs in different ridings to reach a new audience from
election to election. She's currently running for the Communist Party of Canada in Edmonton-Mill Woods-Beaumont, a riding she says she chose because of the number of new Canadians that might be more receptive to socialist ideology.
It's not about winning or garnering votes, but about presenting the
ideals that were passed on to her by her parents when she was a child, she says.
"I had the very good luck to have parents who have been in the
communist movement and to be raised with certain political ideas," she says. "I was a red-diaper baby. The ideas were presented to me. I didn't have to make any heroic effort to search them out."
Rankin says she can't really put her finger on what carries her
through losing campaign after losing campaign other than her belief that what she is doing is the right thing to do.
"You can't help but notice that capitalism is an exploitative, unjust system that creates war and poverty and we can't go on this way," she says. "Once you have noticed these things, you can't un-notice them. It's hard to close your eyes to that."
She says she's just an ordinary person who is committed to a cause. She has a regular job, a husband, two daughters and she sings in a choir. "I lead a very ordinary life," she said. "I did not inherit a department store or anything. I work for a living and worry about whether I have enough of a pension. etc."
But she concedes it is awfully tough to keep up the socialist fight in conservative Alberta. "There's a disproportionate number of ex-Albertans who are members of our central executive because it is frustrating for anybody who wants to see the working class as the ruling class to be living in the province of Alberta," she says. "But I am here and I have to deal with it."
