For tickets and information, visit RSVP@ToastingTed.ca
When the great Alberta newsman and conservative activist Ted Byfield died in Edmonton just before Christmas in 2021, the COVID crisis was in full swing. It was also 30 below.
"We never had a chance to give him the send-off he deserved," says his son Vince Byfield. "But on September 25th at the Edmonton Convention Centre, we will do it up right, actually the way Dad would have done it."
Together with Byfield-biographer Jonathon Van Maren, Vince Byfield talks tonight about the event and the reasons for it on 'Hannaford,' one of the Western Standard's weekly opinion shows, at 7:00pm. Van Maren's book 'Prairie Lion,' appeared two years ago and immediately became a hit in conservative circles.
The Western Standard is honoured to be supporting the 'Albertans Toasting Ted' dinner and to have acquired the Alberta Report brand from the Byfield family, through which it means to continue nurturing conservatism in the years to come, says Western Standard publisher Derek Fildebrandt.
"This will be a huge gathering of conservatives, we know that already and it will the event that you won't want to miss," says Byfield.
Byfield says highlight speakers at the Albertans Toasting Ted dinner are former prime minister Stephen Harper, Conservative federal opposition leader Pierre Poilievre, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and former Alberta premier Jason Kenney. Preston Manning, who Byfield credits with the idea of the commemorative dinner, will deliver keynote remarks.
Former Conservative cabinet minister Stockwell Day, in his salad days an auctioneer, will conduct a live auction after the beef/salmon dinner.
As discussed in the Hannaford show tonight, there is probably no one individual who did more to foster and nourish the cause of prairie conservatism than Ted Byfield. Indeed according to Van Maren, he was prophetic: "In a 1986 article, he laid out everything, how there needed to be an interim regional party, and the need to use that to take over the failing national party, before forming the government. It was exactly as things happened."
Eventually the 'Report' magazines ceased publication, but Ted Byfield had a further purpose. Having fostered one generation of conservative writers through the Report magazines — an astonishing number of prominent Canadian journalists writing today cut their teeth in his editorial room — his goal in his eighties was to foster a further generation of new conservative writers and above all, to make sure that young Canadians were aware of their country's democratic principles and the Christian tradition that animated them.
"It's vital going forward that we don't forget this," says Byfield. "That was the point of his young journalist program and the Christian history books — a 12-volume set — that we published to go with it. Our goal through this dinner is to raise funds to distribute these books further, and that would be the great fulfilment of Ted's final goal."
For tickets and further information, visit RSVP@ToastingTed.ca