Just a quick reminder that this weekend will see the greatest gathering of Conservative Canadian brain power since Bev Oda snuck out for a smoke alone behind the Parliamentary Library. Yes, it’s Ezra Levant’s Super Sun Freedom Weekend, an opportunity for lesser mortals to join the cream of the Conservative intelligentsia for a weekend of eating, drinking, and – uh – other stuff.
The “other stuff” remains unclear. In December the website promoting the event indicated that the core of the conference would be two three-hour panel discussions, on unspecified topics, featuring intellectual heavyweights like Kim Erickson, Brian Lilley and favourite Sun New Media Personalities”. Other speakers and more details on the substance of the actual sessions “would be announced.” Well, the conference starts tonight (with a cocktail reception, an evening of looking at photos of “the wonders of planets, galaxies, nebulas and more”, and “Drinks and Merriment with the Speakers”), and so far the only “speakers” on the site are the Sun news staff. Yay.
If you’re worried about last week’s registration deadline, don’t be. I checked room availability at the JW Marriott Muskoka this morning, and there are plenty of vacancies for all sizes of room. I’m sure they’ll find a way to squeeze you in.
With a stellar lineup of the Sun’s finest talking heads and the incredible activities they have planned (e.g. Saturday afternoon, 2 to 6 pm: Free Time, with optional Art Class), and for only a thousand bucks a head, I was astonished that they didn’t have a waiting list of hundreds. Part of the problem may be poor communications. I sent an email some weeks ago to the information address, asking whether Halal cuisine would be available, and never got an answer.
Promotion of the event itself has been strangely muted. Even Ezra’s blog has been quiet about it, and the plugs from his usual shills have been pretty muted. There is this clip, of course, in which Ezra does his very best Lou Costello imitation. It may have to do with the uncomfortable chasm between Ezra and the Sun’s mock-populism and the spectacle of these Freedom Fighters treating themselves to a luxury weekend of spas, fine dining, and conversation with, apparently, themselves.