Gary Bickman, new Wildrose MLA says city folk lack common sense

A Wildrose MLA might have stumbled upon the real reason why his party didn't win the Alberta election.

Gary Bickman, the MLA-elect for Cardson-Taber, says rural voters have more common sense.

The new member of Alberta's legislature - who convinced 5,967 people to vote for him and who will be voting on bills relating to Alberta's education system - actually believes city dwellers just don't understand the issues.

"I think they possess more common sense, a least that's my experience. The people who make their living off the land really seem to understand the way nature really works," Bickman told CTV News.

"I think that these social issues that came up during the last week and the PCs ability to exploit them, caused some concern in the voters within urban areas, at least, because they didn't really understand the issues, they didn't really understand that there was an aspect of free speech, " said Cardston-Taber-Warner MLA-Elect.

Bickman was obviously referring to the so-called Wildrose 'bozo outbreakes' that occurred during the Alberta election campaign.

One Wildrose candidate, Allan Hunsberger, had a homophobic blog come to light while another, Ron Leech, opined that being white gave him a leg up against his visible minority opponents.

Both of those candidates lost, but Bickman won his seat by a wide margin.

CTV News did approach Wildrose leader Danielle Smith for a comment about Bickman's musings Wednesday, but she wasn't willing to address the issue.

"I think if you want me to comment on something, you have to share it before hand," Smith said.

"I don't know the context of the statement so I'm going to have to look at the context of the statement."