Sent in from an alert Edmonton Journal reader:

That’s where Dinning showed up last month, as part of his unofficial leadership campaign, to give a speech, which made the front page of the Wainwright Star Chronicle.

“The one message, the one message, I continue to receive is that in Edmonton and Calgary there are one million people per city. There are a million and a quarter people in the rest of the province. On average, more of those million and a quarter people get up in the morning and break into a sweat than those folks in Calgary and Edmonton — per capita,” Dinning said.

“The cities would be sucking slough water, if it wasn’t for the hard-working people in the rest of the province.”

Dinning went on to compare the Queen Elizabeth II Highway to a bar linking the two ends of a dumbbell: Edmonton and Calgary. He then quoted a rural resident he’d met, who’d said: “If only we could get those two dumbbells to listen to the rest of us, we would have a much better province.”

Jim Dinning’s schedule for next week:

Monday: Speak in Edmonton. Insult Flames.
Tuesday: Speak in Calgary. Insult Oilers.