Well well well, one day in and the hypocrisy has already begun. After all the bitching and complaining the Conservative party did when Belinda Stronach crossed over and joined the Liberals, all the calls for electoral reform and how ‘wrong’ it was to do that, what do we get on the very first day of a Harper government? Why a Liberal defection! Former Industry minister David Emerson crosses over to become the Minister of International Trade and the Minister for the 2010 games.
This crossing over can only be compared with Stronach on the face of things. Lets take a deeper look at the election results of the riding Stronach was in before she crossed over: CON: 21805 LIB: 21103, a difference of 702 votes. (cite). Now lets look at the results in Emerson’s riding from the 2006 election: LIB: 20064 NDP: 15570 CON: 8699. (cite) . Thats right folks, the Conservative party didn’t even finish 2nd in this riding, but a distant 3rd (a vote differential between LIB/CON of 11365). This vote differential is huge! It is about 16x greater then that of Stronach’s in 2004. Where O where is the accountability, honesty and change that Harper called for? Obviously the only change he was talking about was that its wrong for the Liberals to do it, but a-ok if a good, stand-up, god loving boy like himself does it.
Let me refresh your memory about what Harper said when Stronach crossed the floor:
Its good to know that you only stand behind your beliefs until they get you elected, then all bets are off.
That is not all folks! Guess who Mr. Harper put into his cabinet? Did anyone say someone who wasn’t even elected? You win the prize. Harper, who has come out countless times against the Canadian senate, instead, in his very first day mind you, made someone a temporary senator so that they could become a member of his cabinet. The same Harper was has always called for accountability now has a cabinet minister who doesn’t even have to face question period!
These actions are disgusting, and just reek of hypocrisy. What possible defence of these actions can our intelligent Conservative Canadian members come up with? I would like to know.
I thought the traditional way of handling this was to hold a by-election in a safe district. Don’t they have any party wheelhorses willing to resign anymore?
Harper’s defense for this action is that he needed some representation from Montreal. Due to this being his reason, that would not apply in this case as no Conservatives were elected in any of the big 3 cities in Canada (Montreal, Vancouver, Toronto).
To quote further on why this move is so dirty and underhanded, let me show you this:
You are correct however I believe this is generally used for party leaders, not to give someone a cushy job (even though that is exactly what the Senate is generally used for in Canada, cushy retirement jobs).
I find it hard to get worked up about this. Stronach is a lightweight who tried to take a shortcut. Emerson is an experienced pol who might actually do some good. Considering that a major issue in the election was cronyism and corruption, the more contention and squabbling within the ruling party, the better.
At the very least, I’m willing to cut the Conservatives a few months of slack.
I don’t really understand this. How is the more contention and squabbling in a ruling party better? And what does that have to do with corruption and cronyism?
I don’t see why you would say Stronach was a lightweight. She had a very succesful private career in industry, and even through all of the mudslinging done by the Conservative party, managed to retain her seat. Nor is Emerson exactly an experienced politician. He was first elected 2004, same time as Stronach. You can’t say he is experienced and Stronach a lightweight when they were both elected for the 1st in 2004, and both held a cabinet post.
Again, as I posted, I don’t think it has that much to do with each other. The riding that she ran in was pretty much split between CON and LIB. Emerson’s riding the CON Party wasn’t even close to winning.
You add that to the reaction Stronach recieved from the Conservative party, when she did what she did, plus what Emerson did, and it doesn’t pass the sniff test.
Why are you willing to cut them a few months of slack when on the very first day of power they do two things that they themselves would have slammed a month ago?
By Gum, you’re right. I had him confused with another MP.
I remain un-outraged, however.
Because I don’t expect campaign rhetoric to ever be translated perfectly into post-election policy. Because the instant anyone takes power, it’s ridiculously easy to point out what they’re doing wrong. Because… for some reason you posted this in GD when you clearly wanted just to rant.
Oh, I didn’t realize you were a mod. Nevertheless you make be correct, and maybe it should be in the Pit. I was hoping one of the Canadian conservatives, perferrably Sam Stone as he always is a very intelligent poster, would come here and try to explain these actions.
These actions are more then just rhetoric, accountability was one of the cornerstones of the Conservative platform. In the first day they have already broken that cornerstone.
Nor do I expect campaign rhetoric to be translated perfectly, and they sure made it easy to point out what they are doing wrong. Hell, parliament hasn’t even sat yet, and they have already comprised there so-called values. They have a cabinet minister who will NEVER face question period, has this ever been done before? This annoys me to no end, much more then the defection. The defection, and related Harper quotes I found amusing. There is no way any political party says no to a sitting member wanting to join them, the Cabinet Minister who never faces question period is WRONG IMO.
In the case of Stronach, she was basically bribed to flip to the Liberals so that they could survive a vote of non-confidence. It was a last-minute manoever to keep the government alive. The anger at Stronach stemmed from several things - first, that she essentially torpedoed the Conservatives because they thought they had her vote, and second she did it without warning or consultation with anybody, including Peter McKay, her own fiancee.
The outrage wasn’t at the act of flipping parties - that happens from time to time and no one gets bent out of shape over it. The outrage was over the specific circumstances of that particular event.
If you mean has there even been a cabinet member who was a senator, rather than an MP, the answer is yes:
From this reasonably official source.
I’m Canadian, intelligent and reasonably conservative, by the way, lest Sam Stone be viewed as holding a monopoly.
Let me add that I’m not necessarily justifying Harper’s moves here - I haven’t studied them yet, and don’t know exactly what happened. He may in fact be a hypocrite and dead wrong. I was just pointing out that the Stronach situation was quite different.
But while we’re tossing around outrage, how about that David Dingwall situation? The Liberals stood up and told the country, with a straight face, that Dingwall was not fired, but had resigned voluntarily, and that nothing wrong had been done. Now we find out after the election that in fact there had been an arbitration hearing over Dingwall’s *dismissal/i], and he was given almost half a million bucks. And that the Liberals knew that the hearing was taking place at the time they were telling everyone that everything was peachy and Dingwall left voluntarily.
I was wondering if any Senator had held a cabinet position beyond the leader of gov’t in the senate. I still don’t know what the hell a “temporary” senator is.
Sam Stone Harper’s comments, that I quoted in the OP would to seem to support my position that the flipping parties was an important part of the outrage. He has said that he would find it hard to trust such a person, yet on the first day openly welcomes them?
Both of these actions seem to me something the Liberals would have done. Yet the Conservative party just ran a campaign based on being different then the Liberals, that they had integrity and could be trusted.
I did not mean to suggest that Sam Stone is the only intelligent conservative Canadian here, his name was the first I thought of, and while I rarely agree with him, his posts are always excellent. The only other poster who is Canadian and conservative that I could think of I could not say that about. Previously I did not know your political leanings Bryan Ekers.
Why can’t opposition Senators question the minister? Tradition? The Senate is supposed to be the more “sedate” house? Government ministers here in the Senate quite frequently get a mauling from their opposition counterparts.
Just for the record, I am not trying to turn this into a Liberal/Conservative thing, and I support your outrage about Dingwall (sort of-as from what little I know the Mint has supported what the Liberals said, and the Dingwall situation was not solidified until Friday). I am annoyed at Harper because I almost voted for him because I believed that his party would improve the ethics in Ottawa. I wanted a Conservative Minority, could have been a tad stronger, wanted the NDP to hold the clear balance of power, and I was very happy that another federalist party won seats in Quebec (or at least not openly trying to break the country up). I have voted Conservative, Liberal, NDP and refused my ballot in various elections. However, these are his first moves? Shame.
The Senate here is an appointed position. Really for all intents it is nothing more then a rubber stamp, much like the Governer General. The Senate holds no real power.
Question period is when MPs get to question each other. Usually this is a bunch of questions directed to various cabinet ministers and the PM. This cabinet minister will never sit in the house of parliament and therefore never have to face any questions from the opposition.
I’m not outraged, but I do find the Emerson and Fortier appointments extremely curious. It’s not at all clear to me why the expertise of those two is any greater than any number of the new Tory backbenchers. I saw Deb Gray interviewed this afternoon and asked about these guys, and the fact that Diane Abloncy was left out, and while she of course didn’t say anything critical, she seemed at a complete loss for words. Peter Mackay made some stumbling attempts to explain how the Emerson situation is different from the Stronach case, but I’m not sure even he believed what he was saying. They also played some interesting soundbites of Emerson criticizing the Tories very harshly during the campaign, saying things that wouldn’t lead one to expect him to flip over to their side a week later.
It’s just odd. It’s not like there was any pressing need to appoint either of those two. It’s not like there was any pressing need to lure one Liberal across the floor. So why on earth did Harper open himself up to the obvious charges of hypocrisy? I don’t get it.
The biggest reason that Harper was suppossedly going to go the un-elected minister route was if he got a minority but with no MPs from Quebec, as looked likely in December. But he’s got 10 MPs from there, and plenty to choose from. Why could he not have found him a riding to run in in the first place, if he was going to consider him?
I don’t buy the difference between this and the Belinda situation either, just because there’s no pressing political doomsday coming up. Let’s not forget that this brings them into the situation of a potentially government saving number of 155 with the NDP (who as we have seen, are opportunists) and the independent MP, who leans right. With the outrage over her turncoat status at the time, it rings hollow, especially since Emerson’s riding went so overwhelmingly Liberal. In general I don’t have a huge problem with party switching, as it has a long history in Canadian politics. It’s just the timing, and the (apparently) feigned Conservative outrage over the subversion of democracy.
as a brief aside, it’s cool as shit to have access to real canadians discussing real canadian politics
(nb:this is sincere, not sarcasm–just to be on the safe side, since I have, apparently a bad reputation…)
Also, what would we give to have George Bush sit still for just one session of questions…
whatever the pros and cons of a parliamentary as opposed to tripartite system, the question sessions kind of trump almost any structural advantage one might attempt to urge in support of our system…
I’m not really outraged either at Emerson’s nomination, but I also find this very strange. I don’t find this very different from Stronach’s situation either. In fact, Stronach could at least try to give some bullshit explanation for her decision (she claimed that the Conservatives were too close to the Bloc and that the Liberals were the best party to preserve Canadian unity) while Emerson can’t, since he was just elected as a Liberal two weeks ago. I think this might result in the MP floor-crossing prohibition being reintroduced in Parliament and possibly passing this time. Which might not be a good idea, since as other posters mentioned, floor-crossing is a tradition in Canadian politics. In fact, I think that the merging of the PC and Alliance parties into the Conservative party, and certainly the defection of some Liberal and PC MPs to form the Bloc Québécois, might have been considered as “floor-crossing” in the terms of the bill. If it is reintroduced, it would have to be at least cleaned up a lot.
As for Fortier, I’m not outraged either, although I must confess some disappointment at the fact that he doesn’t want to run for a seat in the House of Commons until the next general election. I can only assume that he expects this government to be short-lived. I had wondered whether Harper would go the unelected minister route in this thread, and the reason I gave was similar to Harper’s, although I didn’t correctly guess who would be chosen. Let’s not forget that the question period is only for the show anyway; there will be enough opportunities for the Opposition to criticize Fortier. And actually, can there be some sort of Senate Question Period, as Cunctator suggests?