The Rants of Issachar

So David Emerson has switched parties and joined the Conservatives. And Prime Minister Harper has given him a cabinet position.

Initial reaction: Serious disappointment.

This stinks. The parallels to Belinda Stronach's supposedly "principled" defection to the Liberals to save their backsides in a confidence motion are obvious. David Emerson ran as a Liberal only two weeks ago. Now he's suddenly a Conservative. Right... This has the stench of opportunity politics, and one of the major reasons why I supported the Reform, then the Canadian Alliance and now the Conservatives was to get rid of this sort of thing in Ottawa.

There's a few differences.

• Emerson is actually highly qualified to handle International Trade. From the accounts I've heard, he's a good man to have on the softwood lumber file. Belinda, not so much qualified.
• Belinda had been in the house for some time before crossing the floor and could at least make a case for being won over to the Martin Liberals. Edit: Emerson hasn't even sat in the house as a Liberal since the election.
  
• The race in Belinda's riding was a tight race between Liberals & Conservatives. As a Conservative she barely beat the Liberal candidate in 2004. By contrast, the Conservative candidate placed a distant third in Emerson's Vancouver-Kingsway riding. The voters in Vancouver-Kingsway would be very justified in feeling they lied to. (43.3% of the votes were for Emerson as a Liberal, only 18.8% vote for the Conservative candidate Kanman Wong).

All in all though I'm disappointed in Mr. Harper. I voted Conservative and I want to see a difference in Ottawa. I realize that we want to have the most qualified people in cabinet and I personally care a lot about the softwood lumber file, but rewarding a floor crosser with cabinet posting this soon after the election should leave a very bad taste in your mouth.

I'm going to edit this post after work. Lunch time is over.

Edit: Friday. I'm going to do another post. One small edit added above.

Posted by:  Carla

And so Gorman, for all your "elected senate" rhetoric, your man, ahem, PMSH, appoints an unelected individual TO CABINET.

"There were two surprises as the Harper cabinet was unveiled Monday: Former Liberal industry minister David Emerson... and Michael Fortier, an unelected party operative, is the new minister of public works and government services.

Even more surprising, Prime Minister Stephen Harper will appoint Fortier to the Senate. "

So much for that.


*everybody, fasten your seatbelts and get ready for Issa to regurge Harper's talking points* ;)


http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2006/02/06/emerson-jumps060206.html

Posted by:  westcoastloon

OK I know that what I don't know about politics is a lot but how is it even legal for someone to cross the floor, especially so close to an election? It's not like we've just had a huge debate and Emerson finds himself in a party he can no longer support. He ran as a Liberal and was elected as a Liberal. If he doesn't want to be a Liberal anymore that's fine but I don't think he should get to take the votes with him as he goes.

Can you explain why we have a rule that allows this? Was this ever a good idea?

Posted by:  CuriosityKilledTheCat

Why Harper’s Cabinet Matters – A Question of Trust.

Remember Nixon? Remember the question his opponents raised during an election: Would you buy a used car from this man?

Are we in the same territory now with Stephen Harper, the policy wonk with broken promises in his first day of becoming Prime Minister?


Harper’s Achilles heel over the past two elections has been the question of trust. Many voters examined his views, going back several years, and came to the conclusion that this leopard had not changed his spots. And when he tried in the latest election to sidestep the issue of his beliefs, by simply saying he had “evolved” but his fundamental philosophy was unchanged, may voters were stopped in their tracks. Had he changed? Can this man be trusted?


Then he ran an election campaign designed to focus more on the Liberal’s record – perfectly justifiable – than on his party’s platform. A tightly controlled election that even had some rightwing candidates hiding in kitchens to avoid interviews with the press about their social beliefs. And a leader who avoided questions, sidestepped some, ignored others.

The pattern of avoidance, selective discussion, and ignoring of legitimate questions by the fourth estate, raised yet more concern among many voters: Can this man be trusted?


Now, his cabinet, with surprising choices in at least two cases, and omissions in other areas. A Liberal is elected and immediately joins Harper when Harper asks him to leave the party that elected him and join the minority Tories, now in need of more votes in Parliament. Doug Beazley of the Edmonton Sun puts it in context:
“But political scientist David Taras of the University of Calgary warns Harper is risking the wrath of the backbench. "Two weeks ago, Emerson was saying the Harper Conservatives were heartless. Now they've got to work with them. How can they trust him?" he said. “
But it not just whether the Tories can trust Turncoat Emerson, but whether Harper kept the faith with voters, and honoured promises made during the election. So once more voters are asking: Can this man be trusted?

And Harper’s response to the justifiable outbursts – by Tories and others – simply underscores the concern. To brush the criticism aside as simply being “superficial”, implies the voters who now feel dismayed by the Harper actions, are not capable of forming rational judgments and should leave it to Big Daddy Harper to make those decisions for them.
So the question lingers in voters minds: Can this man be trusted?

Posted by:  issachar

Regurgitate talking points? pthbbb... :P

Oh, and we still need an elected senate.

Posted by:  issachar

Westcoastloon...

It's entirely legal for an MP to cross the floor at anytime, and that's actually a very good thing because making it illegal would have some very nasty unintended consequences.

Let's say we make crossing the floor illegal. For this to be anything other than an empty gesture, you'd have to have some sort of restrictions on their voting. Let's say an NDP MP wants to cross to the Conservatives but is prevented from doing so. So they just vote with the Conservatives all the time and not with the NDP. Have they not crossed the floor in any practical sense?

If we give more power to party whips to enforce the party line is there any point in having individual MP's? We'd essentially be electing party executives to power and nothing else.

I'm probably overstating the problems a bit, but I think that on this issue, the cure is worse than the disease. The other thing is that if you cross the floor you eventually have to justify yourself to voters. Ms. Stronach did and got herself re-elected.

Posted by:  issachar

Carla,

I say again that we need an elected senate, but having said that, I really don't care much about an unelected cabinet minister.

Cabinet ministers are quite rightly appointed by the Prime Minister and they serve in cabinet at his pleasure. Ultimately, they answer to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister in turn is responsible for cabinet.

Unlike Senators cabinet ministers have no job security. The two positions are not comparable.

I don't favour an elected supreme court either.

Posted by:  Carla

I'm not completely following you... I find this a bit of an about turn, well, perhaps from what I may have expected from you.

The Prime Minister has appointed an unelected person to cabinet, but most importantly, he is not available to the House.

One of the most controversial (and some argue quite important) cabinet positions in the Federal government, and the Minister is not available for questioning in the House of Commons by elected members who represent the people of Canada.

I find it interesting that you are okay with this.

Posted by:  Carla

>Ultimately, they answer to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister in turn is responsible for cabinet.

Sorry, wrongola there Gorms. Ultimately, Ministers are answerable to the people, which are represented by an elected individual in the House of Commons. Minister Fortier will not be present in the House. It is a Canadian political convention that Ministers are able to be held accountable in the House of Commons.

Posted by:  issachar

Sorry Carla, you are of course correct. It certainly is "Canadian political convention that Ministers are able to be held accountable in the House of Commons", I was a bit sloppy in my phrasing. I meant that cabinet ministers are responsible to the Prime Minister in the sense that he's the one who "hires and fires" them.

A cabinet minister can do a lousy job, but as far as I know, they can't be dismissed from their positions by the Commons. Only the Prime Minister can dismiss them.

Mr. Fortier will not be able to answer questions in question period. This obviously isn't ideal, but it doesn't bother me that much because question period is little more than theatre anyway. Since nothing productive comes out of question period, it's not a major issue that Mr. Fortier won't be able to attend.

Members of parliament will be able to question the minister in committee which is where the real work gets done anyway. Obviously this isn't an ideal situation and it would be preferable if Mr. Fortier sat in the House of Commons, but I don't see it as a major problem.

Posted by:  westcoastloon

Sorry it's taken me so long to respond. I know you've moved on to other topics now but I wanted to say thanks for taking the time to address my question. From what you've said it does sound like in the long run it's better to allow MPs to walk. I'd imagine it remains a bitter pill for his voters to swallow but that's often at the heart of democracy -- if I get a fair shot it means I have to give everyone else one too.

Posted by:  issachar

Stupid comment spammers... Some anonymous guy wanting to de-elect Emerson decides to repost some badly formatted spam. Jerk. Go make your own website for that.

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