It was only last spring when Conservative supporters were posting here and elsewhere asking why “honest Liberals” were standing by the corrupt. They were openly hoping one or two more might just turn their backs on Paul Martin to help bring the government down.
Today, one has chosen to walk away from the corrupt to strengthen a Conservative government with a clean slate – and the same people receive the news with handwringing and angst.
I live in a province in which the conservative party of the day once won both the highest number of seats and the popular vote – only to watch two Liberals take cabinet positions in a Romanow government as their price for keeping the NDP in power. And they still have power.
There wasn’t much the SaskParty could do about it, but at least the purity of their principle kept conservatives warm at night.
Well, no it didn’t, come to think of it. A lot of our best and brightest left the province and they still do. While dippers nationwide swoon at the mention of Romanow today, Saskatchewan’s economy endures crumbling infrastructure, declining population, rising crime rates, predatory crown corporations and the worst business tax environment in the Western world.
So, here is some very old advice, from a source many will recognize –” Don’t strain at a gnat and swallow a camel.”
I’m glad a Liberal MP crossed and I hope more of them do. David Emerson’s a big boy, he can face the deserved criticism from the electors. But should he become the first floor-crosser in modern Canadian history forced to run in a byelection just to prove a point about “Conservative principle”?
Are we nuts??
Certainly, I’d have preferred he’d gone to the back benches and earned his way into cabinet – but then, I don’t have the task of building a larger tent, quelling a persistant media theme on the “lack” of urban MP’s, balancing regional representation, and finding the experience and talent to solve long standing international trade disputes.
I expected there would be decisions made by Harper I wasn’t going to like, and I expect there to be more.
Pragmatic politics isn’t always done tastefully, and sometimes you swallow when you’d rather spit – but the parliamentary rules allowed what was done today, and as has been pointed out ad nauseum, Harper has done nothing particularly novel when compared to previous administrations.
However – if there is to be any hope of the type of democratic renewal possible only under a majority government, we had better get a grip on the very real fact that the present rules are the ones everyone else plays by, and that they lend themselves to crass political opportunism because they have been crafted and refined by crass political opportunists.
For the Conservatives not to use all legal parliamentary precedents to their advantage because of concerns over principle and optics, will only ensure the return of power to a Liberal Party proven to have no such reservations.
But, by all means, if gnats such as these cabinet appointments are this unpalatable to you – wrap your lips around that big, red beast until it’s been sucked back into power and any hope for meaningful change in how we are governed, protected and taxed is swept away for another decade.
For now, let’s hope Harper employs every legal loophole, every opportunity, every bit of leverage at his disposal to keep the Liberals as disorganized, dazed and confused as possible.
Anything less would be political malpractice.
Kate
Like a true surgeon you cut to the chase
Syncro
Amen Kate. In fact the foaming at the mouth being done by tories on these blogs has now been reported by the MSM – to the delight of the Liberals and NDP.
Harper has to work with the deck he has been dealt – under the rules of the day. Where was the outcry when Trudeau appointed unelected senators to cabinet to address regional representation.
Or, when Chretien appointed unelected Pettigrew and unelected Dion to cabinet before they stood for election.
What Harper did was not, in any way, unrecedented.
Neither was Emerson crossing the floor. Harper was against the NDP proposal about floor crossers having to go through by elections. He gave excellent reasons for this during the CBC roundtable which is being quoted on numerous blogs.
So, he did not betray any of his own policies; any of his ethics and IMHO he made tough management decisions to better represent under-represented cities at cabinet and to put needed skills at the table.
Brilliant. I think so. Brave? Yes- the mark of a leader. Make the tough decisions to get the right results.I applaud him and we should rally our support instead of making the news as being rabid nay sayers.
You got it right, Kate! Cut PHSM some slack and let him get ‘r done.
er…PMSH.
Kate:
Your insight is incredible.
Thanks for your site and keep up the good work.
Maitland
Right on Kate. I had a tough time tonight trying to convince my local Conservative candidate in Ottawa (who just lost the election) that what Harper did was gutsy and was the right thing to do if we want to stay in power for the next decade. You’re abolutely right. We must use all the tools at our disposal. Why give the Liberals a chance to get off the mat?
Emerson is a quality minister who only went to the Liberals because he saw them as the “natural governing party”. If we can convince future quality candidates to turn to the CPC as the governing party of the future we must be ready to do it. Anything less is irresponsible.
I totally agree Kate. And all of this bitching and whining is getting a tad bit ridculous.
Let’s let the whole Libeal party in. It’ll be
good – we’ll be in power for ever … just
like the liberal party. Oh, wait aminute,
we would be the Liberal party.
And a seconf point – pragmatic politics
requires at least a nod in the direction of
supporters and principals.
Well said Kate. Still, I’m not very comfortable with Emerson getting a cabinet post right away like this. Bad optics.
p.s. looks like there’s an open italic tag in your post.
MODERATION IN ALL THINGS – “Thinkers of ancient Greece held the notion of moderation in high esteem. As early as the nineth century B.C., the historian Hesiod wrote in ‘Works and Days,’ ‘Observe due measure, moderation is best in all things.’ The Greek playwright Euripides echoed that sentiment in ‘Medea’ (c. 431 B.C.) with, ‘Moderation, the noblest gift of heaven,’ and after him the philosopher Plato advised in ‘Gorgias’ (c. 375 B.C.), ‘We should pursue and practice moderation.’ Centuries later, Chaucer first rendered a similar English saying in ‘Troilus and Criseyde’ (c. 1385) with ‘In every thyng, I woot, there lith mesure (moderation or proportion)’
Conservatives, above all else, ahould be conservers of values. Basic fundamental values; not institutions.
I predict several more Liberals who were abandonded by Coach Martin to be looking for a better coach. I also think there are many good Liberals who themselves are disgusted by what their party has become – the Dingwall thing being the icing on the cake too.
It is hard to be considered ethical, honest and non-corrupt when you sit in an unethical party. And, I predict that once the audits begin and the Conservatives have a look at the books we will find that AdScam was the tip of the iceburg.
Would you stick around when the poop starts to fly? When you have no leader? When your party is disdained and disrespected. When all you really want to do is serve your constituents?
Expect more Liberals to seek sanity and sanctuary with the Harper conservatives.
Kate…a brilliant piece, and by the way is that female marcher on the left in the pic you? If so, let me say that like fine wine, you have definitely improved over time…
I have been personally been soooo tired of seeing the party(s) that I have supported personally and financially losing the election and essentially stating that “well we lost, but at least we held on to our principals”
What BS…if you don’t assume power, you cannot change what’s wrong with our country, and God knows changes are definitely in order.
Point being, a “moral” victory is no victory at all, at least in politics.
And…being pragmatic on some issues does not necessarily mean that you are jettisoning your principles…it COULD mean that you’ve decided to play chess instead of chinese checkers…
you can always paint over black with white paint
So now inkless wells is taking shots at you. I guess the big media types don’t like it when someone actually defends the CPC.
I really enjoyed reading this blog while you were giving hell to the sleazy bunch we have had to endure for such a long time. On Harper’s first day in office, it turns out that you (and he) are just a different shade of ends-justify-the-means expedience chasers.
Quel dommage.
The Emerson deal is about ambition nothing more. His and Harpers. Wells is wrong this won’t turn out to be a Harriet Myers. But don’t kid yourself this deal sucks – not enough to loose faith or cause a blog storm of protest but lets be honest and say that the deal is a bad one and a mistake and those that supported the party think it is wrong.
Ministers named from outside Parliament -1867 to present
http://www.parl.gc.ca/information/about/people/key/MinOut.asp?lang=E
Senators in Cabinet (includes Paul Martin Sr.)
http://www.parl.gc.ca/information/about/people/Senate/SenateCabinet.asp?lang=E&source=min
Kate… I can’t help but say…
Your description of the post-Romanow wasteland is quite “Soviet”. It fits!
Thanks for saying what needs to be said for those who are not as eloquent as they’d like to be. A wonderful piece that’s helped comfort my mind regarding my feelings on the issue.
Thank you Kate! You are expressing much of what I have been feeling today. While I am not keen on the whole issue of Emmerson crossing the floor, I feel that people are failing to put things in perspective and to see the big picture here. In some cases, people have their facts mixed up as well. It is all very well to stand on the purity of one’s ideals when in Opposition, however the reality is that, once you attain power, you must make some hard decisions. There will be times when people will not agree with such decisions, but they still need to be made. We have seen what happens when the PM fails to make decisions and clearly that does not work well either.
I have found it very difficult to read the blogs today, what with people frothing at the mouth and failing to clearly perceive reality through the fog. People need to take a deep breath and start clearly thinking here, rather than ranting.
Enuf said.
Kate: Best opening two paragraphs in a post, ever.
You big balloon popper.
You’ll note Wells has failed to provide a link to my alleged reference to Paul Martin’s political morality of the Stronach crossing. I went after Stronach hard, but I don’t believe I made any reference to Martin at all.
(What for? One hardly needed such evidence after the cancellation of opposition days, followed by a week of refusing to acknowledge the fall of his own government through a vote of non-confidence.)
It was Stronach who looked at that behavior and said “that’s for me!”.
How strange, though – that Wells would refer to “Harriet Miers”.
Didn’t he notice that Alito was just confirmed with the Democrats disintegrating before a national audience?
If this is Stephen Harper’s “Harriet Miers”, then he’s a craftier SOB than even the most partisan give him credit for.
I wonder if Emerson will complete his makeover by changing his name to Belinda. Yeh, Belinda Emerson has a really nice ring to it.
People I know are divided into two camps on Harper: that he is a principled man who is going to change the way politics is done or he is the Anti-Christ. My story all along has been the same: he’s just another politician who will say anything to get elected. Turns out I was right.
All the self righteous fury about never electing senators and that members who cross the floor should resign was apparently a lot of hooey. It’s bad when the other side does it since it shows they have no principals or morals. It’s ok when we do it though since you guys are still a-holes and we have to compete with you.
I’m looking forward to the long essays complaining that the media are being hard on you for abandoning your principals when , and the poo pooh-ing of conservatives who think this is b.s. and how they should suck it up for the team but the fact is that if Harper uses the same tools, tactics and bs that the Liberals did in their worst days then Canadians will tar him with the same brush and treat him accordingly.
You can’t have it both ways. If you want to run on a reformist platform – fabulous. If you want to act like Liberals, that might work, too, until they get their act together. If you want to reformist government and justify bad behaviour with the assertion they are still not as bad as the other party, that ain’t gonna fly for long.
Keep another thing in mind: As a show of solidarity with average Canadians most of the new ministers took taxis or drove themselves today to show they aren’t like the evil, corrupt Liberals. This is exactly the same tactic that Chretien used in 93 to show he wasn’t like the evil, corrupt Tories.
La plus ca change.
Time for a reality check. People instinctively mistrust Harper. As weird as Diefenbaker was, and as smarmy as Mulroney was, they both won huge majorities against tired and corrupt Liberal governments. While they didn’t have the Bloc bleeding off seats, Harper still should have won a majority. Now he’s putting himself in Joe Clark’s position with this dumb stunt. If the opposition parties detect any loss in Conservative support they’ll force an election. The Liberals want it sooner than later before any more scandals get flushed out. I’d expect that enough old Reformers and Western separatists will bleed off enough Conservative support to take even Alberta seats off the safe list.
The Tories better enjoy the view from the government benches while they can. It might not last long.
RJM
So running in an important election under a red banner, and then immediately selling out everyone that voted for him… Is now something to be adored???
But eh, why would anyone on the Right want to “prove a point” regarding “Conservative Principle”?!?! 🙁
The quote about gnats and camels brought to mind another situation Jesus commented on.
Mark 9:40, “For he that is not against us is on our part.”
He wasn’t worried about someone working for Him being of a different “party”.
Principles matter to some of us Conservatives.
Reform anyone?
“when you fight a monster, be careful not to become a monster yourself”
Stephen Harper quoting Nietzhe, May 2005
Kate,
You have said it well. As a fellow stubble-jumper in this great province of Saskatchewan, I too have seen daily ‘up close and personal’ the stifling effect of NDP policy in this province. With a resource mix as good or better than our neighbor to the west we have had to settle for ‘have-not’ status for way too long. The NDP would point out that we are now a ‘have’ province… funny, I hadn’t noticed that the last time I sent one of my sons to Alberta and obviously couldn’t convince him either. Kate, you were right to point out the obvious; that things would have been much different by now had that election result been honored by the Libs and Dippers of the day. The point is, hats off to the NDP for making it work and having several extra years to set the agenda in this province, namely to throw a blanket over anything that might turn a profit or get into business and compete with them until they leave.
As for the current federal climate, we Conservatives need to take a deep breath, plug our noses on this Emmerson appointment and realize that if there is going to be change come to this great nation it is going to come through strong leadership and vision. I don’t like what PMSH did today any better than anybody else as it helps to load the cannons on the other side but I can count. This turn around by Emmerson puts a new light on the chances for government stability and perhaps longevity, hopefully two full years! The down side is nobody is smiling bigger than Jack Layton who once again gets to hold the balance in this government.
Holding my nose in North Battleford…
Maranatha
This was a brilliant move on Harper’s part. Besides, I don’t recall reading or hearing anywhere that DE actually gave up his membership in the Liberal Party. He was asked to join the cabinet, not the caucus. I could be wrong on this count, but like I said earlier on the previous thread, Harper would not have done this without a compelling reason. He’s worked too hard and long to get the CPC to this position and would not jeopordize it right off the bat. Let’s see how this plays out.
Another thing, waiting 2 months to reconvene parliament gives the tories ample time to find a few skeletons and to have a game plan to hold off a Lieberal attack. Harper has been full of surprises the past couple of months. The libs have been caught with their collective pants down and haven’t been able to counter him. I think that we will learn over the next few days the whys and wherefores. Lets take a collective deep breath, do some stretches, go for a walk and relax.
Thank you Kate!!! You nailed it…first day on the job and some supposed CPC backers are looking for a bridge to jump off…
Let’s let the smoke settle…
I’ve alluded before to Mr. Harper’s chess-like moves…maybe I’m wrong and he’s just a wicked poker player??? Game on…
Last spring I recall Mike Duffy on what seemed like a flailing Martin minority – a warning to Conservatives “never take your foot of the neck of a Liberal”..
And when, sure enough, they squeezed out of the hold, and pushed through their budget on a surprise vote, it was evidence that Harper was a bush league beginner – no match for Martin. By the fall, there was a manufactured campaign to dump him as leader, and a good percentage of punditry joined the chorus.
So, this time he’s keeping his foot down, and now he’s “unprincipled” for not offering them a little breathing space.
Sometimes, I do despair.
The Game is Afoot
Well, on the day that Canada’s 22nd Prime Minister arrived at Rideau Hall in a mini-van to be sworn in, I spent the day in grade 2 wondering what was happening in Ottawa. From what I’ve seen, we’ve had a
“There wasn’t much the SaskParty could do about it, but at least the purity of their principle kept conservatives warm at night.”
Hilarious.
Let’s ask Brenda Bakken Lackey about the Sask Party’s ‘purity of principle,’ shall we?
“Well, no it didn’t, come to think of it. A lot of our best and brightest left the province and they still do. While dippers nationwide swoon at the mention of Romanow today, Saskatchewan’s economy endures crumbling infrastructure, declining population, rising crime rates, predatory crown corporations and the worst business tax environment in the Western world.”
Again, pure hilarity.
Almost none of this is true–including the nation-wide swoon for Romanow–but what it lacks in truth, it makes up for in amusement.
Keep up the good work.
I only refer you to what Ayn Rand said about living in a welfare state. To paraphrase she said that as long as you vocally oppose and acknowledge that it is an imperfect world in need of improvement, you must operate within the system you find yourself. It is suicide and immoral to make a martyr out of yourself so the very people who warped the system win by default and victimize you further. Anything else would be a ‘Sanction of the Victims’ … a wonderful critique she had for businessmen caught up in corporatist structures … that then manufacture some rationalization and sell it as philosophy.
I apologize for not getting the actual quotes 😉
Maybe Alan Greenspan will tell us some day what he thought he bought by being Chairman of the Fed. Leonard Piekoff suggests while saying its not up to him to judge that he simply ‘sold out’.
I think Alan did the best he could with what he had, and the same goes for Stephen Harper.
as always you are excellent Kate…i agree and i feel PMSH has really done a gutsy and smart thing…maybe a few more libs will cross….but please not Belinda!!!
1)Emerson said that he is a non-partisan player (CBC newsworld). He wants to represent his riding the best way possible.
2)He has good credentials
3)Vancouver should not be left out of our Federal Cabinet
4)Harper needed to bring the country together. That requires gutsy moves like this.
Good post Kate. You knocked it out of the park.
Nads the size of Magna-manufactured ball bearings
It is still nice to know that some conservatives have their gonads fully intact …
“So, this time he’s keeping his foot down, and now he’s “unprincipled” for not offering them a little breathing space.”
No, he’s unprincipled because he made a big deal, nay, a primary focus of his campaign to do things differently, to have better democratic accountability to voters, to not appoint senators, etc. etc. He knotted the noose and put it around his own head. He’ll be the one running out of oxygen if he thinks that he can just ignore his own rhetoric and platitudes.
Politics is a bloodsport and he learned his lesson well: campaign like a lamb so you can hide the fact you are both a wolf and swine.
Ted
Cerberus
I just don’t get all this moaning and hand wringing about “ideals”. I thought it was kind of the ideal to first win people over to one’s ideas. If they bring a whole constituency with them, so much the better.
Reminds me of what somebody said about the Palistinian people always snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
When Wells mentions Harriet Miers I’m guessing that he is speaking to Frum, and suggesting that just as Miers’ (attempted) appointment was threatening to split the right in the US for a while, Emerson’s appointment might be doing the same to the Canadian right, such as it is.
Doubt it. We’ll see in a week. If the Liberals pick this one for ammunition, it’ll fire backwards. Wells can be inconsistant, that’s his job, but the Liberals have history that matters. Someone pointed out at another site that when Trudeau was effectively annihilated in the West after the NEP he directly appointed 4 senators to cabinet to represent the west. None of them ran in any by-election.
And to return in a manner to Kate’s thread, if five, or ten, Liberals had said last May, “you know what, I cannot support this corruption, I can’t even look my own grandparents in the face, I’m going over to the Conservatives” would we have been all pissed-off, or happy about it?
Good grief! “If there is to be any hope of democratic renewal…” perhaps it should start now. Emerson was elected as a Liberal. he didn’t choose to walk away from the corrupt, as you put it. He hoodwinked the electorate, and Harper rewarded him handsomely for it. My opinion of Harper just fell a few notches. Likewise of your blog for so vigorously defending this unprincipled and deceiptful B.S.
Scott
All this back patting is a little out of order. Just as in the Stronach episode, a lot of individual voters, exercising their franchise the best way they knew how, have been given the finger by their candidate. The time for Emerson to have declared his desire to serve in any Gov’t that would have him was BEFORE the election; he could have run as an independant. The sleaze starts here and now. No more moral high ground. Before any body gets on my case, I’ve supported my Conservative candidates INSPITE of Mulroney’s stench.
There’s going to be a lot of posts for a while from people who will claim to have voted Conservative, and that they now are so disgusted that they will vote NDP or Liberal instead.
Yeah, they’re practicing they’re “ideals”.
I think this quote sums up this whole matter:
“Don’t hate the player….hate the game”
PMSH ( dang thats sounds good) didnt create this political system of ours – he simply operates in it. If this uproar from both the left and the right is the cost to get a very capable MP to serve in a very important portfolio, i say it is worth it. My wild guess is that in 2 years that this decision will be seen as a brillant move by the Prime Minister( by addressing several weaknesses that he had after the lection) and will help to the Conservative Party to another mandate
Kate wrote this:
“However – if there is to be any hope of the type of democratic renewal possible only under a majority government, we had better get a grip on the very real fact that the present rules are the ones everyone else is playing by, and that they lend themselves to crass political opportunism because they have been crafted and refined by crass political opportunists.
For the Conservatives not to use all legal parliamentary precedents to their advantage because of concerns over principle and optics, will only ensure the return of power to a Liberal Party proven to have no such reservations.”
Of course, it is a falsehood to say that the ‘rules’ we saw followed today by David Emerson and Stephen Harper ‘are the ones everyone else is playing by.’
As Jack Layton, Ed Broadbent and the NDP have argued for some time, what happened today should not be allowed. Stephen Harper offered words of praise for Ed Broadbent’s ethics package during the campaign–a package that would have prevented what we saw today–but we now see that he was about as sincere in that praise as he was in his call for serious Senate reform.
Now, if by ‘everyone else,’ Kate means the more-or-less equivalent Libs/Cons, she is, of course, correct. She just shouldn’t imply the federal NDP believes in treating the voters of Vancouver-Kingsway with the contempt David Emerson and Stephen Harper have shown them all today.
As for Kate’s claim that the Conservatives should use any and all legal parliamentary precedents to their advantage, lest by their reticence they return to power a Liberal party ‘with no such reservations’–I must ask, ‘what reservations would those be, Kate?’
For the Conservative party has shown itself no more reserved than the Liberals in exploiting parliamentary precedent for partisan advantage.
When, last year, Liberal Tony Valeri exercised a totally legal and amply precedented move to reschedule opposition days, Stephen Harper and the Conservatives erupted in fury, arguing that “When a government starts trying to cancel dissent or avoid dissent … is when it’s rapidly losing its moral authority to govern,” Harper told reporters Monday night.”
Back then, it seems, Conservatives considered Kate’s ‘concerns over optics and principle’ to be supreme over ‘legal parliamentary precedents’: after all, who were the Liberals to claim parliamentary precedent gave them the right to reschedule opposition days, when ‘optics’ and ‘principle’ put them clearly in the wrong?
Now, however, we have Kate and other Conservative supporters arguing that the same Valeriesque maneuvers (legal sure, but politically valid?) they once condemned are A-OK, provided they lead to Conservative victories.
And all of this, apparently, because Conservatives have ‘reservations’ about abusing their political power.
Evidence, please?
Agree with you Kate. What surprises me is the outrage that I’ve seen in the comments here; appointing Emerson to the cabinet was a totally unexpected move and hopefully Harper has a lot more such tricks up his sleeve to keep the Liebrals off balance. It would have been very nice to have a Conservative majority, but we’ll have make the best of the current situation. So far I’ve been impressed by Harpers performance and for those who have to myopically stand up for their principles, they can vote against the CPC once it has a majority. I’m eagerly awaiting the time when I can again vote Libertarian in federal elections, but realistically, if I want to see the firearms act eliminated in my lifetime, I have to vote for the CPC.
One party that has steadfastly and uncompromisingly stood by its principles is the Western Canada Concept. The WCC has been around for over 20 years, and while I believe in what the WCC stands for (I was a member for a while), I don’t think that Doug Christie has gotten more than ~300 votes in an election. I suspect I’ll have a lot more success in getting greater independance for the west by voting CPC in the next few years.
I was an early member of the Reform party and when I first joined if someone had told me that I would someday be voting for the CPC, I would have told them they were crazy. I quit the Canadian Alliance over its support of bill C-36 and now limit my political participation to voting and sending Gary Breitkreuz yearly political donations (I live in Vancouver, but Gary has been the most influential member of the CPC and I was somewhat disappointed that he wasn’t appointed to the cabinet). There are certain fundamental views that I’ve held for over 35 years, but I’ve learned that often the fastest route to achieve ones goal is an indirect one.
In BC, the CPC now has significantly fewer votes than the Reform party did at its peak. By bringing David Emerson into the cabinet, the CPC might be able to recapture much of the BC vote. While it didn’t come up in the campaign, a large number of BC voters are terrified that Harper might make cannabis illegal here (Layton was the only person who said he wouldn’t). For those of you who don’t know Vancouver, cannabis laws don’t exist aside from desultory efforts to prevent large-scale cultivation. Also, cannabis is now BC’s #1 cash crop with revenues surpassing forestry revenues.
If the CPC takes off in Quebec, then who needs TO? A sufficiently decentralized country will make western separatists like me happy, make Quebec separatists happy and the only problem left to deal with would be what to do with Toronto? Hold an international raffle? (And where to build all of the new jails to house liebral criminals from the previous government).
I suspect we’ll see other MP’s crossing over to the CPC and Keith Martin comes to mind. I’ve never quite understood why Keith quit the CA to become a Liebral although I suspect it may have had something to do with bad feelings secondary to his run for the CA leadership.
What is most important now is separating Liebral criminals from the merely confused. The former should be in jail, and as for the latter; anyone can make mistakes.
Credulo:
Yes, and most of them will be telling the truth. I not only supported my Con candidate,I worked ‘phones, put up signs and gave money. Next time around,I won’t be able to bring myself to vote Lib or NDP but I’ll sure as hell stay home on election day. Liberal, Tory, same old story.