[Abeja de Almirante]

www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs...&t=TS_Home

OTTAWA - Former Liberal industry minister David Emerson is crossing the floor and will sit in the Conservative cabinet.

First the libs can't find a leader to replace Martin, now they can't hold onto their MPs. Belinda must be questioning herself now.

 

[Abeja de Almirante]

I wonder if this will start a trende, with more liberals realising that they are part of a lost and leaderless team, moving to the winning team. I would keep an eye on some other liberals to move to the Conservatives, such as surviving members of the 32 Liberal MPs that joined the Conservatives against same sex marriage in 2005.

 

[Abeja de Almirante]

Quick, someone find the quotes Harper made about MP's who cross the floor, at the time of Belinda's departure.

Old news, who cares? Belinda made the biggest mistake of her political life, as she could have worked to forward her views from inside the winner's circle, instead of complaining about it from the opposition benches.

I think Harper and Layton together now control the house, with a total of 155 seats between them. If these two can get along, Harper's government may last a long time, and Layton will look like a star in building his reputation as the party that kept the Conservative's rule politically balanced. All the while the relevance of the Liberals and BQ diminishes.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

That's coming from a party that talks about taking the "high road" all the time. Surprise.

At least Belinda had the excuse of the party moving too far to the "right" as an excuse; and she survived the election to tell the tale. I wonder how Emerson is going to deal with that one.

AoD

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Hmm, the more things change, the more things seems to be the same.

AoD

 

[Canuck 36]

Quick, someone find the quotes Harper made about MP's who cross the floor, at the time of Belinda's departure.

 

[Canuck 36]

Old news, who cares? Belinda made the biggest mistake of her political life, as she could have worked to forward her views from inside the winner's circle, instead of complaining about it from the opposition benches.

If he complains when it happens against him, and accepts the situation when it works in his favour, it perhaps shows a culture of entitlement and hypocricy.
It would be nice if one of his first moves as Prime Minister jived with a more noteable moments in his political history.

 

[mpolo2]

there was quite a bit of talk from the Conservatives when Belinda left that floor-crossers should be forced to run in a bi-election. It would be interesting to see how Emersen would do if he had to run again 2 weeks after the last election for a different party. That said, he seems like a fairly strong minister and in that light it is better he is in cabinet than out...

 

[Canuck 36]

Indeed, I remember the same kind of talk.
I would like the Conservatives to at least acknowledge their previous remarks on MP's crossing the floor.

Maybe they do have a satisfactory answer why they once advocated for them to run in a by-election, and now, not.

 

[Abeja de Almirante]

It would be nice if one of his first moves as Prime Minister jived with a more noteable moments in his political history.

Like the Lib's broken promise to cancel the GST? That didn't stop Toronto from voting in consectutive Lib governments.

Politicians have been crossing the floor since Magna Carter. Churchill went back and forth between Lib and Conservative, and he's not ill remembered for the effort.

Why should an MP be stuck on the losing team, if the winning team will welcome him into the ranks? Particularly if the loosing team is leaderless and in such disarray that previous leadership candidates are lining up to drop out. People go into politics for either power or influence (good and bad) and a mix of both. You can do little for your constituents from the opposition benches (as seen by the BQ). The day may come, after Harper is gone, that Belinda may again cross over to the CPC benches.

This is yet another reminder that you vote for the candidate, not the party. I've always thought that the candidate's party affiliation should be left off the ballot all together. If I vote for "Bob" to represent my interests in government, and the party he was in before failed in the election, I'd fully expect Bob to consider moving to the winning side, and thus continue to represent my interests in government.

 

[Canuck 36]

Abeja de Almirante, you make fine points, unfortunately they're not relevant to this issue at hand.

Harper flip-flopped on this issue. The question now is how will he justify it, or will he even acknowledge it.

Talking about broken liberal promises or a brief history of those who have crossed the floor deflects from the issue, but does nothing to address the main story.

Harper once said one thing, his party's actions today now go directly against that. Yes?
That is the point. That is the issue. Please address this inconsistency.

 

[Antiloop33rpm]

Here are a few thoughts on the issue of MP's crossing the floor from Mr Harper himself.

From a news article today which included these quotes.

"We don't go out of our way to romance MPs to get them to cross the floor. Liberals will do anything to win.

"We are trying to create a principled party where people act in a principled way, and obviously we're fairly cautious about encouraging party jumping, because that's the kind of thing that generates cynicism.

"And frankly, when someone jumps, once you're not sure you can trust them the next time, so I would always handle that with an extraordinary degree of caution."

Also from this news article from May 18, 2005, a quote by Bernard Lord echoing much the same thing.

New Brunswick Conservative Premier Bernard Lord: "This is just another action, another moment, that breeds cynicism of electors."

Im sure there are many more examples out there if one wanted to dig them up. And regardless of whether or not this is a political tradition and has will continue to be so, it does not make up for the fact that Harper, who in part ran on the idea of an accountable, more ethical government, has made a hypocritical choice by playing the same kind of political game that the Liberals did a little less than 2 years ago.

 

[dan e 1980]

wow! harper has flipped more issues than mcdonalds has flipped burgers in its entire existance.


you gotta forgive harper though for every day he is a different person. who knows? maybe tomorrow he'll put on a miniskirt and give blow jobs to random passerby's.

 

[Antiloop33rpm]

Do we have evidence that the CPC romanced Emerson? I suspect it was more push (Emerson pushed by lib failure) than pull (romancing by Harper).

In Harpers own words, taken from this source.

"I asked David Emerson to join Canada's new government and he accepted. ... He served Mr. Martin loyally and faithfully. Obviously that service is over."

Whether it was romancing with flowers and flirty phone calls or a simple discussion between gentleman wont be known, but not only in that quote above, but in his latest scrum with reporters he once again said that he himself asked.

Instead, Harper's taking a very pragmatic approach, in that he's careful about it, and cogniscent of the appearance such jumping gives. A sound approach in my opinion.

Of course in your mind it would be a sound approach since it is to the benefit of your own party. But just because it is wise from a personal gain stand point does not exclude it from being a hypocritical move when he spent the time and energy he did trying to attack Belinda Stronach crossing the floor.

Who care what the premier of some backwater thinks? Are you going to quote Paul Okalik next?

Some backwater? When your trying to debate your points it usually helps if you dont insult and put down regions of Canada.

Harper never said he would refuse party jumpers. Instead he said they must be handled cautiously. We have no evidence of the contrary in this case.

In other words it ok to attack other parties when MP's cross the floor, but when the same thing happens to the benefit of Conservatives, then should it be treated any differently? Its the same kind of self serving opportunism that Belinda Stronach demonstrated. And maybe this wouldnt be such a big issue except that Harper did spend so much time attacking Belinda's actions and running his campaign on the idea that his government was different than the Liberals. Actions such as this do not reinforce what we have heard over the last 2 months.

 

[EnviroTO]

^ That was the election campaign. That's over already.