February 12, 2006
A mess of our own making
The David Emerson controversy just isn't going away. And why should it? Canadians had come to expect this from the Liberals, but it's precisely the kind of politics Conservatives campaigned against:
Hundreds of outraged Vancouver residents shouted for Conservative MP David Emerson to be recalled at a public meeting on Saturday.
Many of Emerson's constituents in the Vancouver-Kingsway riding, felt betrayed by the former Liberal's decision to switch parties two weeks after the Jan. 23 federal election. They want him to run as a Conservative in a byelection.
"I haven't been fooled, I've been disenfranchised," said one man. "I've been robbed of my democratic right as a Canadian citizen as if someone took my vote, looked at it in the booth, decided they didn't like it and discarded it."
Alice Edge, who badgered her sons to vote, said the undemocratic outcome has made her ashamed as a mother.
"When my two young sons came home and they said to me: 'What is going on?' I got to tell you that my credibility as a mother has just been set back many, many years," she told Canadian Press.
"I want a byelection and I want it tomorrow," Edge said.
[...]
Emerson told CTV Vancouver earlier this week he wouldn't be resigning and submitting himself to a byelection.
"The reality is I was elected. Once the election was over, I was faced with a decision on how to best serve the people of the riding, and that's all the people of the riding ...," he said.
"I concluded that I could better serve them, I could get more done, I could get more results for British Columbia if I was in the cabinet than if I was not."
Emerson has also said had the Liberals won the election, he wouldn't have switched parties. [emphasis added]
And that's what really has people ticked off here. An MP can have legitimate reasons for crossing the floor or leaving caucus to sit as an independent, but the circumstances under which Emerson jumped ship betray nothing but pure, unadulterated opportunism. It makes Emerson look bad, and it makes the Conservative government look even worse.
Posted by damian at February 12, 2006 11:59 AM | TrackBack