Standing by Casey

The Conservative riding association in Bill Casey's riding is standing by the expelled MP, contrary to Stephen Harper's orders:

Bill Casey was worn out last night after spending a tense evening waiting while his Conservative riding association spent two hours in a meeting to determine his fate.

They decided to keep him.

"I wasn't in the room, I was out of the room because I didn't want my presence to hold anyone back from saying what they wanted to say," said the renegade Cumberland-Colchester-Musquodoboit MP.

With this move, the riding association is defying Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

[...]

Harper has the final say on candidate nominations, but Casey's riding association president Scott Armstrong remained hopeful the prime minister would change his mind.

"We're hoping that cooler heads will prevail and Bill will be able to stand," Armstrong said. "We feel the best chance for us to win a seat and deliver it to Ottawa is with Bill Casey."

Harper's press secretary said in an interview last night that the prime minister was "crystal clear" about his position.

"As the prime minister said last week when he was asked that question, there will be a Conservative candidate in the riding, and it will not be Mr. Casey," Dimitri Soudas said.

As someone pointed out in the comment section for this post, the Tories never promised that free votes would be allowed on the budget. Casey voted against it, and that's the ultimate no-no for a government MP. That said, Harper's refusal to let Casey return to the fold is costing him so dearly down here, it makes you wonder why he bothered reaching a new offshore deal in the first place.

Can the Prime Minister afford to write off Nova Scotia? Odds are it will be another minority government after the next election, so I'd say he needs every seat he can get.

Damian P.

Posted by damian at October 15, 2007 08:31 AM