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To be honest, I don't have a huge problem with someone crossing the floor. I think it is more acceptable if Parliament has sat, and something has happened that gives the person a reason to change their view, but anyway......

My problem is not with Emerson, it's with Harper. It's not the fact that the guy crossed the floor that bugs me, it's the fact that Harper strongly condemned that behaviour 6 months ago, and has turned around and embraced it now.....

In terms of a split in the Conservative Party....I doubt there will be a formal split, but I do see some serious rifts opening up......

New rifts will happen when the hard-line religious people who helped him get elected realize that he will not get behind them and support their religious issues (SSM, Abortion, etc...).

He is kind of in a no win situation because if he appeases the religious people he alienates the PCs, and if he appeases the PCs he alienates the religious people.....

He has been trying to please everyone by saying he will allow free votes, but not officially support these things. When it comes down to the bottom line though, he'll find he can't please both sides of such a divisive issue.....

Someone will come out feeling betrayed.

In terms of the "world ending" and me being sanctimonious......The people who said the Liberal party would implode and cease to exist should stop buying drywall from glass merchants.

   

Other problems may come with issues of Military spending.

You'll remember the past Conservative gov't (Mulroney I think) that asked the military to create a report listing everything they needed to do to get things in order and up to date?

The military spent 18 months creating a detailed report with a cost analysis, just to have the Cons say, "We changed our mind.....We don't have the money.....Sorry....."

They decided to keep the report as a reference tool? And didn't give any additional money......

I'm not saying this will happen, but it could. It's easy for someone who has never been in gov't to make promises. When they get in and realize it's hard to come up with the money, sometimes things fall apart.

   

Senate Reform:

To do it properly, the constitution needs to be changed and also Provincial Legislation will have to be passed.....

Will the provinces go for it?

Will Quebec sign a new constitution?

If it is done in the superficial way they did it in Alberta with un-official elections being held, who will run them? Is Elections Canada able to administer un-official elections? Will un-official elections be considered legitimate?

If Harper turns around says it has become too complicated to do, or can't be done...will that alienate some Con MPs ?

   

Again, the bottom line here still remains.

Canadians don't give a rats ass about this. It's us wannabe pundits that care but it's not even on the radar of the general public.

   

True, they don't follow the specific details, but they do get the headline news....

Most Canadians who watch the 6:00 news have seen stories about what happened....

And also, this thread is about Con MPs becoming disgruntled with Harper, not about Canadians who don't follow politics.

   

Harper has made a colossal error of judgment.
After all the talk about ethics and such. I just hope it's the last but I'm not holding my breath.
However as MB said this won't make me change my vote.

   

You're just waffling. You're trying to legitimize your support for Belinda Stronach's defection while criticizing the Conservatives for doing the same thing. At least I'm consistent. Both Belinda and Emerson are shameless opportunists. I'm just irritated that Harper played that game because it breeds the same cynicism about politics that many people voted CPC hoping to eliminate.

And don't try to argue Belinda and the others split with the CPC over some matter of principle. Belinda says she did it because she honestly believed Harper was bad for "Canadian Unity". This from a unilingual MP who went over to a party that got far fewer votes among Francophones on 23 January than the Liberals. The same Liberals who re-ignited the separist debate with their blatant corruption.



You're right that Harper's hypocritical to say that. It was embarrassing to listen to him try to justify that on tv.

But again, Graham was just as hypocritical when he condemned Emerson for his actions. Neither Graham nor any other Lib was critical when Belinda, Scott and Martin did the exact same thing.



Here we go again...My eyes are already glazing over.

This is why Harper will get away with shit like what we saw on Monday. You Liberals are the only one's obsessing over this "socially conservative" crap. Nobody else in the country is paying attention, as the election results showed. I hope you keep banging that drum into the next election, because the fear mongering is getting old and tired.

Then again, if Harper continues doing this kind of cynical bullshit, then I hope you can come up with something legitimate to attack him on. Because he'll deserve to go down hard if he tries this shit again.



"Religious Right", "Republicans", " Blah, blah, blah. Old news. NEXT!



I said you were being sanctimonious. And you are. As I said at the outset, you're trying to villify the Conservatives for doing something the Liberals did quite often. And you're trying justify the fact the Libs did it. At least I'm consistent. I think it was disgraceful on both counts.

Your just a partisan apologist.

   

Seeing and understanding are two different things.

Sure, it may of made the news a couple days ago, now it's old news.

   

It stays in the back of people's minds though....

The Cons won because the general public saw a lot of headlines about liberal scandals over a long period of time....even though most people don't know the details of the so-called scandals, and how they turned out....

If a lot of negative headlines appear over the next two years or so, it will stick in the back of peoples minds.....and influence their impression of whoever the headlines are about.

   

First of all crossing the floor to me is no big deal. The Libs should sue him for their campaign money back, but I don't care about that.

One less for the Lobs and one more for the Cons means the better chance for a Con/NDP government which makes me just as happy as a Lib/NDP government.

The issue is appointing an unelected person as a Cabinet Minister when we elected 128 perfectly suitable candidates.

It's a mockery of the democratic process. Conservatives should be hopping mad.

Its funny to me that out of the remaining people who were not picked for cabinet Harper can't find one person for the job, he's got to pick up a guy off the street.

Perhaps Harper read my memo that stated that most of his MP's were frigging idiots not suitable to lead this country.

   

I'm consistent....I said I don't really have a problem with the principle that MPs can cross the floor.....

What if something urgent happened (war, etc....), and an MP decided they had to cross and act decisively and rapidly.....having to wait a month or 2 for a by-election could be a huge problem......

And I honestly do believe that Belinda crossed because of her principles....

The same with Scott Brison. There can be no question that he crossed because of his principles.....He "came out" as being gay and changed parties because of same sex marriage issues......

He changed at the same time that the Con party was forming from the two old parties......Saying it was wrong for him to switch would be like saying it was wrong for Harper to switch to the Conservative Party from the Alliance Party....

   

Many of us know that this won't change you're vote, just as the issues of Liberal Coruption weren't going to change the minds of Liberal voters. But there are a lot of Liberal Canadians who did vote for the Cons to avoid this sort of thing. If things continue for the Cons the way they are . . . they might generate another Liberal majority. But Harper will probably do all he can to avoid that situation

   

A lot of you pro-con guys wanted the electorate to punish Martin and the Liberal Party for various offenses, and yet, here you are saying you yourself will not change your vote when "your guy" does the exact same thing? How is that progressive thinking at all?

IMO too many people are thinking in terms of "I'm a Liberal" and "I'm a Conservative", instead of "I'm a Canadian, and I believe the following things..." How could anyone possibly call themselves an informed voter if they don't change their mind about which party to vote for when issues like ethics arise?

Canada elected the CPCs at least in part to punish the Liberals for indiscretions, only to be slapped in the face by the person they put in power. If I were living in Emerson's riding, and had contributed to the Liberal riding association, I would most definitely be considering a lawsuit of some kind. Am I overreacting? Maybe, but then I'm not one for being kind about/to people who lie to me.

   

I WILL I WILL...OH WAIT WE DIDN'T ELECT ONE OF THEM...IN PE

   

Crash and burn. Like this whole thing is a surprise...tories are famous for this stuff. Looks like Harper's taking a page out of Joe's book; got a minority but wants to govern like it's a majority. And appointing his campaign manager to a cabinet post? Looks like they'll be heading back to the wilderness sooner than even I thought possible.

Nope, no reform here...more cronyism. Congrats, tories...I know you'll never admit you were wrong, but there it is...you were.

   

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