Conservative Stronach joins Liberals
Belinda Stronach, the millionaire businesswoman who ran for the leadership of the Conservative party in early 2004, has crossed the floor to the Liberal party and will sit in Paul Martin's cabinet as minister of human resources and skills development.
This catches me by surprise. Apparently there are some at the E-Group who feel the same way.
There will be time enough to ponder whether Stronach's motives are as idealistic as she presents them to be or whether she did a realistic assessment of the Conservatives' chances and decided that the grass looked greener elsewhere. She is, after all, one of those hard-headed business people who are used to making those tough decisions.
And I'm sure this will prompt another round of speculation about Thursday's budget vote. Cue another series of media articles on independent MPs Kilgour and Cadman.
But my first reaction is to remind everyone that not only did Stronach run for the leadership of the Conservatives just a year ago, she was instrumental in the merger that created the new party in the first place. Her rationale for getting involved was that "corporate Canada wants to see a united right." Suddenly corporate Canada is quite comfortable with the Liberals.
It reminds me why I haven't been voting either Liberal or Conservative of late.
This one is really hard to figure out. I mean, if Harper wins she's in Cabinet. If Harper loses, her boyfriend is likely the party's next leader. She gives up on the merger a year and a half into it after creating it...very odd.
I suspect sharing a bench with Stockwell Day all these years has just worn on her.
Yeah, that's my first look at it too. I mean, I think she had a better shot at sitting in the Prime Minister's chair by staying a Conservative, which leads me to think it's not simple power lust.
Look back to pogge's archived quotation from Stronach: "corporate Canada wants to see a united right."
I suspect that it is indeed the logic of corporate Canada at work here, not any personal logic of Belinda's. The Bay Streeters who donate to both the Libs and the Cons are signalling that they have judged Stephen Harper and found him wanting. He couldn't capitalize enough on the scandals, so they have decided to tilt back towards the Liberals -- as long as they can tilt the Liberals right.
Belinda is a cipher. She is being moved about and placed by others. In a way, she is a brand, except there is no substance behind the facade. She doesn't represent anything except the interests of power brokers who see her as marketable.
It's an interesting development, and it sure was dramatic, but it may play out less smoothly than at first appears.
I suspect that it is indeed the logic of corporate Canada at work here, not any personal logic of Belinda's.
While that may in fact be true, I don't see how any of the entrenched interests in question are better off as a result of this. Belinda looks like a hypocrite, the Liberals look even more desperate and craven (something I wouldn't have thought possible) and the Conservatives look stupid. Nobody wins.
Well, maybe the NDP...:)
Perhaps she thought that the "united right" would look more like Ontarian Red Tories than redneck/Western Alienation Reform. She has definitely been consistent on trying to drag the party toward staying socially liberal, sticking her head out in a big way on same-sex marriage.
She's not as much of a hard-headed business type as you think. She inherited her positions at Magna, remember, and when she got it, she was more interested in promoting her fashion line and the company's public interest-type work. I'm not plugging for Belinda, but there's a lot more going on here than a simple power grab.
I think that the last Conservative Convention was probably a moment of clarity for Belinda, what with getting boo'd anytime she brought up social issues, or trying to appeal to a broader base. I think the business side of her was probably screaming that the Conservatives just don't have a solid plan for winning a majority government, and that most of the fiscal ideas they have, are shared by the Liberals anyway, who since Martin's appointment to PM, have definitely moved right of centre.
As Minister of HRDC she now has alot more pull in the types of issues that brought her to politics, I actually don't think she's all that concerned with, and I don't think she wanted any part of the rediculousness that her former party had made out of question period. (she doens't seem like the type to jump up and scream out random testimony from the Gomery commission she'd heard on Lowell Green that morning) You gotta' feel for Peter McKay in this situation, I'm sure the jabs behind and in front of his back will be relentless for, well, the rest of his career.
(correction to line 4)
I actually don't think she's all that concerned with party reputation,
I think pogge you are right that there will be time to see how this plays out in the long run. For now, I think it is a move to be applauded. She came across as quite genuine to me, it can't have been easy and of course she looks hypocritical. All the more reason that it rings true. She has to have known how this would make her look.
If it means the Liberals aren't defeated, then an election is put off for the near future and an end can be put, for now, to the embarrassing spectacle that the House of Commons has become. And that is good news for anyone who wants to let the air out of the tires of the separatist bandwagon right now. And it is also good news for people who care about social issues like gay marriage and the rights debate that the issue embodies.
I guess I'm in a minority on this one. But this move to me, cut through the morass and focussed on what is important.
I watched Stronach on Newman's show this afternoon.
I wondered why she made such a big deal about 'democratic reform' being part of her 'accepting a new position' with the Liberals. What evidence can she point to (apart from hearing Paul Martin say that he really, really means it) that she's likely to make headway on that front in the Liberal cabinet?
I've been thinking about this one all day. My conclusion is that in the end ideology matters. Stronach was out on the left-wing of the conservative party, but is more or less in the center of the Liberals. The tension of being out-of-step with the Conservatives became too much for her and she jumped.
Will this make a difference? Probably, especially in 905 where the Conservatives had a good chance at a lot of pick-ups. I suspect that there will be fewer now.