There is much gnashing of teeth, rending of garments and such about the cabinet appointments of Emerson and Fortier. The surprising thing to me is that anyone is surprised.
I had already addressed this subject not long after the election campaign began. It seems appropriate to reprint this comment of mine from an earlier post on the front page.
I find your position that the Conservatives will definitionally bring credibility to Ottawa amusing to say the least. I have had a great deal of dealings with Conservatives over several decades and I have found them, without exception, to be crooks and liars of the highest order just like all other politicians.It isn't membership in a particular political party that makes one dishonest. It is being a politician that does that. When you have been around as long and been involved in the internal workings of as many political parties as I have, there is an unpleasant lesson you learn. The adage that "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely" is not true. What is true is that only the corrupt seek power and the absolutely corrupt seek absolute power.
All politicians and rulers regardless of era, country, ideology or party have more in common with each other than any of them has with the people they govern.
Most people want only a measure of control over their own lives. What sets all politicians apart from everyone else is the desire for power over other peoples' lives. That makes all of them definitionally suspect.
I was at a campaign meeting in a rural area many years ago where a friend of mine, who was running as the Conservative candidate, was told by one of the local farmers "I have never met a politician yet who wasn't crooked enough to slide through a 6 inch grain auger". The farmer was close to right. When it comes to politicians, guilty until proven innocent is a reasonable and prudent precaution.
And lest I be accused of gloating, that isn't what I'm doing. This is simply a wake-up slap upside the head. There has always been one simple and easy way to tell if a politician is lying - his (her) lips are moving.
Gee, Harper turned out to be a politician disguised as a politician. I'm shocked. Whoda thunk it? What will we tell Polyanna?
This might be a good time to go here.
Calling all lawyers
I'm curious and seeking a free legal opinion. David Emerson ran as a Liberal in the riding of Vancouver Kingsway. He begged NDP supporters to vote for him in order to keep the Conservatives from winning the seat. He said the day before the election that if elected he would be "Stephen Harper's worst enemy" and was elected to Parliament. The Conservatives came a distant third with 18% of the vote. Two weeks later, at the opening of Parliament, Mr. Emerson defects and joins the Conservative Cabinet. Much screeching, shouting and gnashing of teeth ensues on both sides of the floor.
My questions: Can voters in the riding, the Liberal riding association or the federal Liberal party sue David Emerson for breach of promise? Can he be forced to return campaign contribution for acting in bad faith?
Just curious...
I would be very surprised if they could sue because it is promoted that one votes for the person and not the party. It would get complicated to prove which people in Kingsway voted FOR Emerson or FOR Liberal.
In the end, this could work out for Vancouver even though it sounds bad now. They have a Minister in the Cabinet under the same porfolio as in the previous government. Plus he will look after the Olympics which at the moment is in big big trouble. And it's good for Emerson because he could continue to represent Vancouver instead of being a waste in opposition.
There might be something to a legal case against Emerson... but I doubt it. What it does ensure is that no one will ever trust anything he says again. And why would we?
I'm afraid I don't agree with your rather cynical view of politicians. They are not invariably corrupt individuals driven by power lust. If that was all they were, they would not subject themselves to the rather tortuous cycle of elections and media exposure. Indeed, while there is no shortage of political hacks out there whose sole concern is maintaining power and getting re-elected, most politicians and candidates I've encountered are very much driven by an inclination toward public service. Now, many of them also probably think that they have something useful to offer politics (be it intelligence, expertise in an area, experience, etc.) and so seek influence in order to serve the people.
Of course, this desire to have influence can often go to a politician's head, becoming mere desire for continued power, or else leading to a sense that it is somehow essential that they remain in their influential role. And this seems to be the case with Emerson - he has an exaggerated sense of his own importance. Indeed, his desire for public service is exceeded only by his sense that he - with his PhD in economics - has something truly important and special to offer, so that, in his mind, it's perfectly justifiable to betray his constituents, since, after all, they just want him to "serve" them in the greatest sense. That is, in a nutshell, how he justified his opportunistic betrayal.
Of course, in the end, Emerson's contribution is not so great that he can justify what he did. He's a smart guy with ample government experience who, by virtue of his own exaggerated sense of importance, thinks the rules - like being loyal to the party banner under which you were elected not two weeks ago - do not apply to him. If I lived in Vancouver-Kingsway, I would be yelling for his head. And rightfully so.
"They have a Minister in the Cabinet under the same porfolio as in the previous government. Plus he will look after the Olympics which at the moment is in big big trouble."
No, Emerson was Minister of Industry, not International Trade as he is now.
My mistake, I thought I had heard that he was International Trade last time also.
I hope for the sake of Vancouver-Kingsway that Emerson continues to represent his riding and Vancouver in a positive way that will benefit everyone. It'll be very interesting to see how they will vote in the next election because Emerson most certainly will not run. Which party will they vote for now?
Not Conservative, given the history of the riding and area over the past 50 years.
Whether or not voters can sue him, Democracy Watch intends to file an ethics complaint against both Emerson crossing the floor for a cabinet position and Dingwall's separation settlement.
I personally think Mahigan's attitude towards public officials is one-sided and counterproductive to progressive causes.
There's no doubt that politicians "don't quite seem to be like us." The practice of politics is certainly a brutalizing, dehumanizing activity. It transforms an individual's self-expression and idealism into instruments to achieve the ends that they believe in, and the exigencies of democracy often leave us with slick platitude-speakers with game-show-host faces, in all parties.
But reducing these sad realities into a polemical attitude like "all politicians are slimey crooks" us to play directly into the hands of the New Right. They seek to lower the tenor of public discourse on politics (already an easy task when, as a nation, we are part of the US mediasphere) so that people will believe, like them, that less government is inherently desirable.
Progressives - by which I mean Liberals and NDPers - should really be considering the unpleasant personal sacrifices our party representatives make in entering the ugliness of the public forum, and carefully consider the provenance of a public cynicism on politics which plays so tidily into the hands of our enemies.
Jeebus, Jason. You had me going there for a minute. Until I got to that last para, I thought you were serious. You might want to put a /snark warning in things like that in the future. By the time I can fit blogging into my day, I might not be quite as quick on the uptake as I am in the morning.
Afraid I was deadly serious, unless you're in fact being ironic, in which case we're plunging into an earnest-ironic death spiral in short order.
If it was including Liberals under the aegis of "progressive parties," I call them as I see them, and a sub-caucus of LINOs doesn't undo the party of Pearson and Trudeau in my books. Obviously the relative merits of the Liberal Party is a whole seperate discussion, but I stand by my original sentiment: politicians are not all out and out scumbags, and the ones that aren't have to live with the fact that their ideals oblige them to turn into -politicians-.
It's like agreeing to catastrophic surgery on one's personality.
Jason:
That argument was raised to defend I think every floor crosser in history by supporters of the party that received the crosser, and is mocked by everyone else for the self serving nonsense that is as a rationalization. That is what I think Mahigan's point was, and I have to agree with her if it was. Suddenly CPC supporters are supporting actions that they denounced as despicable when the Liberal government did so. Isn't that more than a little hypocritical and worshipping of power by these CPC supporters now that they are the government?
My comment was addressed to the "politicians are wretched and corrupt by definition, and we should expect the worst" sentiment, not in reference to a particular incident like Emerson.
For the record, I hope Emerson is strung up, and I have very little use for floor crossing in general. As a Liberal I am uncomfortable with CPC floor crossers joining the ranks of our less enlightened wing, and concerned and bewildered by the seriousness with which their leadership bids are taken.
Jason - I wasn't being ironic. I found your response ridiculous and I will administer the drubbing you richly deserve. However, since I'm having a bad week today, I'll put it off until tomorrow so you only receive what you are entitled to.
Drub away.
I heartily endorse the notion of Conservatives being (if not universally) than overwhelmingly a bunch of slime-oozing menaces. But to generalize and say that it is a professional prerequisite rather than a party trend is, as I argued before, counterproductive.
Social climbing, ambition, a love of power, jobbery and idealism doubtlessly all motivate different people to enter politics as candidates or behind the scenes; but I think it's cynical and inaccurate to suppose that the worst trends dominate in every single party.
Arguing that a villainous set of parasitic evildoers have the profession sewn up is virtually an endorsement of the Reagan-Thatcher argument that government and the state are inherently wicked and must be kept to a mininum except when it's time for the defence budget.
To which I would point to the Canadian state, with all it's imperfections, and say that we've gotten relatively decent peace, order and good government.