Locked Lips

Here's a hot topic that I've ignored for far too long. Something that calls into question the democratic process. I'm writing, of course, about Kingsway Burnaby's MP David Emerson and the little walk he took across the floor two weeks after the federal election.


Kingsway Burnaby voted for a Liberal Emerson (pictured at left), but Emerson joined the ranks of Conservatives so that he could accept an appointment as the minister of international trade. In the outcry that followed, he has simply maintained that he did what he thought was best for his riding. In the wake of demonstrations that took place outside his Kingsway office over the last couple days, he is now saying that he believes more people in his riding support his move that are protesting it.

Not once has he addressed what his transition means to the people who voted for him with those people. Not once has he addressed the issues of trust, ethics, and morality that his jumping of ship has brought to the table. It's all just what he "believes."

As for Prime Minister Harper (bottom right), who asked him to switch parties and then handed him a ministry to minister... Last year, when former Conservative MP Belinda Stronach crossed the floor to become a Liberal cabinet minister, Harper was quoted as saying:

"We don't go out of our way to romance MPs to get them to cross the floor. Liberals will do anything to win.

"We are trying to create a principled party where people act in a principled way, and obviously we're fairly cautious about encouraging party jumping, because that's the kind of thing that generates cynicism.

"And frankly, when someone jumps, once you're not sure you can trust them the next time, so I would always handle that with an extraordinary degree of caution."

It's all a little bit too Animal Farm for my tastes.