The system works
I give money to a merchant to deliver a product. The product does not perform as I expected. Do I yell at the product or the merchant who sold it to me?
When you cast your vote in a Canadian election, are you voting for your member of parliament or for the party he or she is running for?
Here's the answer -- you are voting for the member of parliament. Of course, you cast your vote with the party platform in mind (I certainly do), but the fact remains you are voting for your riding representative. If we truly had a system where we voted for parties, we would have party lists, with members selected based on the proportion of the popular vote. Israel has such a system.
We do not. We vote for the member of parliament. Some MPs win despite what party they run for, such a Scott Brison and Belinda Stronach.
So how does factor into the David Emerson mess?
From the Toronto Star:
Conservative Trade Minister David Emerson says he will not bow to demands that he resign the Vancouver seat he won two weeks ago as a Liberal -- nor will he pay back the money his former Liberal riding association says it is now owed.
Let's say you contributed money.
If you contributed to David Emerson, then congratulations, he won!
If you contributed to the Liberal Party, then like the person who paid for a product that did not work as expected, take it up with the Liberal Party. The party fielded Emerson. But at the end of the day, the problem is that you don't get it -- you can donate to the Liberal Party in your riding, but at the end of the day you are voting for a person, not a party.
When all is said and done, David Emerson received the plurality of votes in the riding to act as their representative. He was their representative two weeks ago. He is still their representative today. The system works.
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Comments
angry, what if you go to a store and see a shirt you like, tell the clerk you want to buy that shirt, he takes a box off the shirt box shelf and sells it to you. You get home and open the shirt box and voilla there is a thong in the shirt box, what do you do?
You didn't want the thong (I hope) you wanted "THE" shirt. You either send it back or it is put somewhere Independent of your clothes closet.
I won't spend one breath of sympathy for the Liberal corruption machine but I don't beleive anyone should be allowed to cross to another party, they should sit as an independant until an election puts them where they want to be.
Posted by: capt_bob at February 9, 2006 11:08 AM
Good point Steve. Yesterday, on CBC radio, I heard Belinda Stronach make her most vacuous comment yet: after stating that she personally thought very highly of Emerson, and was of course SHOCKED by this turn of events, she actually blamed Harper for Emerson's decision. Emerson-As-Victim - you gotta love it. Of course, the corollary to this latest inanity is that she herself was powerless to resist Martin's beguilements. Is that a fact Belinda?
Posted by: Linda at February 9, 2006 11:11 AM
Wow...it took you 4 days to come up with that rationale. your focus group must have loved it.
This still doesn't explain the sudden change of heart in the Ethics and Accountability Party.
Meet the new boss...
Posted by: Dave at February 9, 2006 11:18 AM
It only works id the conservatives get the $1.75 per voter who voted for him. If they don't, they should go to court because the Libs are stealing their money.
Posted by: Paul at February 9, 2006 11:28 AM
If you vote solely based on your MP and his/her politics, disappointment will follow.
The Party Whip tells the MP how to vote, and the Party Whip gets his orders from the Party Leadership.
Conclusion: A vote is for the Party Leadership, not the MP.
Until every vote is a free vote, what the MP thinks or feels is irrelevant.
The MP's are told how to vote.
And in a minority governmet situation, there will be little room for mavericks.
Pictures of Lilly
Posted by: Pete at February 9, 2006 11:40 AM
If you buy into any of this tripe, you also have a really good answer to the question, "Why have Parties at all?" Don't you?
Because if you buy Emerson as good for his constituents regardless of the colour of his necktie, then you might as well run nothing but Independents right across the country because the Party system is meaningless. That's what Emerson's saying. That's what Harper's saying. That's what you're saying.
The Maytag's plugged in but the spin cycle is broken. The argument is idiocy.
Posted by: ExTory at February 9, 2006 12:27 PM
I see now. When Emerson betrays the voters who would never have voted for him had he campaigned as a Conservative, "the system works". When Stronach does it, she's a "scheming woman celebrating another act of cleverness that has earned her more power and brought her closer to her goal" (Janke, May 22, 2005), who "who traded principle for power" (Janke, May 17, 2005) and whom you can speculate is a thief because she might hand over confidential party information to the new team (Janke, May 18, 2005) (ironic that, since Stronach was no where near close to the centre of power or strategy discussions with Harper, and Emerson was involved in high level strategy discussions THE NIGHT BEFORE HE WAS SWORN INTO CABINET!!).
And as for personal integrity, you criticize Stronach for waiting until the last hour before telling McKay or the party about her defection:
"Apparently, sophisticated Belilnda didn't feel the need to tell her backwoods beau from Nova Scotia what was happening until just before she went to her news conference with the Prime Minister." (Janke, May 18, 2005)
But no one - no one - in the Liberal Party knew about Emerson until he was seen on the TV walking into Rideau Hall. He was telling people close to him the very prior day he was committed to taking Harper down, participating in strategy sessions. Stronach, meanwhile, was no part of any Conservative planning team and was being kept well away from decision making among the Conservatives.
Don't take this as an endorsement of Stronach. Just an interesting observation on two similar actions.
Ted
Cerberus
Posted by: Ted at February 9, 2006 12:53 PM
There is a name on the ballot. With the party affiliation under the name. You're voting for the person, not the party, affiliation and associations can be changed, its not cast in stone.
Posted by: Curtis at February 9, 2006 01:01 PM
This must be lamest excuse sofar.
Why can't you (as I have) accept that Emerson did something ethically wrong, and that Harper and the CPC are hypocrites (in this case).
And then move on.
You defend too much, it doesn't help, it only sounds desperate. Let it go.
I, and presumably you, sincerely hope Harper's government will be successful. It has been a rough start, let's hope it gets better.
Posted by: Johan i Kanada at February 9, 2006 01:02 PM
It all depends on whether or not all the votes in parliament are free votes for the Conservative members. There's no hipocrisy until Harper tells Emerson how he has to vote on an issue.
Posted by: Grook at February 9, 2006 01:17 PM
Well I agree that Emeson has to square this move with the folks who elected him.
But that is the price he has to pay!
Harper's offer to him was a good decision notwithstanding the flack that Emerson has to take.
I would not be surprised if Emerson could win a bye election.
We'll see I guess.
Posted by: PGP at February 9, 2006 01:48 PM
"When you cast your vote in a Canadian election, are you voting for your member of parliament or for the party he or she is running for?"
It's not an either/or question, Angry. The answer is "Both", and I think it's foolish to argue otherwise in our electoral & political process, where the party that has the most representatives gets to form the government. If you want to break the relationship between party & candidate, say it means nothing after-the-fact, then maybe as ExTory said, we should just remove the party names from the ballot. Let's go a step further, and remove the party names from all advertising too. Prevent candidates from telling us who they stand with. We'll all cast our ballots blind & deaf as to what parties our candidates belong to, and let them declare themselves afterward. Wouldn't that be fun?
I'll toss an extreme situation at you: say Paul Martin convinced 12+ Conservatives to cross the floor tomorrow to sit with the Liberals, giving the Liberals the most seats in Parliament and thus the right to form a government. Would you still be saying this line?
It's all right to be a Conservative and say this move kind of stinks. You don't have to go through torturous logic to defend it. We condemned such spinning when the Liberals did it.
Floor-crossing may be a necessary wart of the Parliamentary system (I do acknowledge that any fixes we might make could actually make things worse, much as Harper himself talked about with the merger of the PC and CA), but we don't have to like it.
Posted by: Ian in NS at February 9, 2006 02:01 PM
The fact of the matter is, people were deceived, and it doesn't matter whether they are liberals or conservatives or green. When elections are held people place their trust in a candidate of their choice and the practice of changing party after should be done only if the PEOPLE approves of it. If you have a sales person with a GM dealership starts selling ford products that person would be fired. Emerson, or anyone else who have changed affiliation, have been elected to support the party they represent on the ballot and they should be fired. The bottom line, they also forget that they represent the PEOPLE.
Posted by: Marcel at February 9, 2006 02:43 PM
I'd suggest you read your own stuff before you espouse the merits of this....less than two months ago (December 16 to be exact), you sang a far different tune.
Posted by: Jane Finch at February 9, 2006 02:58 PM
Come on. Emerson ran as a Liberal. They voted for him as a Liberal. That gives him a mandate to say and do anything to hold onto power. Oh, and to steal their money, in case anybody's whining about that.
Posted by: ebt at February 9, 2006 04:00 PM
A Liberal blogger is hellish irate/mad/turned off/ & whatever at ex-PM Martin,Jr.
He has seen the light and does not like what the light exposes. It's so sad to have one's hopes/bubbles ... smashed, burst, broken by your own leader.
Junior is missing: SOS. SOS. SOS. SOS.
"Here's a question: Where the hell is Paul Martin in this firestorm?"
February 9, 2006 - Here's a question: Where the hell is Paul Martin in this firestorm? He did say that outside of the House of Commons, he was still the leader of the Liberal party. So, since parliament isn't currently in session, shouldn't he be the one that comments on David Emerson's departure?
Oh wait, he's the guy that thought he should throw Liberal memberships at anyone and everyone.
Former BC premier and staunch NDP ideologue? Check.
Former IWA-Canada President ingrained in the labour movement? Check.
Former forestry executive with Conservative leanings? Check.
Hell, he even welcomed in 7 separatist candidates, and justified it in his typical style of nonsense:
"The fact is that none of those people are separatists. Every single one of them is a Canadian federalist. They're nationalists, but they are not separatists and they have committed themselves very, very strongly to the unity of our country." - April 5, 2004
Martin watered down the Liberal party so that the concepts of loyalty and core beliefs are non-existent,
and now when one of his experiments blows up in his face, he is nowhere to be found.
Yup, he's definitely still leading like he always has. >>>
http://www.tdhstrategies.com/home.htm
Posted by: maz2 at February 9, 2006 04:44 PM
Where's Steve Janke?
Why hasn't he commented on this strange contradiction in what he said then and what he said now?
Posted by: Dave at February 9, 2006 04:52 PM
The question of Belinda telling Mackay about her move is merely an insight into the relative importance she put on political versus personal relationships, especially when they were in conflict. She could have broken up with Peter ahead of her move to the Liberals, at least saving him the embarrassment of the two being so closely linked.
It comes off as heartless. When asked about any regrets of moving to the Liberals after the Tory win on January 23, she said "absolutely none whatsoever". If I were Peter, I'd be hurt by the comment. Hurt deeply.
The Emerson situation has no personal component.
As for the rest, again it plays into the timeliness of the move. The Liberals were facing an imminent non-confidence vote, after going a week ignoring a previous non-confidence vote. An election was a distinct possibility. Today the Conservatives haven't even taken their seats, and the move has no obvious impact on anything other that bolstering the government's position on softwood lumber.
I already made my point clear in another post. The move of an MP at a time when the government is in dire straits leaves open the possibility of gross abuses, such as awarding a cabinet post to a seriously underqualified MP. That sort of thing makes me very nervous. Emerson's move doesn't come close to that situation, so I'm much more calm about it.
How can you separate one from the other? You can't.
Posted by: Steve Janke at February 9, 2006 05:07 PM
Bull, Steve!
You have some nerve, trying to rationalize and justify Emerson's crossing t the CPC, suggesting that it's okay because it's "not as bad" as what Stronach did.
It's like saying Jeff Dahmer wasn't as bad as Ted Bundy because the latter killed more people.
Both Stroanch and Emerson's crossing is appalling! That's the consistent position to take.
What did Stronach say to justify crossing to the Liberals? "Being in government is where I can get the most done for the people of my riding."
That was a moot point to the critics (yourself among them) who said that the point is that she was elected as a Conservative and now (last June) she's sitting as a Liberal." And how many other conservatives echoed those sentiments?
Steve, you remind me of Liberal supporters who argued the evils of both the GST and free trade and then after the '93 election they made excuses for their party's new-found defence of such policies because they just couldn't put principal above partisanship.
I don't want to become what I so dispised with the Liberal Party.
Steve, if you ever want to switch allegiances (like Emerson and Stroanch) and decide one day that you now support the Liberal Party, it should be an easy transition.
They welcome unprincipaled, unethical, integrity-challenged flip floppers such as yourself.
Posted by: Jim at February 9, 2006 06:07 PM
Angry, Angry, Angry
Keep spinning new angles Angry.
You may muddy the water slightly but the fact remains , Steven Harper ran on returning some semblence of sanity to the political process in Ottawa, and only a complete partisan can now countance what he did on his first day in office.
Here's hoping that our new PM will soon come to his senses and realize that when one talks the talk, then he must also do the walk.
This old saying also applies to Bloggers.
Cheers
Posted by: Guardsman at February 9, 2006 06:44 PM
Holy cow Jim...well said, if a wee bit harsh...lol
Meet the new boss...
Posted by: Dave at February 9, 2006 07:43 PM
 
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