"Bev Desjarlais, former NDP MP, who movingly traced her political and spiritual pilgrimage since winning the Churchill (Manitoba) seat in 1997.

She said her Christian faith, formed in her youth, developed -- and was tested -- during her years as an MP.

It developed through meeting with politicians from other parties, who shared her spiritual and social justice values.

And the testing came when she broke with her party's requirement that its MPs vote in favour of same-sex marriage.

She subsequently lost the NDP nomination in Churchill, ran as an independent in the January 23 election and lost the riding to her former party's candidate. During the campaign, she says, she found herself becoming bitter toward her political opponents.

After taking a "time out" to reflect, she re-emerged ready to accept whatever the future held.

Last week, she accepted, with minimal hesitation, an offer from newly-minted Conservative veterans affairs minister Greg Thompson, to be his executive assistant."

and will the useless Liberal ethics commisioner Shapiro now investiage her as well for changing from the NDP?

Posted by: NDP note | 5-Mar-06 4:08:42 PM +
http://westernstandard.blogs.com/shotgun/2006/03/ezra_levants_de.html#comments

Posted by: maz2 at March 6, 2006 10:14 PM

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Excellent thread, Steve. Canadians are so insulated from that kind of violence, we feel we're immune. Ask the Air India families how immune we are.

Interesting post, maz2... I know you're being facetious about Shapiro but I'm willing to bet the NDP aren't happy with this turn of events. After all, it's one thing to break ranks and sit as an independent. It's something else altogether to consort with the enemy.

Posted by: Mac at March 6, 2006 11:31 PM

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No matter what Bev Desjarlais has character.Her acceptance to be executive assistant to Greg Thompson should tell Jack something and put the NDP characters nicely in their place ,them with their two faced attacks on Mr.Harper and Mr. Emmerson.Watching Peter Julian on Mike Duffy live the other day with a smurk on his face telling how unethical the Emmerson move was, makes one sick to the stomach.Mr.Harper has the makings of being a PM Canada needs.

Posted by: Jan at March 7, 2006 05:57 AM

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I'm still surprized people watch CBC or CTV let alone Mike 'Buffy'. If yer sick to the stomache, then don't watch it. Akin to banging your head on a wall - trust me it will feel better after you stop. I haven't watched CBCPravada or CTVTass for years now and don't feel deprived.

Ok, I'll be honest, I tried watching it a couple of weeks ago during the Olympics, but that only lasted uh, 5 minutes. Got bored with the talking heads, click.

Good for Bev, hope more wake up and do something ethical.

Funny how Belinbo's name isn't in the news as much now.

Posted by: tomax at March 7, 2006 10:15 AM

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The ethics dude is toast. A new guy will be appointed shortly... Ed Broadbent...

True true... I know its true, I saw it on TV.

Posted by: Curtis at March 7, 2006 10:24 AM

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We're not immune to the violence overseas anymore as Martin, just before leaving office placed an egg in Harper's nest: namely the radical change of Canadian troops from a peacekeeping role to a combatants' role.

It involves Canadian politics, and a kind of 'policy crossing the floor', because in this Martin moved against Chretien's policy, and placed Harper in a difficult position. This egg will hatch a lizard.

This egg will fill the daily news with first the deaths of canadians, and then as Canadians retaliate (and it is always civilians that suffer the brunt of retaliation in this kind of war), there will be the inevitable demands for enquiries into atrocities committed by canadian soldiers dealing with the impossible in the wrong country.

Already now, most news casts are filled with this 'Canadians at war' stuff, and this will characterize Harpers term, thanks to the egg Martin laid in his basket. The rest of the positive Conservative agenda will be sidelined by this issue, as already it has become about Harper refusing a parliamentary debate or vote on this radical policy shift Martin laid, also without a vote. But this egg has been handed by Martin to Harper, and will stymie the Conservatives until a new shining Liberal leader comes along to 'take Canada out of the war', and the only public memory of the short-lived Conservative government will be the images of deaths and atrocities.

Posted by: brock at March 7, 2006 10:42 AM

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Wow!
Belinda Stronach bad for crossing the floor and David Emerson is good for crossing the floor?
Hypocrite!

Posted by: Dave C at March 7, 2006 11:07 AM

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Interesting thoughts brock, I think the timing is incidental to the election, but it maybe one of the reasons, martin engineered the defeat.

Canadians have never immune from overseas violence. The international conspiracy of nutjobs, have long viewed us as the 'helper of Satan' and we have long been on the target list.
Deaths of any nation's soldiers are unfortunate, but for too long, too many American soldiers, too many european allied soldiers, have been allowed to die for our interests. Simply because our government was too cowardly to put our military forward to protect our interests.

Posted by: Curtis at March 7, 2006 11:16 AM

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Hmmm, funny, haven't heard, read any comments regarding the blasphemous cartoon depicting Jesus giving oral sex to a pig.

Don't Muslims consider Jesus a prophet? Where's the demonstrations?

Posted by: tomax at March 7, 2006 05:08 PM

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Once again, most of the world's opium-heroin comes from Afghanistan. Nut-jobs though they are, the Taliban clamped down on opium production. With the US defeat of these nut-jobs, heroin production increased as never before, so that now Afghanistan, under this US-Canada-Nato held up government, sees a whopping 60% of its economy made up of the heroin-opium trade, making this US-version of Afghanistan the number one narco state in the world today. This is the 'pro-West' Afghanistan Canadian soldiers are now dying to defend, because 'we don't cut and run'. The Opium Wars were fought by China to prevent the British from weakening the people with opium. Canada is fighting in Afghanistan to prop up the premier exporter of opium to Canada, and our inner cities are rife with the results.

A further problem over there is that we are not defending even this narco regime by being there. We are driving around as ducks in a shooting gallery serving no purpose whatsoever except to shore up support for the nut-jobs proving that its about another foreign invasion, like the Russians before us, instead of their national interest.

We should supply money and equipment so that the narco-based central government can build up its own army and hire enough of its own troops to fight its own battles for central control. Why would it take a bunch of pale faces to ride around there to save this narco government? The fact is, most of this narcotics money making up 60% of the Afghan economy goes into arms anyways, so they don't even need our money to buy equipment. Canadian troops would make as much sense in the jungles of Columbia as they do in narco Afghanistan.

The question remains, why did Martin in the downward slide of his mandate change radically decades of Canadian policy and put this egg into Harper's lap, and why is Harper intent on following the road Martin laid out for him?

School yard phrases like 'we don't cut and run' don't substitute for an in depth analysis of what kind of narco government we are propping up, and what kind of real effectiveness we can hope to achieve.

Posted by: brock at March 7, 2006 10:01 PM

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