It is incredibly difficult to feel badly for David Emerson, the erstwhile Minister of Trade who ran under the Liberal platform and crossed over to the Conservatives before Parliamentarians sat in their green seats.
The people of Vancouver-Kingsway have kept up the pressure in the hopes that a federal policy will take shape, similar to Manitoba’s rules for politicans who wish to change parties and cross the isle.
Emerson can say whatever he wants to - by accepting a Conservative Cabinet post he boosted his MP’s salary and showed a willingness to be used by a federal party as well as what seems to be a genuine niavety about the sensibilities of consitutents and increased scrutiny by a peckish press gallery. Parliament is not his playground.
The Toronto Star reported this week that Emerson told his former Liberal aide that he is frustrated because of the fiercely anti-Liberal partisanship displayed by the Tories and because of Harper’s “hard-ass” insistence on getting his own way with cabinet.
Emerson yesterday denied most of those claims, saying the aide chose to spin their conversation. He was candid in his speech to the board of trade about how hard the last two months have been for him.
“This is one of the few friendly audiences I get to speak to,” he said.
He called himself a “walking scar” and joked that “nothing hurts any more.” The crowd was silent.
Afterwards he told reporters he did have lunch with his former aide and told him he’s had a hard time since he crossed the floor and that friends have turned on him.
If nothing hurts anymore, one wonders if he is eroding into a poorer human being and that isn’t something to joke about. Of course friends are going to walk away – if Emerson is unable to grasp why, then perhaps the silence from people he considers his peers will get through to him. But I doubt the voters of Vancouver-Kingsway are holding their breath.
via Bourque NewsÂ
One has to wonder who Stephen Harper approached before he went to Emerson.
Obviously the nice fat salary, comfy cabinet position and perks may well have been available to the greediest contender.
Harper needed that area, since there are no conservatives.
Guess we will never know. For every protester in the Vancouver-Kingsway riding there are probably 5,000 Canadians who would be standing along side them physically if it wasn’t such a large country.
Emerson will never get my sympathy. His poor family – having to live with him and the fallout from all this – that’s another matter.