Liberale lösten ‚Fühler‘ für NDP -Abgeordnete aus, um den Boden zu überqueren: Davies

„Hey, do you mind pulling out the life support monitor and jumping off the nearest ledge to your death, you know, to give us a majority…“?

It seems crass, both to offer and to consider. The Liberals need to work with the other parties, not absorb the most vulnerable. It’s a bad look.

As I have written before here, Don Davies once tabled what would be an unsuccessful private members bill requiring any MP that wished to cross the floor to either a) sit as an independent or b) resign from parliament and stand for reelection as a member of the new party in a by-election.

In Davies own riding, the prior MP, Liberal cabinet minister David Emerson, engaged in secret negotiations with Stephen Harper to cross the floor less than 24 hours after the votes were counted in 2006. We didn’t learn of this until spotting Emerson climbing out of a cab at Rideau Hall to be sworn in as a cabinet minister the Harper government, thus, making him obligated to vote against all the things he once supported and ran on.

Thousands of people protested in the riding and elsewhere, and the protests went on for months.

Davies is very familiar with the uproar Harper/Emerson’s terrible precedent, devaluing our votes, caused in the riding and across the country and is why he put that private member’s bill forward. Davies ran in 2008 and has been the writing MP ever since. Emerson never ran anywhere ever again. He can’t, the controversy and anger will dog him everywhere he goes politically.

The NDP themselves were quick to join the uproar, naturally, with Jack Layton making an appearance at a „town hall“ although ongoing the meaningful protest was led by regular citizens.

I don’t know if the federal Liberals are paying attention to this history. Local senior people in the Liberal party were supportive of the uprising at first, but at some point they started feeling that it made them look bad too. They did parachute Emerson into the riding after all. Local BC Liberals may have been trying to protect Emerson’s reputation so he could take a run at being the premier of the province down the road.

But the protests went on, and on. We were successful in making it impossible for Emerson to ever run for a political office again. A price had to be paid.

So, if there are any federal liberals reading this, pass it on. You aren’t going to get anywhere with any NDP member worth having. Certainly not Davies.

That said, there is a difference between convincing an opposition member in the third or fourth party as opposed to a member who was campaigning as a cabinet minister. Quite a different situation.

Doing it before Parliament even resumes sitting is not on though. What’s the point of our votes in that case?

Why not just combine two parties at this point?

For most Liberals and NDP voters the most important thing is keeping Conservatives out. So just combine parties and voter pools and CPC will never win again.