Breaking Promises

At yesterday’s Emerson protest rally I was the second or third of fifty people who spoke to the over 700 people assembled there. While there were a number of Conservatives in the audience that I recognized, and more that I didn’t, only one other self-identified Conservative spoke up.

I purposely got up near the front of the line to ensure that a key point was delivered early on – that the issue of Emerson’s betrayal of the majority of his electors is not an offense to partisans. I also wanted to make clear that public anger should not forget the root cause: Prime Minister Stephen Harper. For without Harper’s blessing and indeed his encouragement, Emerson would not be in a position to step into a Conservative cabinet.

For many years the issue of democratic reform and government accountability has been an issue with deep reasonance within the Reform then Canadian Alliance, and the Progressive Conservative parties, which all came together as the Conservative Party of Canada.

As one speaker said at the protest rally yesterday, the Harper-Emerson dealings, which started the very next day after the election, is as if someone took his ballot on voting day and cast it aside.

Concern over growing public cynicism over politics has been on the agenda for change, rising up out of the grass roots, of conservative-oriented parties for many years. Unfortunately the grass-roots is where political leaders apparently want to keep all the good ideas, while party and government leaders march to the tune of a different drummer.

A broken promise case in point: in an television interview in January on the french language service of the CBC (Radio-Canada), Mr. Harper was asked (paraphrased from the translation) “What will you do if you do not elect a member from Montreal? Will you appoint someone to cabinet?” To which Stephen Harper replied, smiling as he did so “No, I’ve always believed that cabinet positions should be filled from _elected members of parliament”.

Promise made, promise broken.