David Emerson: Media Watch Feb 23

Media Highlights for Thursday February 23, 2006 – David Emerson

Feb 22 (Jessica Kerr, Mayerthorpe Freelancer) Merrifield still waiting for Parliament appointment

A second Conservative MP joins Garth Turner in criticizing Harper’s appointment of David Emerson and Michael Fortier to cabinet.

The cabinet announcement Feb. 6 was not without controversy. In assembling the new cabinet, Harper appointed David Emerson and Michael Fortier to ministerial positions. Emerson was elected under the Liberal banner and made the move to the Conservatives less than a month after the election. He was made Minister of International Trade, as well as Minister for the Pacific Gateway and for the Vancouver/Whistler Olympics.

Fortier, who did not run in the election, was appointed to a seat in the senate, something Harper campaigned against, as well as being appointed Minister of Public Works and Government Services.

The Conservative Party and its candidates campaigned on a platform of having an elected senate, and [Conservative Member of Parliament Rob] Merrifield admitted this move flew in the face of that.

On the subject of Emerson’s move across the floor, Merrifield was less forgiving. “I have very little respect for that,” he said, adding that Emerson will have to face his constituents. “Mr. Emerson has to do some answering to his people.”

Feb 22 (Rex Murphy, The National – CBC) A refusal to communicate

To perform the office of communications director it is necessary that there be communications to direct. Right now, it has about as much function as a traffic light in a cornfield. Mr. Stairs’ departure, we’re given to understand, came over the storm that greeted David Emerson’s electric performance of the 100-yard dash from the Liberal backbench to the Harper cabinet. I say “given to understand” because without a Ouija Board or a paid-up membership to the psychic hotline, finding out through more conventional channels is evidently not a possibility of the new Harper administration. Mr. Emerson speaks selectively and sporadically on this subject. Mr. Harper, after the announcement, not at all. And the issue boils away as if it has nothing to do with an election premised on accountability, and as if Mr. Harper’s most damning indictment of the Liberals through the whole eight weeks of this winter purgatory of an election was not their arrogance and shameless expediency.

Feb 23 (Vancouver, CKNW AM980) Emerson continues to stay in Vancouver rather than travel to Ottawa

While avoiding the public and the press by hiding out at home, David Emerson is costing Canadian taxpayers…

VANCOUVER/CKNW(AM980) – Vancouver/Kingsway MP and International Trade Minister, David Emerson is continuing his transition briefings here in Vancouver today with top level bureaucrats flying in for these meetings to avoid Emerson having to go to Ottawa.

A handful of top level bureaucrats have been making their way to Vancouver this week to get Emerson up to speed on his ministry while he continues to deal with a political backlash in his riding over his surprise jump to the Conservatives.

It is this idea, of the bureaucrats coming to him rather than him going to Ottawa that has raised the ire of the Canadian Taxpayer’s Federation and its B.C. Director Sara Macintyre. “I think David Emerson’s, whatever ability he brought to that ministry has certainly been diminished by his poor political judgment,” said Macintyre.

According to Air Canada.com, the cost to taxpayers for the flights alone for these bureaucrats would be around 22-thousand dollars.

Feb 23 (Mike Howell, Vancouver Courier) Divided over David

So when Emerson crossed the floor Feb. 6 to the Conservatives and accepted the portfolio of international trade minister, the wave of anger that rolled through the riding was not surprising.

That Emerson never told former prime minister Paul Martin or his once-fellow Vancouver Liberal MPs about his decision further infuriated Liberal party members and voters.

It’s now the news story that won’t go away, based in a riding that’s more divided about Emerson’s decision than many news reports suggest.

Feb 23 (Greg Pyrcz, The Digby Courier) Setting table with mixed messages

Peter [MacKay’s] recent apology for the Emerson defection, however, did not show him at his best. Part of what lawyers are taught is how sometimes to make the weaker argument look stronger, and doing so can be in the interests of justice. But surely, if there was a difference between the floor crossing of Emerson and Stronach, it was that Belinda could have, at the time of her defection, easily re-won her riding under her new party banner. In politics, sometimes “no comment” is the better answer.

Much has been written about Minister Emerson’s move from a Liberal cabinet post one hour to a Conservative one the next. This is well short of the change in ethics for which Canadians were calling on Jan 23.

Though Emerson may yet bail out, Stephen’s judgment won’t soon be forgotten, regardless of Canada’s Olympic results or Ezra Lavant’s attention getting/diverting. It has undone Harper’s integrity campaign, and it was unnecessary.

Here, and in the appointment of Michael Fortier to lead Public Works from an un-accountable Senate seat, the symbolic value of having a minister from Vancouver or Montreal is not nearly as important as the other symbolic messages sent in the process.
The argument, that they couldn’t otherwise hear or attend to what Vancouver or Montreal wanted, is just goofy.

These sorts of symbolic mistakes will resonate and likely will take out of play the high ground for the Conservatives in the next round. They have wasted a lot of political capital. And they may have moved the next election ahead to boot.

Feb 23 (Code, Jacobs – The Georgia Straight) Emerson equates business world with political one

David Emerson, Stephen Harper, the Vancouver Board of Trade, and the premier of B.C. would have us believe that secretly negotiating a move to a competing organization with attendant perks and inducements—acceptable in the corporate world—is also ethical for a member of Parliament. This is nonsense. Most of us voted for the party platform and national leader we believed would best serve the public interest—not a free agent. Disgruntled shareholders can divest whenever they wish. Citizens lack that luxury.

It is important that candidates for public office grasp the distinctions between business ethics and the ethics of government. Fiscal accountability should be common to both spheres, but in many respects governments cannot be run like businesses, and vice versa. The grafting of commerce onto governance corrupts each and leads to ruin. If Mr. Emerson cannot respect the ethics of elected public office, he should return to private life.

Feb 23 (Georgia Straight) Exposing the boss’s pay

As International Trade Minister, David Emerson is responsible for trade issues including the long-standing softwood lumber dispute with the United States. Even if we could hold Mr. Emerson up to high ethical standards, which clearly is not possible in light of his betrayal of voter’s trust, there would be a perception of conflict of interest in light of his continuing ties to Canfor, Canada’s largest lumber producer.

• Canfor’s annual pension entitlement for Vancouver Kingsway MP David Emerson at the time of his “normal retirement” based on his 9.33 years of “credited service” to the company: $371,000
• Average family income in Vancouver Kingsway in 2000 (the last year figures are available): $54,724

Feb 23 (Juliet O’Neill, CanWest News) Former ministers dominate Liberal shadow cabinet

Dominic LeBlanc landed international trade. He’ll cross swords in question period with David Emerson, the controversial MP who was elected as a Liberal last month but crossed the floor of the House of Commons to join Harper’s cabinet.

Divided over David

A lengthy article in the latest issue of the Vancouver Courier, now on doorsteps and also available online, presents a balanced view of the Emerson defection from all sides. I spoke to Courier reporter Mike Howell at an Emerson protest rally last week.

But not everybody there was an NDP supporter.

Longtime Conservative Mike Watkins, who was once national committee chair of the Progressive Conservatives, and Kevin Chalmers, a senior volunteer in both Emerson campaigns, bravely addressed the crowd.

Watkins, a soccer coach, had just come from a practice and was dressed in shorts and wearing a whistle around his neck.

“I’m here to ask the rhetorical question, ‘Why aren’t there more Conservatives speaking out against this? Am I the only one here, or the only one foolish enough to get up in front of a crowd?’”

He then grabbed his whistle and blew two sharp beeps.

“Emerson, you’re back to the showers for unsportsmanlike conduct.”

A correction to that article to ensure the impression it leaves is accurate—I was a national committee chair for the former Progressive Conservatives, but was one of many. I chaired the National Technology Committee for the party, was a member of the Vancouver Kingsway Riding Association, Tour and Advance Chair for BC Council, past Secretary of the Vancouver South Conservative Party riding association, and worked in various capacities on campaigns at the local and national leadership level.

Like many members of the Progressive Conservatives and Canadian Alliance parties – the founding organizations of today’s Conservative Party – I did my bit wherever I could to help prepare our party for the time when conservatives would bring back to Canada a principled government.

Volunteers work hard within all parties to move their political agenda forward. Unfortunately it seems that at the grass roots level we have a deeper and more robust appreciation for principle than some of our leaders.

It’s now the news story that won’t go away…

Got that right.

Class Action Lawsuit Against Emerson

Peter Dimitrov, a human rights and trial lawyer and Vancouver Kingsway voter, is organizing a class action lawsuit against David Emerson. (The Tyee, Feb 23 2006)

With respect to the matters in Vancouver-Kingsway, it is a fact that 82 percent of the constituents did not vote for the Conservative party. It is also a fact that the ballot upon which voters cast their votes stipulated both David Emerson’s name and his Liberal Party affiliation. Peter Dimitrov

One of the arguments put forward in defense of Emerson (and Harper) is that he did it for his country; that he did it to advance his non-partisan agenda. That sounds plausible, but its not reality on the ground Mr. Emerson, as you well know that advancing any part of a political agenda requires the agreement of the people. Our party system allows political parties to advance an overall agenda, and the people choose one, after weighing all the pros and cons, that better reflects their needs or their personal vision for Canada. In Vancouver Kingsway, as in all of the City of Vancouver, the people chose a vision which emphasized collective social programs and direction, over the Conservative’s more individualistic approach.

As has been discussed extensively on these pages, Emerson ran a highly partisan campaign. What’s more, as a Liberal Cabinet Minister, Emerson was sworn to uphold his party’s positions on key programs and decisions made by cabinet, including Canada’s withdrawal from future US Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) participation, the recent Kelowna Aboriginal Accord, and the Liberal Child Day Care and Early Learning Agreement, and many others.

Now, as a Conservative cabinet minister, Emerson is sworn to uphold cabinet decisions which will either overturn or cancel those positions or programs. Clearly Vancouver Kingsway voters did not vote for an ABM-lovin’, day care-cancellin’ government.

The people of Vancouver Kingsway did not consent to have their representative support the aims, principles, and policies espoused by the Conservative party, yet as a new Conservative Party member and Cabinet Minister, Emerson must support just that.

Whether we Conservatives like it or not, the people in this riding and across all of Vancouver spoke – they did not chose our plan – and it is our obligation and duty to listen to them. Instead, we’ve steam-rollered over their vote, with the appointment of David Emerson, and further perpetuated the feeling in this riding that Conservative governments care a great deal about the fictional riding of ‘Vancouver and BC Business Interests’ but don’t give a damn about the residents of Vancouver Kingsway.

Speaking as a member of the party, I have a hard time disagreeing with them in this instance because that is the truth of the matter. Instead of working to earn the respect of the people here, we’ve given them a prima facie case to condem Conservatives for at least another 50 years, roughly the last time a Conservative MP was elected here.

Well I won’t go along with it. Speaking out for what is right is the only thing I can do in this matter, as principle must come first before power.

Based on my understanding of Section 3 of the charter, and the publicly available evidence respecting the context and timing of the ‘crossing,’” he says, “it is my opinion that the post-election actions of David Emerson, and perhaps the prime minister, as well, nullified the rights of the citizens of Vancouver Kingsway to play a meaningful role in the election of their elected representative and it further denied them the right to “effective representation” by the party of their choice (Liberal) and their party-affiliated representative. Peter Dimitrov

In eyes of this layman, the actions of Stephen Harper (he was not prime minister when the offer was made) contributed equally to the disenfranchisement of voters in this riding.

As representatives of the Crown, Messrs. Emerson and Harper have denied the people of Vancouver Kingsway representation (and thus taxation) by consent, a principle as old as the Magna Carta.

I fully support any effort underway to right this wrong, including Mr. Dimitrov’s work to bring forward a class action suit. Its the right thing, the principled thing, the conservative thing, to do.