David Emerson: Media Watch

Media Highlights for Sunday March 5 2006 – David Emerson

Mar 5 (CBC News) Voters in mock byelection want Emerson to resign

Voters in David Emerson’s riding are putting more pressure on him to resign following his defection to the Conservatives after being elected as a Liberal in the Jan. 23 federal election.

More than 900 people in his Vancouver-Kingsway riding voted in a mock election on Saturday. Nearly 95 per cent said they want Emerson to resign and run in a byelection.

Mar 5 (Kamloops This Week) Tory mutes don’t surprise

Silence blankets Conservative MPs across the country. Two weeks ago, KTW surveyed those Tory parliamentarians who were re-elected in January and had supported an NDP private member’s bill in November that, had it been adopted, would have prevented Vancouver-Kingsway MP David Emerson from defecting to the Conservatives.

All 38 MPs were e-mailed the following question: “Based on your Yea-vote on Peter Stoffer’s Bill C-251 last November, will you encourage Stephen Harper to ask David Emerson to step down and run in a byelection?”

None of them responded.

“When you are in opposition, you’re very talkative and you can’t get enough of the media,” Stoffer, a New Democrat MP from Nova Scotia, told KTW. “Now you’re in government, you have a bunker mentality. You can’t go against the leader of government,” Stoffer said, “because that may ruin your chances of progressing within the party.”

Safeguarding our democracy ought to be more important than progressing within our party.

March 5 (The China Post, Taiwan) Canada PM challenges probe

Canada’s new Conservative prime minister, Stephen Harper, found himself under investigation on Friday by the country’s ethics commissioner but dismissed him as a Liberal appointee who is not believable.

Now we have China and Taiwanese press covering the story. Citizens: +1, Emerson, International Trade Minister: 0

Mar 5 (Jim Fox, MyrtleBeachOnline) The Canadian Report: Ad Exec pleads guilty to fraud

Ethics commissioner Bernard Shapiro will investigate conflict-of-interest allegations against Prime Minister Stephen Harper. He will examine what was behind the decision by former Liberal David Emerson to switch to Harper’s Conservative government elected in January to become international trade minister.

Even the snow-birds are being kept in the loop, in the same breath as Jean Brault’s guilty plea and the Mexico murders. That’s the company one keeps when bad decisions go wild…

Mar 5 (The Peninsula, Qatar) Canada PM under probe on defection

And the middle east tunes in, too. Citizens: +1, Emerson and Harper: 0. Too many other instances of the ethics story to include in the media summary.