There's Ballsy and then there's Peter MacKay:

I have to have some degree of begrudging respect for someone who can make such obviously stupid statements and trust that people will not call him on his logic.

Quoth MacKay regarding the defection:

"What David Emerson did, I would suggest, is different, in the sense that he has done this early after the election in hopes of continuing the important work that he was doing inside a government which he was obviously very disillusioned with."

The only disillusionment that David Emerson suffered with the Liberals was that the Liberals wern't what they seemed to him to be, namely the government.


He would have been perfectly happy continuing to supportt them had they won. Now I'm not opposed to Mr. Emerson crossing the floor, though I would say that normally it's over an actual issue or having tried and become disgusted with the new situation in parliament. No, David Emerson is so disgusted by the idea of being on the wrong side of tthe mace that he ffelt it best to simply join the government of the day. The Liberals coalition hadn't changed, their stance on issues hadn't changed, they weren't allying themselves witth any party that made Mr. Emerson uncomfortable, as was the case with Blindie, he simply looked at the opposition benches and said, F*** that noise!


More From Peter:

"Unlike other moves, it didn't happen at a critical juncture that propped the government up. There wasn't that sense that there was strict reward or leadership ambition."

I believe that it is best to give people the benefit of the doubt regarding their motives, and only attack them if it is possible to disprove their reasons for taking an action. David Emerson has simply said he'd like to keep working on the Softwood file in Cabinet. He has explicitly stated that he crossed the floor for power.

David Emerson crossed the floor to retain power, it does help prop the government up, and there is a reward.

I suppose I should have come to expect this from the Ethical ConservativesTM, In fact I had I don't have a problem with the actions per se just that the Conservatives told the people that they weren't going to play the game this way. I never believed them for a second being twice shy, but I'm just going to take this opportunity to say:

I TOLD YOU SO!