Bad Start

Last week in Canadian politics was a week of speculation and hypotheticals. One by one, prominent Liberals were announcing that they would not be running in the party's leadership race. Still, many potential contenders remain, and none has yet to officially announce candidacy. One such person was David Emerson, who served as Industry Minister under Paul Martin. As of this morning, the suspense surrounding Mr. Emerson was no more.

Emerson was among those sworn in today as cabinet ministers in Stephen Harper's Conservative government. The man who the voters of Vancouver Kingsway elected as their Liberal member of parliament just two weeks ago is now the Conservative Minister of International Trade.

It's a reverse-Belinda, minus the confidence crisis. So much for the hoped-for end to surreptitious backroom deals.

Both the NDP and the Conservative emphasized ethics and accountability in their election platforms. It is one of the few issues of common ground between the two parties and one that they were widely expected to cooperate on. Yet there is one major difference between the two ethics packages. The NDP proposed that MPs who wanted to cross the floor to another party would have to submit first to a by-election. The Conservatives oppose this proposal on the grounds that it gives too much power to parties instead of individual MPs.

This goes back to the question of voter intentions. Do voters vote for candidates based on party affiliation or based on the individual merit? If the vote is based on party affiliation, it implies that it is immoral to cross the floor. If it is based on individual merit, then the constituents have expressed faith in their MP to make the right decisions, regardless of partisan affiliation. In our electoral system, however, there is no way to distinguish between the two options. Each voter makes up his or her own mind based on many factors and it is impossible to determine which factors overwhelmingly prevail in any given riding. This is why the NDP is right. A by-election is the only way to determine the voters' intentions, and is the only way to determine whether an MP has the moral right to cross the floor.

That's right, I'm agreeing with socialists. I think I just saw a pig floating by the window.