Crossing The Floor

Well the big news today is that Belinda Stronach has crossed the floor and joined the Liberal Cabinet:

In a move that's given a sudden boost to the minority government while sparking calls of betrayal from the Tories, Conservative MP Belinda Stronach crossed the floor Tuesday to join the Liberal party.

Stronach, who was considered one of the rising young stars of the Tory caucus, has joined the Liberal cabinet and was rewarded with the portfolio of minister of human resources.

If I wanted to complain about the Liberal Party I'ld have plenty to talk about but I'ld prefer to discuss Stronach herself and her relationship with the Conservative Party.

First off, would someone please explain to me what conservative principles Belinda ever stood for? I can't remember any. Her entire political career to this point has consisted of nothing but her attempting to be a liberal without actually being a member of the Liberal Party. Does anyone disagree here?

The simple fact is that she has found her true home. She always has been a liberal and as such she belongs in the Liberal Party.

My real point of contention though is with those conservatives who somehow led themselves to believe that she was a conservative, and who for some bizarre reason are upset by this entire episode.

It kind of reminds me of people who date someone who treats them like shit. They totally put up with it until the very end and then after the breakup occurs they mope around sulking and wondering why the person didn't treat them better. It's pathetic. Get a bloody grip people.

Update @ 2:51pm

Angry in the Great White North makes a pretty solid observation about the types of information Stronach might provide the Liberal leadership on the election plans of the Conservative Party.

This of course would require the Conservative Party to have 'plans', the existence of which could be convincingly disputed.

Update @ 3:02pm

Daimnation! provides this interesting quote (follow all the links to the original):

The lede here--that this move pushes the constitutional crisis which began last week into full-scale red-alert mode--hasn't just been buried, it's been taken out and shot. It is arguable whether Stronach's defection is a "blow" to the Conservatives in either the short or the long term. What's not arguable is that the delay imposed last week on a formal non-confidence vote in the House of Commons has now--with the balance of power in the House teetering on the razor's edge--visibly become a banana-republic power tactic.

[...]

The whole point of the tradition that the confidence of the House will be tested at once, upon the government's defeat in a supply-related division, is to prevent exactly the sort of shenanigan just perpetrated. Martin has used the delay he imposed unilaterally to purchase the services of a disaffected Conservative leadership candidate--one, it bears noting, elected by her constituents as a Conservative. (She'll be in charge of "democratic renewal", says Martin--never let it be said the man lacks a taste for irony.) "I am not sure," Bliss concluded, "that Canada has ever had such a serious parliamentary crisis." There can be no doubt about it now. If the Liberals win Thursday's confidence vote by virtue of Stronach's presence on the government benches, we will continue to have a government openly acknowledged to be illegal by most if not all of the major constitutional authorities in the country.

The author makes a very good point. The Liberals did lose a vote in the last election, and no matter how the Liberals try to spin it, if everyone taking part in the vote considers it a confidence motion then it is a confidence motion. The governing party does not get the pleasure of determining which votes 'count' and which don't. That's how a parliamentary democracy works.

It really makes you wonder about the future of the country when the governming party can ignore a confidence measure and simply reschedule it till after all their bribes have paid off.

Bizarre.