Warning: light posting ahead

There may be less blog entries here than I might have preferred over the next few weeks. Unfortunately my wife has been getting some rather serious health news herself and this is taking a great deal of my attention, for obvious reasons of course. While I hope to be able to continue reading the blogs, or at least some of them and leaving the odd comment or two during that period I do not know if I will be blogging much here. This is because I prefer to do in depth blogging here as opposed to simple and short posts. I really was hoping to be able to do a post on the Ethics Report on Emerson-Harper, but while I have it to read I haven't been able to really get my mind into reading through the language and feel comfortable I am absorbing it. I do hope to have an in depth post up before the end of the week, but really I am not sure. I will say this much about it though, this was the outcome I expected. While I consider what Harper offered and Emerson accepted as a bribe I knew from reading the relevant codes that it would not be treated as such. It wasn't until it looked like Harper wasn't going to be investigated by the Ethics Commissioner that I thought he actually might have broken the ethics code. That said, just because it wasn't seen as unethical according to the rules of Parliament as established by Parliament does not give it the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval for ethics on the Emerson crossing, nor does it change the ugly reality that the only reason Emerson became a CPC MP was to remain at a Cabinet seat. To date there is still zero evidence that Emerson would have crossed without the Cabinet seat offer, nor that he would have left the Liberals if they had formed government. He may well have "noble" motives for staying in Cabinet, he may well have the needed qualifications for Cabinet, but those are not the issue. The issue is how can a man that had zero problem with the leader and policies of the party he started out as a Minister in, spend two months arguing that the CPC and Harper are dangerous to the country, have very bad policies for Canada and cannot be allowed to become government which clearly shows significant issues of conflict, then 48 hrs after the election be willing to consider a CPC invite to Cabinet and exactly two weeks to the day from the election is sworn in as a CPC Cabinet member and is the newest CPC MP.

Floor crossing typically occurs when there is an issue of conflict on principle or leadership between an MP and his/her party and/or leader. None of this existed for Emerson. Emerson himself made it clear that he crossed because he felt he could do more for his riding as a member of Cabinet, nothing more and nothing less. Well, any MP is inherently able to do more for their riding if they are a Cabinet member that is axiomatic, yet until Emerson I cannot recall another example in our history where this was the sole reason for someone crossing parties. Nor have any of the defenders of this cross ever been able to point to another example of such. Instead we hear about Churchill and how crossing the floor has a noble and rich history, which while true does not fit in this case because all those other cases had some sort of conflict of principle or leadership direction involved. Indeed the Bloc Quebecois was formed under such circumstances. So clearly there is no other example of someone crossing solely to be in Cabinet let alone immediately after an election. If there was evidence of conflict like there was in Stonach's case from prior to the crossing happening then one might be able to argue there was a principle of conflict not mentioned, but there is not.

So my opinion of what this is has not changed. I will credit Harper for cooperating with the investigation as he was obligated to do, unlike his failure to do so last year in the Grewal investigation. Which makes his loath comment on the matter all the more perplexing. By being so loath to cooperate he made this story that much bigger, and that much more negative for him and the CPC itself, and he and the CPC spent a couple of weeks being lambasted for this, so why didn't he make it clear he had cooperated instead of allowing that much more damage to be done to the CPC reputation for honesty, transparency, ethics, and moral authority to govern? Not smart politics at all.

Well, hopefully I will be able to get back to this matter and others sooner than I fear, but I did not want those few readers I have that like my work to be left wondering what was going on. As for those that do not like my work, enjoy the break but remember it is only temporary, and that when I return my policy of ignoring those that do not argue honestly will remain even while still allowing them to post their comments. Something I think most people need to understand about me, I respond online the same way I do offline to attitude from people. Come at me with hostility, disrespect, contempt and I ignore you. Come at me with courtesy and civility while you are disagreeing with me and you will get a considered response. One of the greatest powers trolls have is the ability to disrupt. Well my way of dealing with them is to let them have their say but to not respond, and at this blog I am hopeful that others can manage the same. After all it only requires skipping over their entries to read the ones with substance and there is nothing more infuriating to a troll than having their bait ignored. That to my mind is one of the ways to raise the tone of discourse online, censorship only gives them an argument to make whereas ignoring them while they spew their bilge demonstrates a willingness to face contemptuous bile with dignity and civility which only further underscores the negative conduct of trolls. It is always better to let someone hang themselves with rope they themselves created, at least I find it so.

Well, hope to see people sooner rather than later around here. I do know I am taking the weekend off and the wife and I are going to enjoy a dog show, we both could use the stress relief so I won't be leaving anything earlier than Sunday evening, I hope everyone has a nice weekend.