Opinions

The fall of the house of Paul

(sung to the tune of Waltzing Matilda)

Belinda Stronach’s crossing the floor to the Liberals comes as no surprise to me, as I have long held the view that ‘Crossing Belinda’ was a Liberal time bomb in the Conservative Party. To call her an "opportunist" is to understate her commitment to herself. Let’s just say that Belinda has taken advantage of an opportunity that could ultimately put her into the prime minister’s office.

Belinda’s one purpose in entering politics was to gain power. Running for the leadership of the Conservative Party last year would have put her on the fast track to power had she won. Losing that race and subsequently having to sit as a common MP didn’t suit Belinda’s agenda, so when the opportunity to make cabinet as a Liberal came along, Belinda had no choice but to betray her constituents as well as her party, as this was too good an opportunity to pass up.

In making the announcement of Belinda’s defection, Paul Martin claimed that Belinda was doing "what she believes is best for Canada." Right. And the Liberal bagmen in Quebec stole all that money in order to preserve national unity.

Belinda decried the "blind partisanship" currently rampant in the House of Commons and said that she wanted to "bring greater ethics" to Parliament. She could not bring herself to collude with the Bloc Quebecois to defeat the Liberals, even though she did that very thing a couple of times last week. She stated it was a "very, very difficult" decision for her to reach. I’ll bet! I think the offer of becoming Human Resources Minister made that decision just a tad more palatable.

Is Belinda’s departure going to make a big difference in the ultimate outcome in the House of Commons tomorrow? My guess is that it won’t. It’s likely that the government will fall and an election will follow. Was Belinda’s decision to bail from the Conservatives a good decision for her? Only time will tell. Truth is, it’s a hard gamble that could leave poor Belinda out in the cold, as those who elected her to sit as a Conservative might just be mad enough to make her pay by electing another Conservative. If she runs and loses, Belinda will follow in the footsteps of her father, Frank, who also ran for the Liberals and lost.

Ultimately, the departure of Belinda from the Conservative Party is a good thing. There is very little about Belinda Stronach that’s conservative in any sense of the word and her sense of ethics is much closer to Paul Martin’s than to Stephen Harper’s. Any politician that can be bought as cheaply as Belinda was bought couldn’t possibly have the good of the country at heart.

Only time will tell if Belinda’s move was as good for Belinda as she imagined it would be. The only certainty here is that ‘Crossing Belinda’ and the Liberal Party of Canada richly deserve one another.