An unlikely ally

Brad Trost represents, in my opinion, the very worst of the Conservative Party. A true Reform-a-tory he would have us all living back in the 1950’s when men were men and the little lady was barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen. As conservative as Saskatoon-Humboltd may be I cannot believe that his ideas represent the thinking of a majority of its residents; instead, I expect by wrapping himself in Conservative blue he was able to cruise to victory without anyone seriously questioning his credentials or beliefs, or even caring.

So, given my personal views on Mr. Trost, I find myself now quite surprised to be agreeing with him on his latest crusade against party discipline in Ottawa. (link) I have posted on this topic before (here), bemoaning the fact that so many supposedly intelligent and independent thinkers roll over and play dead as soon as they arrive in the Nation’s Capital. In my opinion, no job warrants selling your soul to keep your self-proclaimed ‘boss’ happy and I immediately lose respect for anyone who does so voluntarily. (In fact, their real bosses should be the electorate who put them in Ottawa, not Harper, Rae, et al, who can apparently control their behaviour with the promise of a cabinet post some day, or at least their very own car and driver.)

So I am following the musings of Mr. Trost with some interest. Admittedly there is a degree of schadenfreude involved in my desire to see more Conservative backbenchers revolt against the tyranny of the PMO and more specifically Harper’s choke collars installed upon the necks of his caucus members, but I also think the current state of affairs is bad for Canadian democracy. (For the record, the Harper Cons aren’t the only party to keep their caucus members on a short leash – it’s become endemic in Ottawa.)

Whether this is just a flash in the pan, public musings by a disgruntled MP, or something more will depend on what happens next. Either other backbench MPs will start to speak out (Where is Max Bernier?), or Harper will give a quick tug on the leash and Mr. Trost will slide back into a position of irrelevance until he experiences another momentary flash of integrity and lets us know what he really thinks.