We'll Always Have Parrish

[bcholmes]

Prime Minister Paul Martin has kicked Carolyn Parrish out of the Liberal party. Almost certainly because she appeared on a CBC comedy show stomping on a George Bush doll, and talking at great length about how much she dislikes the current Liberal regime. For my part, I actually admire Parrish for refusing to be a good little quiet backbencher, given how much grief Martin has given MPs like her (and Copps, and others). I'm also less than thrilled with Sam Bulte for braying out the party line for the press; c'mon Sam, you know Martin is no friend of yours.

Martin probably gains brownie points with Bush just prior to Bush's planned visit on November 30th, but man, the government is really tenuous right now. In theory, Carolyn Parrish could bring down the government.

Paul Wells commented tonight on CBC that he believed that when the government falls, it will be by more than one vote, and it will be because Martin wants it to fall. Speaking of Wells, I loved his little conclusion to this whole affair:

And now we come to day's most richly entertaining lesson. No prime minister can tolerate a display of open contempt from somebody who is supposed to be a member of his team. The proper response to such behaviour is dismissal. Paul Martin reached that inevitable conclusion today.

Just as Jean Chrétien reached the same conclusion in June, 2002.

Comments

[bcholmes.livejournal.com]

She now sits as an Independent. There is no process in Canadian politics for Members of Parliament to be forcibly removed from their seats.

As an Independent, she doesn't get time to ask questions during question period and she doesn't get money for research or staff. In the next election, she won't get any campaign financing from the Liberals, and it's very rare for Independents to be elected.

Her career as an MP is probably over, although it's possible that she might return if Paul Martin were to step down as party leader. There's also some chance that the publicity she's receiving will help her out in the next election.

In some ways, she's more free, now, to vote any way she wants. For example, she's against the US Missle Defense System that the Liberals are officially supporting (even though there are a lot of Liberal MPs who are personally against it). As a Liberal, she would have been expected to vote with the party on the matter. But this is one of those weird things: if MPs break ranks and vote against the party, the worst that can happen is that they'd be expelled from the party.