N.S. riding association defies Harper, supports MP booted from Tories

[CBC News]

A Conservative riding association in northern Nova Scotia is defying Prime Minister Stephen Harper and throwing its support behind renegade MP Bill Casey.

Former Conservative MP Bill Casey is seen here voting against the federal budget in the House of Commons in Ottawa in June of this year.
(Tom Hanson/Canadian Press) ​

Scott Armstrong, president of the Cumberland-Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley riding association, said Sunday the board has voted to support Casey, who was booted from the Tory caucus in June for voting against the federal budget.
Casey had argued the fiscal plan gutted a 2005 deal that protected natural resource revenues from equalization clawbacks.
Last week, Harper announced an agreement to end the row between Nova Scotia and Ottawa, but said that Casey would not be able to run for the Conservatives in the next federal election. Harper has the final say about whether Casey can run as a Conservative.
Full Story
Should Harper respect the will of the local riding association?


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[JoeSchmoe]

Why should he? It's not like Canada is a true democracy.... who cares who the backbencher from some riding out in the sticks is... they could have trained monkeys do just as effective a job at nodding their heads when the PM tells them how to vote. And the Liberal trained monkeys would shake their heads and making agitated monkey noises whenever Harper opened his mouth to speak.

 

[lone wolf]

Considering Harper promised MPs could vote according to constitiency voice and conscience, shouldn't a man with honour stand by his word?

Wolf

 

[missile]

Casey has honorable intentions, while the jury is still out on Harpers.

 

[Colpy]

I'm a little divided on this one.....you see I actually know off-shore resources DO NOT belong to the provinces, they are controled by the Feds. It would be nice if a few others actually realized the entire Nfld, NS debate over "their" resources is BS from the word GO. ANYTHING the Feds let the provinces keep is a simple gift from Ottawa............so Casey was out of line.

At the same time, he was probably acting in good faith for his constituents......

Harper should meet with him, explain to him the realities of constitutional ownership of resources outside the 3 mile limit, and the realities of party discipline in our system.......and let him run if he shows some comprehension of those facts.

 

[gerryh]

Should Harper respect the will of the local riding association?

If he is a man.....YES...... if he thinks he's the second comming...NO.

 

[Tonington]

But Colpy, according to the Offshore accords, those natural resources are Nova Scotia's. The previous arrangements between Ottawa and Nova Scotia say so. The agreement in the 80's gave Nova Scotia sole ownership.

Also, Mr. MacKay at one point said no MP would be booted from caucus for voting his/her conscience, obviously he was out of line as that clearly was not the intent of Mr. Harper. This is my riding, and I can tell you that if Harper thumbs his nose, there are two possible outcomes for him, bad and worst. Bad would be, he loses a seat and Casey is elected as Independent. Worse still for him, is the vote gets splintered between Casey as Independent and the Conservative candidate, giving the seat to the Liberal or NDP. The former of the two is more likely in my opinion.

 

[jwmcq625]

For starters the Liberals never should have started with these side deals, and that all started by giving in to Quebec every time they whined. ALL provinces should be treated as equal partners in Canada. NB and PEI seems to be the only two provinces that are actually have-not provinces, yet NL and NS want to classified as have-not's for the purposes of keeping their transfer payments as if they ware still have-nots. I can see why On, and AB are pissed, why should they continue to pay transfer payments to provinces that are no longer have-nots? As for Quebec, they should be made to remit their QPP and Income Taxes to Ottawa, just like the rest of Canada does, or none of us remit money to Ottawa. Unfortunately for us, what started out as a temporary measure to support the war effort (income taxes), now takes larger and larger slices from our wages. What we really need in this country is a tax revolt. It's not as if they can put us all in jail.

 

[Tonington]

For the sake of my curiousity, what would you define as a have not province? Would GDP per capita be a obligatory factor? Or perhaps social spending? Income tax collected?

Do you also think we shouldn't have the Territorial Formula Financing?

 

[TenPenny]

I applaud Bill Casey for his stand. He made a principled stand, and should be applauded for it. Especially since the pervertatives, I mean Conservatives, made a show out of saying that members could think for themselves, and not get kicked out.

I think that NL and NS are wrong to want non-renewable resources not counted for equalization purposes, but realistically it requires a commitment to use the same benchmark for all provinces, whether to count royalties or not.

All of this, however, should have NO bearing on the local association's ability to pick the candidate. There should be NO interference by the leader in the selection of local candidates.

 

[lone wolf]

Wow ... can you say have your Kate and Edith too?

Wolf

 

[William Ashley]

NS is touchy ground for the conservatives, having a non party indpt conservative could still be interesting, ain't NS traditionally a liberal area - I recall Alexa McDonounagh pulling in Halifax or something now isn't like Day or something out there... anyway not sure what is going on, but I'm generally questionable about the whole party thing.. the voice of the person rather than voice of the people or voice of the people of the party rather than the people of the riding thing really bothers me with the idea of parliament - I'd like a representative system rather than party rule - but that really isn't the case after well confederation.

I'd much rather like bring your votes with you.. that is anyone who has votes can speak or raise issue in parliament on a "populus and time basis" within classes of numbers of votes (to enable a variation of people to speak not just those with the most votes to address varying vote demographics to house their view and concerns to address not only major party issues but also voice lobby concerns that major parties may not like), with every single vote counts not every person with a majority of votes with the riding alone. (although my ideal legislative system is much more involved then that)

Anyway regardless of what happens I think the constituents being represented is good... but once again does everyone in the consituency agree?

The whole NS coup thing is odd... create a profile that otherwise might not be there.. but I can only hope that all works out for everyone involved.