Brison defects to Liberals

[Are Be]

Brison defects to Liberals
Photo: Fred Chartrand/CP
Liberal Leader Paul Martin, right, listens as Nova Scotia MP Scott Brison speaks to reporters at an Ottawa news conference on Wednesday.

By ALLISON DUNFIELD
Globe and Mail Update

UPDATED AT 2:28 PM EST &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2003

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Progressive Conservative MP Scott Brison has crossed the floor to the Liberal Party, saying the party under Paul Martin's leadership reflects the kind of values he cherishes.

"We're going to see the government of Paul Martin implementing the kinds of bold ideas that I feel proud of," Mr. Brison said at a joint press conference with Liberal Leader Mr. Martin in Ottawa on Wednesday.

He said he could not, in good faith, remain in the newly established Conservative Party of Canada, created this week out of the Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservative parties.

His decision sparked harsh criticism from Progressive Conservative Leader Peter MacKay, who said it was based on Mr. Brison's political aspirations and the possibility that he may be rewarded by Mr. Martin with a cabinet post, when Mr. Martin takes office Friday.

Mr. MacKay said Mr. Brison, who lost the June leadership race to Mr. MacKay, had "turned his back on his political family."

But Mr. Brison said he felt that he had made the right choice to leave.

"All progressive conservatives now face a choice as to which political party in this new political landscape best reflects their personal values and beliefs," the Nova Scotia MP said. "I've made my choice."

The defection is a major coup to the new Liberal Leader, who will take over as prime minister on Friday.

Mr. Martin indicated that he hopes Mr. Brison will encourage other fiscal conservatives to join the Liberals.

Mr. Brison becomes the fourth Tory to drop out of the new Conservative Party of Canada. Former Tory leader Joe Clark said he cannot run for the new party in the next election. New Brunswick MP John Herron and Quebec MP Andrý Bachand also said they will not run under the new party's banner in the anticipated spring federal election.

Mr. Martin said Wednesday that he has not heard from Mr. Bachand, who is also rumoured to be considering a leap to the Liberals.

The Liberal Leader said Mr. Brison will make a "tremendous addition to our team."

"Scott informed us yesterday of his desire to join the Liberal Party rather than become a member of the new Conservative Party. It is my pleasure to announce that he will now sit as a member of our Liberal caucus."

Mr. Martin welcomed any other MP to join his "financially responsible, socially progressive and forward-looking government."
(Like that's possible! :lol !! :rollin ! )
Mr. Brison reportedly spent most of Tuesday calling friends and colleagues to inform them of his decision. He called his decision difficult, saying he consulted extensively with his close, long-time Progressive Conservative family, before making his choice.

"My mom and dad are thrilled with this," he said. "I feel very good about this."

Mr. Brison feels there has been a major shift in the political landscape and the best place for him is within the Liberal caucus.

"I think Mr. Martin will play a transformative role in the party," Mr. Brison said.

He took some flak for his constant attacks on Mr. Martin when Mr. Martin was federal finance minister and Mr. Brison was his Tory finance critic.

Mr. Brison and Mr. Martin both said they feel they have a shared interest in a number of areas. Looking forward, Mr. Brison said, he feels Mr. Martin is the best person to implement those ideas.

The two men have been speaking seriously about Mr. Martin's vision for the Liberals for about five weeks, Mr. Martin said.

"There's a lot of commonality in terms of where we would like to see Canada go and progress over next period of time," the Liberal Leader said.

Mr. Martin also took some criticism from some reporters, who suggested that welcoming Mr. Brison into his party means he is indeed going to lead a more-conservative Liberal party.

He disagreed, saying, "We are a centre-oriented party which recognizes that we must be financially able to help those less privileged."

Mr. Brison hasn't made it a secret that he was unhappy with the recent merger of the Canadian Alliance party with the Conservatives.

He has also said that he was not comfortable with remaining in a party that was led by Alliance Leader Stephen Harper.

Mr. Brison, a businessman and investment banker who is openly gay, voted in favour of the merger but said he did so with serious reservations. This week he said his endorsement of the merger was conditional on the new party's adopting progressive, centrist values.

He ran for the leadership of the Tories last June but on Tuesday ruled out a run for the top job of the new party.

As a gay MP, Mr. Brison also said, he is uncomfortable with some of the Alliance MPs' views on homosexuality — most recently, comments by Larry Spencer, who said that he would support a bill that would make homosexuality illegal.

He said that he wants to be in a party that supports diversity — the Liberals — and added that parties aligned with some intolerant ideas on issues such as homosexuality will never form a government.

After the announcement, Nova Scotia Premier John Hamm said the Mr. Brison's move to the Liberals is a blow to the newly formed Conservative Party of Canada.

Dr. Hamm says he's profoundly disappointed because he fully expected Mr. Brison would be a voice for moderation in the new party.

With a report from Canadian Press


© 2003 Bell Globemedia Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.

 

[spmarshall]

Re: Hard fiscal conservative Brison defects to Martin's righ

I also admit that I completely agree with Are Be when it comes to Paul Martin. The only thing I disagree with is whether its a good thing.

 

[cacruden]

Re: Hard fiscal conservative Brison defects to Martin's righ

If he gets rid of waste in government like:
1. Gun Registry (1 billion dollars +)
Whether you think that guns are bad or not, the only time that people are going to "get into trouble" or arrested for not having a permit -- is when they are doing something illegal in the first place (i.e. smuggling, hunting without a license, walking down the street with a handgun, robbing a bank) -- so why spend a billion dollars on creating a massive registry... when all you have to do is make other laws (with a gun as part of crime) more severe.... I would not be surprised if more people die from guns through self-inflicted wounds (suicide) than by homicide.... Maybe the money would have been better spent on suicide prevention?
2. HRDC - questional additional spending of a billion dollars
3. The Quebec Advertisement fiasco (hundreds of million - per year)
4. Purchase of Bombarier jets for government officials (a bonus for a well connected company)

Then it will be a good thing.....

When you waste billions left and right, you have to cut those precious social programs more than you would without the waste.

Two things that might be in Brison's future:
- Successor to Paul Martin
- Committie on US/Canada relations

 

[cacruden]

Re: Hard fiscal conservative Brison defects to Martin's righ

Sorry to see him go..... Obviously he got offered a plum, which we will see shortly.

If it was because he was at odds with the new Conservative Party, he would not have voted for it.... so it has to be a good offer. Everyone know the deal for the merger is not an immediate "fix", but a long-term solution so that they can be competative in 10 years or so. The new Conservative Party has to construct a "big tent" where both social and non-social conservatives feel that they belong.

Hope Brison gets a senior position in the Cabinet.

 

[andreapalladio]

Re: Hard fiscal conservative Brison defects to Martin's righ

This is hardly a surprise. Jane Taber ran a story about the Liberals recruiting him in her column weeks ago.

It's very smart politics, for both Brison & Martin. Brison gets to be a golden boy in a party that's going somewhere, and not a minority in a party that's doomed to failure. Martin gets to look inclusive, moderate and gets an excellent MP to boot.

 

[EnviroTO]

Re: Hard fiscal conservative Brison defects to Martin's righ

I am a card holding Federal PC and I didn't bother voting. Why bother... the fact Mackay sold out the party meant it was already over in my mind. I don't blame Brison for voting with the merger or for getting out. The fact that a deal was struck before there was a vote at all made it so there was no other outcome possible. If the vote failed what would you have then? A PC party with a leader that doesn't believe in the PC party and an Alliance party with a leader that doesn't believe in the Alliance party.

I find the whole idea of merging two parties to be stupid. Why would there be a need to merge two parties? Parties are about ideas and platforms... not about winning. To use the old saying "it's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game" seems quite appropriate in this regard. If you have a red wall to paint but you only have enough blue paint to cover half the wall, is teaming up with a guy with enough green paint to cover half the wall of any use? Howard Hampton and Jack Layton may not have a chance in hell of winning an election, but that doesn't diminish their relevance in Canadian politics. The fact that they are true to their beliefs and are getting a message out makes their contributions meaningful. Likewise, Mackay could have chosen to change Canada not by focusing on winning but by focusing on selling a vision... a vision that others would hear and perhaps lead them towards positive change. Perhaps in time, by bringing Canadians onside with a vision of a better country, Mackay and the PCs could have had enough blue paint for the entire wall... instead they will now look foolish trying to sell a mis-mash of colour nobody wants to buy and nobody understands.

 

[afransen TO]

Re: Hard fiscal conservative Brison defects to Martin's righ

I'm terribly disappointed. The PCs, with a solid leader, would have forced the Alliance to fold soon enough. The Alliance was already falling apart at the seams. After the spring election they could just say "Look Alliance, you have no support and you are going to keep loosing it to us. It was a fun, 15 year experiment, you made your point about the whole NEP scandal, now come home and let's get back to being the sensible, stodgy PC party we've always been." The Alliance's support has plummeted lately... honestly, the PCs would have garnered more seats as a separate entity than as a amalgam of the sensible, vote-worthy PC, and the neoconservative looney bin that is the Alliance. Many right-of-centre voters will be scared by the psychos the Alliance seems to harbour (the people who bubble to the surface every few months) and vote the the very right-leaning Martin government.


The sum is certainly less than the parts.

 

[ganjavih]

Re: Hard fiscal conservative Brison defects to Martin's righ

"The PCs, with a solid leader, would have forced the Alliance to fold soon enough."

Hmmm... I don't think so. The Alliance was here to stay unfortunately. The only option was to merge. There may be some growing pains and some short term losses but in the long run, it is best to have a single conservative party. There is a real danger that they will be too far to the right... they will simply have to learn that to get elected in large enough number to form government, they will have to move to the centre. It may take them 5 or 10 years to learn this but, ultimately, I think it is the only way the Liberals can be defeated.

 

[afransen TO]

Re: Hard fiscal conservative Brison defects to Martin's righ

I simply have to disagree. The Alliance had one shot, and they failed. The Tories were set the wipe the floor with them in the upcoming election. My guess is that they'd be irrelevent by 2008's election. Unfortunately, the Tories had a very weak pool of willing leaders....

One thing is certain: this move will cost them in the next election, on perception alone. The hardline conservatives will not support any perceived move towards the centre, and moderate conservatives are scared by the gay-hating, ultra-conservative wing of the Alliance.


Its the worst of both parties...

 

[cacruden]

Re: Hard fiscal conservative Brison defects to Martin's righ

Actually, I think you have it backwards..... getting seats in the next election means that you had to have a solid core in a given number of ridings. The Alliance has that in the west, the Tories did not have that..... the Martin lead Liberals would have destroyed the Tory party by itself again.... down to less than party status.

 

[building babel]

Re: Hard fiscal conservative Brison defects to Martin's righ

As the Liberals drift towards the centre, and stoop and scoop up people like Scott Brison, and as the Alliance cannibalizes the PC's and farts out their remains, the main winner will be the NDP.
Recent polls have suggested they are coming back.
The Liberals have left plenty of empty terrain for them to occupy.

 

[Are Be]

Re: Hard fiscal conservative Brison defects to Martin's righ

I'd suggest that the hated Brain Mulroney's government -- often seen as a patsy of the vested interests, business, the elite and snobs - was left of what the MArtin government will be. Martin will put Michael Wilson, architect of the GST- to shame.


The only thing that pissess me off to no end - and I'm sure NDP'er can understand my frustration if not necessarily sympathize- is that Martin will be praised for what the Conservatives would be crucified for.

Martin- the fiscal genius -- how hard d is it to, unilaterally, say "I'm just simply going to keep the money I was supposed to send to the provinces -- let them deal with it"? That's genius? That's betrayal!

 

[GeekyBoyTO]

Re: Hard fiscal conservative Brison defects to Martin's righ

And don't forget, the possiblity that the Liberals could fracture in the long run as well...

GB

 

[poomar]

Re: Hard fiscal conservative Brison defects to Martin's righ

for once i have to agree with Are Be...

(is the world still here?)

seriously - Paul Martin is nothing but a greasy little corporate weasel who has nothing but an appetite for power.

 

[Are Be]

Re: Hard fiscal conservative Brison defects to Martin's righ

&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp
WOW! I 100% agree with GB on that point-- and this is the politics section! I ma 100% certain that a sizable percentage of Liberal support will go to the NDP

Enjoy full access to this nationalpost.com story during our trial period. After January 24th, 2004, complete access will be limited to registered 6-day National Post print subscribers.
Benedict Brison's bomb

Don Martin
National Post

Thursday, December 11, 2003

OTTAWA - MP Scott Brison hoisted Paul Martin's flag of convenience over his Nova Scotia seat on Wednesday, turning his blue-chip reputation into a turncoat of vivid Liberal colours, starting with the nice red tie he wore to his defection.

The two-term Tory voted for the Conservative party merger last Saturday. Five days later, he split from it.

He'd fretted at the knuckle-dragging Neanderthal stigma sticking to the united right. He stigmatized it himself yesterday, deriding the fledgling party as living in the ideological dark ages "debating how to privatize sidewalks."

He'd blasted former finance minister Paul Martin's legacy as "hesitancy, not action; timidity, not courage; polls, not policy." Now he calls Martin a "visionary" who will show "the kind of decisiveness in the next 10 years that will create brilliant opportunity for Canada."

He had accused the Liberals of "contempt of Parliament" in cutting off debate recently. Yesterday he contemptuously dismissed the serious business of Question Period as mere "role-playing" by MPs.

He had campaigned to become the party leader for a "competitive conservative alternative." Seven months later, he sabotaged it at birth.

Yessiree, Brison represents more than a riding. He wears the skeptical and cynical public view of politicians as self-possessed scoundrels like a wetsuit, which so aptly justifies their place alongside lawyers and journalists as the bottom-feeding professions in public opinion polling.

Now, Scott Brison would be a tough answer to a Canadian trivia question ("In the 'You Need a Life' category, who finished fourth in the last Conservative leadership convention?"), but he's more than the average nobody MP here in Ottawa.

Only 36-years old, he thinks creatively as a tax-fighter, trains a jaundiced eye on runaway public spending and believes government should stay out of lifestyle meddling, particularly as it relates to his gay orientation.

As such, he would've been a very useful poster boy to illustrate the wider reach of the new Conservative party's bigger tent.

But for five weeks, Brison has secretly been negotiating his defection to the Liberals. And on Wednesday, timed to detonate at the moment of optimum optical damage to the reunited Conservatives, he dropped the bomb.

It did its dirty work, ruining many first impressions of the party which were still being formulated by the public. And there's some nasty fallout to come.

Smiling smugly beside his young catch, whose defection restores the Liberals to their 172-MP standing in the 301-seat house, future prime minister Paul Martin did everything but point an index finger into the television lens like an Uncle Paul Wants You for the Liberal Party of Canada recruiting poster.

He insists he doesn't want to hurt the new party. He aims to steal it instead, one disgruntled Tory MP at a time.

Martin was not giving accidental glances to the back of the news conference where Tory MP Rick Borotsik was already doing his Liberal-in-training routine by applauding Brison's defection into the swollen ranks of government.

Quebec Tory Andre Bachand is an obvious goner as well. And while he insists otherwise, don't rule out Alliance MP Keith Martin, who has been strangely muted on the newly merged party.

Predictably, Conservative caucus leader Peter MacKay went ballistic at the Brison blindsiding, denouncing the move as a slimy act of betrayal and self-preservation. This is more than a tad ironic given the switcheroo MacKay pulled after signing a soul-selling anti-merger commitment with David Orchard.

Yet it's hard to see any alternative reasoning behind the Brison jump. He offered no compelling excuse for his decision to abandon the new party beyond branding it as extremist, this before the Conservative party has seriously begun to define itself.

Besides, the Conservatives' skeletal principles suggest a readier match for the values of economic freedom, personal liberty and societal responsibility Brison was championing in a paper released three months ago.

His clashes with Liberal policy are much more pronounced. Brison's a harsh critic of the gun registry, which Martin still supports. He fancies tax breaks over regional economic development funds, which Martin seems to oppose. And he's open to greater private health care, which breaks a key Liberal commandment.

So Brison was undoubtedly correct back in April as a Conservative leadership candidate when he insisted: "We have a lot more in common with Canadian Alliance members than we do with the Liberals on a wide range of issues."

But he has one thing in his favour to survive this defection to the Liberals.

"We don't know if this government is fish or fowl. It's more like tofu, which assumes the taste of whatever you put on it," Brison complained to me last April.

Perhaps that makes the Liberals the perfect party to accommodate a scheming turncoat like Scott Brison.
© National Post 2003




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