Why Harper protects Rob Anders
Conservatives are at it again, trying to unseat the weirdo MP from Calgary West, Rob Anders. Why do they even bother? Don’t they realize there’s no chance?
http://www.ipolitics.ca/2014/01/08/why-harper-protects-rob-anders/
Mr. Harper represented Calgary West from 1993 up to 1997, when he stepped out of politics and Anders, then only 25, took over the riding. Before Harper, Jim Hawkes, a Progressive Conservative, held the constituency. Harper worked for Hawkes but then abandoned him, ran against him on the Reform ticket and won.
It was a bitter family feud and animosities between moderates in the riding and core Conservatives remained. Harper wants the riding to stay out of Red Tory hands and has gone to great lengths to make sure of it.
The most egregious example came in the run-up to the 2011 election. Donna Kennedy-Glans, a feminist lawyer, led an aggressive campaign to wrest the nomination from Anders, someone she considered a racist. Kennedy-Glans and her supporters won control of the riding executive. They planned a referendum at the next general meeting to show that Anders no longer had support.
It all sounded democratic enough — until party central in Ottawa got into the action. It disallowed the annual meeting and seized control of the riding membership list, of the funds, of the offices. The Kennedy-Glans bid was crushed.
By way of explanation, the party said she was too liberal. She was very moderate, more moderate than Jim Hawkes. But did that mean it was okay to resort to an anti-democratic, banana-republic operation to get her out of the way?
In the 2006 election Anders was accused of bending the rules to claim the nomination, so much so that the matter went to court after the campaign. The party sided with Anders all the way, sending in a high-profile lawyer to defend him. But a judge ruled against Anders and ordered the party to run an open and fair nomination prior to the next election.
It was a bitter family feud and animosities between moderates in the riding and core Conservatives remained. Harper wants the riding to stay out of Red Tory hands and has gone to great lengths to make sure of it.
The most egregious example came in the run-up to the 2011 election. Donna Kennedy-Glans, a feminist lawyer, led an aggressive campaign to wrest the nomination from Anders, someone she considered a racist. Kennedy-Glans and her supporters won control of the riding executive. They planned a referendum at the next general meeting to show that Anders no longer had support.
It all sounded democratic enough — until party central in Ottawa got into the action. It disallowed the annual meeting and seized control of the riding membership list, of the funds, of the offices. The Kennedy-Glans bid was crushed.
By way of explanation, the party said she was too liberal. She was very moderate, more moderate than Jim Hawkes. But did that mean it was okay to resort to an anti-democratic, banana-republic operation to get her out of the way?
In the 2006 election Anders was accused of bending the rules to claim the nomination, so much so that the matter went to court after the campaign. The party sided with Anders all the way, sending in a high-profile lawyer to defend him. But a judge ruled against Anders and ordered the party to run an open and fair nomination prior to the next election.
No comments:
Post a Comment