Tuesday, November 28, 2006
The curious case of Keith Martin
There is a certain portion of the punditry that considers all floor-crossings to be betrayals. These people do not distinguish between principled floor-crossings - such as John Herron, who went to the Liberals after his P.C. Party was swept out from under him, or David Kilgour (twice) - and those that are clearly power grabs, such as Belinda Stronach's, Scott Brison's, and David Emerson's. I am curious as to how such pundits explain Keith Martin, who voted against distinct society (as a Reform Party MP) in 1995. Contrast this with the records of his fellow No voters, all Liberals except Garth Turner: of the sixteen votes cast against the Harper government's motion, ten of them besides Martin's came from MPs who had been MPs in 1995, when Raymond Chan, Hedy Fry, Jim Karygiannis, Diane Marleau, Dan McTeague, Paul Steckle, and Andrew Telegdi supported the Chrétien government's distinct society motion - absent in 1995 but voting nay in 2006 were Joe Comuzzi, Maria Minna, and Joe Volpe (incidentally, for all the hullabaloo when Gerard Kennedy and Ken Dryden announced their opposition to the Harper motion, did anybody even realize that Volpe was also against it?).
Now, this doesn't necessarily constitute a flip-flop on the part of the above-named MPs. After all, though neither "nation" nor "distinct society" means anything, the former certainly means a lot *more* nothing than does the latter; there's really no obstacle to an MP believing that Québec is every bit a distinct society while somehow falling short of nationhood.
It's somewhat harder to understand where the MPs who were unprepared to acknowledge the distinct society thing while being very happy to call it a nation. Among these are a few noteworthy ones, such as (to pick an example at random) Stephen Harper, who as a Reform MP in 1995 voted against calling Québec a distinct society. Also voting this way were Reform cum Conservative MPs Gary Breitkreuz, Diane Ablonczy, Ken Epp, Monte Solberg, Bob Mills, John Williams, Leon Benoit, Myron Thompson, Jim Abbott, and Jay Hill. Art Hanger and John Cummins, also members of Reform's Class of '93, were not in the House when the division took place, while Chuck Strahl and Dick Harris were both absent when the distinct society motion was voted on in 1995. Finally, the Bloc Québécois caucus opposed the 1995 motion but supported the 2006 motion.
Now, it's not absolutely certain that these MPs were betraying their former beliefs, either. Perhaps they felt the distinction between Québec and Québécois was somehow important (though this strikes me as especially unlikely in the case of the Bloc MPs). Perhaps they somehow felt that "nation" was more palatable than "distinct society". Perhaps their views had genuinely evolved, though it's my experience that most politicians will go through the most tortuous and unbelievable explanation available before admitting that their beliefs have changed over the course of their time in office.
The point, though, is this: Keith Martin is being at least as true to his principles on this matter as his more partisanly consistent colleagues, and likely even more so.
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There is a certain portion of the punditry that considers all floor-crossings to be betrayals. These people do not distinguish between principled floor-crossings - such as John Herron, who went to the Liberals after his P.C. Party was swept out from under him, or David Kilgour (twice) - and those that are clearly power grabs, such as Belinda Stronach's, Scott Brison's, and David Emerson's. I am curious as to how such pundits explain Keith Martin, who voted against distinct society (as a Reform Party MP) in 1995. Contrast this with the records of his fellow No voters, all Liberals except Garth Turner: of the sixteen votes cast against the Harper government's motion, ten of them besides Martin's came from MPs who had been MPs in 1995, when Raymond Chan, Hedy Fry, Jim Karygiannis, Diane Marleau, Dan McTeague, Paul Steckle, and Andrew Telegdi supported the Chrétien government's distinct society motion - absent in 1995 but voting nay in 2006 were Joe Comuzzi, Maria Minna, and Joe Volpe (incidentally, for all the hullabaloo when Gerard Kennedy and Ken Dryden announced their opposition to the Harper motion, did anybody even realize that Volpe was also against it?).
Now, this doesn't necessarily constitute a flip-flop on the part of the above-named MPs. After all, though neither "nation" nor "distinct society" means anything, the former certainly means a lot *more* nothing than does the latter; there's really no obstacle to an MP believing that Québec is every bit a distinct society while somehow falling short of nationhood.
It's somewhat harder to understand where the MPs who were unprepared to acknowledge the distinct society thing while being very happy to call it a nation. Among these are a few noteworthy ones, such as (to pick an example at random) Stephen Harper, who as a Reform MP in 1995 voted against calling Québec a distinct society. Also voting this way were Reform cum Conservative MPs Gary Breitkreuz, Diane Ablonczy, Ken Epp, Monte Solberg, Bob Mills, John Williams, Leon Benoit, Myron Thompson, Jim Abbott, and Jay Hill. Art Hanger and John Cummins, also members of Reform's Class of '93, were not in the House when the division took place, while Chuck Strahl and Dick Harris were both absent when the distinct society motion was voted on in 1995. Finally, the Bloc Québécois caucus opposed the 1995 motion but supported the 2006 motion.
Now, it's not absolutely certain that these MPs were betraying their former beliefs, either. Perhaps they felt the distinction between Québec and Québécois was somehow important (though this strikes me as especially unlikely in the case of the Bloc MPs). Perhaps they somehow felt that "nation" was more palatable than "distinct society". Perhaps their views had genuinely evolved, though it's my experience that most politicians will go through the most tortuous and unbelievable explanation available before admitting that their beliefs have changed over the course of their time in office.
The point, though, is this: Keith Martin is being at least as true to his principles on this matter as his more partisanly consistent colleagues, and likely even more so.
