Belinda Stronach’s walk across the aisle of the House of Commons to join the Liberal Party as a cabinet minister drew comparisons to others that have changed party affiliations. Perhaps because memories tend to be short, Stronach’s actions are most compared to those of Scott Brison’s, the most recent high profile defection prior to Belinda’s. There is however, no comparison between the two in the way they came to be cabinet colleagues in the government of Prime Minister Paul Martin.
Brison did not run for the leadership of his party before defecting. Brison was a candidate for the leadership of the old Progressive Conservative Party that saw him lose the top job to Peter MacKay. It is true that Brison supported the merger between the PC’s and the Canadian alliance but he left the party only three days after the Conservative Party of Canada came into being; hardly spending enough time in the CPC to become a highly regarded and trusted insider of the new entity. Not so with Belinda who spent over a year as a member of the Conservative Party before deciding that she was really a Liberal.
Scott Brison’s reasons for making the move was that he didn’t feel comfortable being in the same party with some of the members of the old Canadian alliance and Reform parties. although it could be argued that he should have known sooner that he did not want to be a part of the new Canadian political party, he made a hasty exit as soon as it was first formed. His reasons for wanting to change parties, whether right or wrong, appear to make sense at least on a personal level. Stronach on the other hand, according to what she says, was done to save Canada as if she and she alone will decide the future of the country. a Member of Parliament who crosses the floor from the official opposition or any opposition party to the government side can always be called an opportunist. But Belinda’s reasons, that she can prevent Canada from breaking up smacks of sheer arrogance and opportunism. Brison’s reasons were personal and not the shallow reasoning of someone who sees themselves as the centre of the universe. Stronach seems to believe that the country will fall apart because the Conservatives voted with the Bloc Quebecois to defeat the government but not because the Liberals vote with the Bloc as they have done in the past. Stronach’s defection, unlike Brison’s, is not reasoned but consists of Liberal spin and it appears that the country’s newest cabinet minister might actually believe it.
On a personal level, there is no similarity between Belinda Stronach and Scott Brison. Brison completed a B.Com degree while Belinda dropped out of first year university. Prior to changing political affiliations, Scott Brison had sat as a Progressive Conservative Member of Parliament for over six years; Belinda was an MP for less than a year. Stronach is nothing more than a spoiled brat with an inflated ego who cannot seem to stick with anything for too long.
It is yet to come but it is extremely difficult too imagine the Honourable Belinda Stronach handling the type of questions that Scott Brison gets day after day after day in Question Period. Her nervousness when she appeared at her press conference with the beaming prime minister indicates that she’s way too pampered to handle the difficult stuff that goes with her new portfolio in her new party.
If Belinda Stronach’s defection is comparable to anyone else’s it is that of Jack Horner. after losing the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party to Joe Clark in 1976, Horner later crossed the floor and went straight into Pierre Trudeau’s cabinet as Minister of Industry.
Of Jack Horner’s defection, former Tory leader and prime minister, John Diefenbaker, remarked that the IQs of both parties had just gone up. No doubt if the Chief was still around, he would say the same thing about Belinda’s move.