Thursday, November 20, 2003

THIS IS A PARTY?

A while ago I criticized a commentary piece by Hugh Segal but I agreed with him when he said that political parites win power by maintaining discipline within their organization. This doesn't mean stifling debate but it does mean not taking your personal greivances public and it also means showing solidarity for the good of the party. The ability of the Liberal party to do this is one of the many reasons they governend the country for most of the 20th century. The conservatives, historically, have had difficulty with this and even more so recently. Case in point:

Over the weekend the Liberals held their convention. Everyone knows Chretien and Martin can't stand each other, but at the end of the night they were up on stage together arms raised hand in hand. The image: Liberals can put their differences aside in order to focus on governing.

On the other hand, Bourque is reporting this:

PC/CA: BOVINE BY-PRODUCT HITS AIR RE-DISTRIBUTOR
"Nothing comes easy in life. Especially for the Unite-The-Right crowd. And now the ghost of Sir John A. himself has been evoked. A group of opponents to the merger, including C. Hanson Dowell, Albert Horner, Bud Sherman, David Orchard, Marie Gatley, great-grandniece of John A. Macdonald, and others, and their lawyers will announce the commencement of a law suit against Peter MacKay to preserve the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. The kick-off is 11 AM tomorrow morning in the boardroom of Sack Goldblatt Mitchell, 20 Dundas St W, Toronto."

One faction of the party is actually taking another faction of the party to court. And what is going to be the basis of this suit? If these people were to win, this could take the significance of campaign promises to a whole new level. Of course they won't win. They just do further damage to the party of Sir John.

Posted by Matthew @ 8:57 p.m.