Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Principled NS Tory in sharp contrast to Saskatchewan sheep

The Star Phoenix Editorial today reports on Nova Scotia (former) Conservative MP Bill Casey who was booted out of the governing Caucus for voting his conscience and opposingb the Budget Implementation Bill which skewers the provinces of Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador.


"Casey took the decisive step in protest of the budget's treatment of the offshore resources agreement with Nova Scotia, saying:
"It's not a difficult concept to expect the federal government to a honour a nine-paragraph contract provision with my province."
He said Atlantic Canadian MPs met with Finance Minister Jim Flaherty to press the case not to penalize their region's resource revenues under an equalization cap, and that he's "100 per cent convinced" of the correctness of his action.
Under Flaherty's budget, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador stand to lose about $1 billion over the next 10 years.
Meanwhile, Saskatchewan, which was promised by the Harper Conservatives that it, too, would have its resource revenues exempted from equalization calculations, is upset that backtracking in the Flaherty budget will cost the province hundreds of millions annually.
Only, Saskatchewan doesn't have anyone with the backbone or principles of a Casey within the ranks of its dozen Tory MPs to make its case in Ottawa.
What it has instead is a group of political sycophants willing to bend the truth with constituents and try to convince them that black is white, instead of standing up for what they know to be true.
Casey's principled stand is all the more noteworthy because it has become such a rare commodity in a Conservative government that took office promising accountability and transparency.

2 comments:

Blogging Horse said...

Casey's not giving up either. He was on his feet in the Commons as a newly-minted independent MP today.

The NDP gave him one of their spots in Question Period. So that right after Peter Stoffer had chided the Newfoundland Cons, Casey was pressing his old caucus colleagues to do the right thing and keep their promise to Nova Scotia.

Red faces on the Blue benches.

pumpernickel said...

horseman - I agree. I heard that Casey is having discussionswith all 3 parties depending on what the Tories put in writing before the final vote. I must say that RobertThibeault had the best line in QP today "Peter MacKay is the Minister irresponsibile for Nova Scotia"