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As I say, I don’t think anyone in the party seriously disputes any of this. Scheer even joked about it at the annual press gallery dinner shortly after his leadership win, pointedly drinking from a carton of milk after protesting he “made deals with nobody” and didn’t owe his victory “to anybody in the Conservative (Party).” Ha ha. Yet for the crime of speaking the truth it is Bernier, not Scheer, who is on trial.
A fellow MP sternly admonished him that this sort of “freelancing” — taking a public position on a matter of public policy — is “an unacceptable challenge to the caucus, to the leader.” Another decried the “timing” as “unfortunate.” Conservative pundits were especially savage. Bernier was accused, variously, of naivete, hypocrisy, vanity, divisiveness and sour grapes. He knew the rules going in. He signed up his share of new members. This is the way it’s always been. Etc.
All of which may be true, but none of which makes anything Bernier said untrue. Rather than shooting the messenger, I’d have thought people who truly had the party’s interests in mind would be taking his criticisms to heart.
Spare me the worldly sighs that all parties choose their leaders in this way: should they? Never mind the knowing smirks about how candidates have always prostituted themselves to special interests: are you comfortable with that?
And as for the policy itself: unless you are prepared to make the case for supply management on its merits — to defend forcing consumers to pay two and three times the market price for basic food items as a good and just use of state power — then it is you who should explain why that should continue to be party policy, not Bernier who should be charged with threatening party “unity.”
If the policy is wrong, it should be changed. If the process that produced the policy was wrong, it, too, should be changed. And if the leader sold both party and principle to win his position, well, that’s at least worth pointing out.