Many Canadians are intrigued by the discipline of political parties. Not that it seems to matter within the parties themselves but it does seem to matter in the caucus of elected party members in the federal and provincial parties.
There even seem to be differences when you are the government or not. Party leaders can be much more forgiving when in opposition. The standard explanation of this is that when in opposition rather than government you are building up a big-tent party that has many different opinions. When you are the government, you had better not have any opinion contrary to that of the leader.
You can tell this by the number of the ex-caucus members occupying a small number of seats at the farthest corner of the house or legislature—away from the government leader—and seemingly out of sight of the speaker’s dais.
While I am sure that Mr. Trudeau would quite rapidly send an anti-vaxxer from his caucus to that purgatory, this is not the case with opposition leader Erin O’Toole. O’Toole has ignored conservative MP Derek Sloan’s claim that the first vaccines to be approved will be effectively human experimentation as they are rushed through the approvals process. Sloan wants the legislation establishing the approvals to state that they can only be used on a voluntary basis.
This reluctance to discipline is not the same in the Ontario conservative government’s caucus. Premier Doug Ford bounced the controversial MPP Randy Hillier from caucus for making “disrespectful” comments to parents of autistic children.
The removal of former justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould and former health minister Jane Philpott from the liberal party caucus was probably the most controversial of all such decisions of prime minister Justin Trudeau. Liberals can only wonder if that ejection from caucus would have been supported by a majority of caucus—in a secret ballot?
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Copyright 2020 © Peter Lowry
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