This is what you get, Conservative leader Stephen Harper, when you pin your hopes of winning power on sucking up to wingnuts and getting into bed with separatists instead of working on actual policy with a minority government that has not even been in power for a year: your star centrist glamor girl MP
crosses the floor and joins the government. Oh, and did I add that this happened two days before Mr. Harper's attempted no-confidence vote (in partnership with the separatist Bloc Quebecois) on the budget to force an election? That's right--the Canadian Liberal-NDP temporary alliance just had its own Jim Jeffords moment, in an even bigger way. See below for an even sweeter part of the backstory....
The delicious part of the backstory that no one in the Canadian press has yet noted: a big divide between Stronach (and other "Red Tories") and Harper has been Harper's kissing up to the socially conservative,
anti-gay segment of his party. First
Scott Brison, now Stronach.
Quick background: Stronach supports respecting the Canadian courts, the Charter of Rights, and the rights of gays to marry whom they choose. Harper has flipped around, but now implies that he would introduce legislation defining marriage as between a man and a woman, which would require invoking the Charter's constitutional override ("notwithstanding") clause, AKA scribble on the constitution Bush-style to keep them gays from marrying. Unless the Conservatives are total idiots, maybe they'll start telling their GOP political consultants that the political game is played a little differently in Canada: bash gays, and you get bitten in the ass...