Well, THAT came out of nowhere!
When I was first told about it, I was busy having a lightsabre battle with a happy six year old, so it didn’t really register with me…until I dragged myself to a television and saw it happening live: Belinda Stronach, side-by-side with Prime Minister Paul Martin. She had defected to the Liberals, and was now the new Human Resources Minister.
Wow! It’s a good thing I’m not prone to fainting…because this might have been worth it.
I always knew she was a centrist, fighting an uphill battle, in an organization that seems to be the wet dream of US Republicans, wanting to export their tyranny to the world. Now she is free!
As far as I’m concerned, this marks the beginning of another schism inside the Conservative party. How can fundamentalist ideologues and social moderates co-exist in THAT organization, when the chief rep of the moderates defects to a more tolerant, open political party?!?
Just look at the reaction by her former colleagues to her departure: Bob Runciman calls her “an attractive dipstick” and a Tory from Alberta says she “whored herself” to the Liberals?
And people have the audacity to wonder WHY she left the party?
This is also a HUGE bonus to the Liberals. In her own words, Belinda says she prefers to be in a party that more closely addresses the needs of cities, women, and other groups that require a sympathy totally lacking in the Conservative hell hole that occupies one side of the House of Commons.
Will this be enough to turn the tide heading into the budget vote on Thursday? Who knows…but it’s certainly made life a hell of a lot more interesting…and made me a lot less depressed.
Mind you, I have no trouble wallowing in the depression of Stephen Harper… 
