...Gone?

The tale of Eve Adams gets increasingly melodramatic, and increasingly reminiscent of Helena Guergis. That she will suffer Helena's political fate is looking more likely with each passing day.

Readers may recall that prior to her fall from grace, Helena Guergis, at the Charlottetown airport in February of 2010, allegedly threw a tantrum and screamed obscenities at staff who asked her to take her boots off for security screening. An airport worker said it was among the worst meltdowns he had ever seen.

Fast forward a few years and a similar outrageous sense of political entitlement was acted out this past December by Ms Adams who, it seems, showed her displeasure over a bit of ice remaining on her bumper after a car wash by blocking some gas pumps for 15 minutes at an Ottawa gas station.

John Newcombe, a Conservative supporter and the owner of the Island Park Esso station in Ottawa’s west end, said he contacted the Prime Minister’s Office in January to complain about an incident with Adams in December 2013:

An analysis of the incident can be seen here, from yesterday's Power and Politics:

Finally, also like Guergis, who suffered her lethal blow over allegations of misuse of her office, Ms Adams is being accused of misusing her political clout in seeking the nomination for the riding of Oakville North-Burlington. It has already cost her affianced, Dimitri Soudas, his job as executive director of the Conservative Party of Canada.

On yesterday's Power and Politics, Jeff Knoll, a board member of the riding association in question, explained why he signed a letter asking the prime minister to look into allegations about MP Eve Adams:

One wonders what particular brand of bottled water our elected public 'servants' drink from. If the kind of outrageous and contemptuous behaviour evinced by Ms Adams and countless others proves to come from something they drink, the product should come under immediate investigation by Health Canada and recalled.

Then again, perhaps it is just the Kool-Aid that is served to the entire Harper caucus.

Thoughts On The Shunning Of Helena Guergis

Wikipedia offers the following definition of 'shunning': Shunning is the act of social rejection, the deliberate avoiding association with, and habitually keeping away from, an individual or group. It is a sanction against association, often associated with religious groups and other tightly knit organizations and communities. Targets of shunning can include, but are not limited to, apostates, whistleblowers, dissidents, people classified as "sinners" or "traitors" and other people who defy or who fail to comply with the standards established by the shunning group(s).

I couldn't help but think of the term, and the parts of the definition, (i.e., most parts) that would be applicable to fallen former Conservative cabinet and caucus member Helena Guergis, as she was being interviewed yesterday on Evan Solomon's Power and Politics.

Having discussed her in an earlier blog entry, I will repeat that I have never been especially fond of either her politics or her performance as a cabinet member, but I have to agree with some of her objections over how she was treated by Mr. Harper after unsavoury allegations arouse about her and her husband, allegations that were eventually deemed to be without foundation after an RCMP investigation. Nonetheless, at the first hint of scandal, she was removed both from her Cabinet post, something I can understand happening under the original circumstances, and from the Conservative caucus, something that I can't agree with, essentially rendering her a pariah, a persona non grata to the Party. She was effectively shunned.

In addition to the fact that Guergis seems to have been held to a different standard by Mr. Harper than others (think of Bev Oda, Maxime Bernier and Bruce Carson), the fact that she was expunged from the Party without any due process says much about the Harper style of governance, so thoroughly explored in Lawrence Martin's Harperland as well as in many online and mainstream media publications. It is a style that brooks no deviation, no independence, and requires absolute fealty to the leader. In other words, it is essentially one-man rule, although we have more unflattering ways of describing such governance when it occurs in the Middle East, Africa, and South America.

And that is why, despite the dismissal by some pundits that what happened to Guergis is only part and parcel of the rough game we call politics, I think her treatment is both newsworthy and should be considered by voters as yet another reason they should give serious pause before so blithely casting their ballots in favour of the Conservatives on May 2.

Power and Politics: Evan Solomon's Interview with Helena Guergis

Watching last evening's interview with Helena Guergis, a politician I have never been particularly fond of, especially given her airport tantrum a couple of years ago, I couldn't help but think that the Harper Conservatives probably now wish that they had treated her better.

Readers will remember that she was summarily removed from Cabinet and expelled from the party for reasons that were never fully explained; the fact of her marriage to Rahim Jaffer, who came under suspicion for influence-peddling, presumably made her a victim of guilt by association and hence a liability to the party. This, despite the fact that embarrassments by other Conservative M.P.'s (Bev Oda and Maxime Bernier come to mind) have not resulted in similar party retribution.

Now sitting as an Independent Conservative, she acquitted herself with impressive grace, saying that she hopes to return to the Conservative Party when it is under 'a different leader.' She also talked about the freedom she feels as an Independent, no longer having to go through a long and complicated approval process for permission to speak publicly, fetters she has been bound by in the Harper regime, given as it is to exerting complete control over all government members, requiring them, amongst other things, to fill out a Message Event Proposal (MEP) detailing who they would like to talk to, why, and what, precisely, they wish to say.

She also revealed how her sister, Christine Brayford, Guergis' riding's chief financial officer, had been asked to be part of the 'in and out' scheme but refused, as it didn't seem legitimate to her.

You can see the entire interview here.