At least that's what the Liberals are saying about their former caucus-mate Dan Backs, the now-independent MLA for Edmonton-Manning.
Backs was kicked out of the Liberal caucus on Monday by party leader Kevin Taft, who said Backs created "ongoing friction" in the party to the point where everybody in caucus was fed up with him.
"I had to make a decision," said Taft, who refused to give examples of what Backs did wrong.
Taft also acknowledged he never gave Backs a warning before giving him the boot, and Backs says he was astounded by what he sees as an unprovoked ejection.
Proving the Alberta Liberals are no different than their Tory counterparts. They voted him out in secret. Shades of Garth Turner out of the blue they turf Backs. This has got to one of the dumbest political moves yet. No warning. And one of the poorest excuses for turfing someone from your party. Which of course generates all kind of media coverage, for all the wrong reasons.
A tip o' the blog to WP for this. And for a lots of comments on this see Daveberta's post
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The way I see it, Taft and Harper are kindred spirits. They both have been yapping about accountability and transparency, but when it is time to deliver on these promises, they keep their pieholes zipped and don't reveal anything to the public. The voters of Backs' riding have a right to know why their MLA was kicked out of caucus. What a complete disrespect for the voters of Edmonton-Manning.
ReplyDeleteAs for the Taft-Harper pairing, let's not forget two important facts:
1) When Harper was elected, Taft was among the first to congratulate him
2) Taft once proclaimed with pride that he was never a member of the federal Liberal Party AND he didn't endorse Paul Martin in the last election, but instead, at least tacitly, Harper. To many provincial and federal Liberals, this creates doubt about Taft's true political standing. Many see him as a conservative who simply joined the provincial Liberals out of a personal grudge against Klein (Taft used to work for the Tory government as a consultant, etc., as far as I know).
Cheers,
www.wernerpatels.com
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ReplyDeleteTaft is an opportunist. Klein once called him a communist for the book he published with the left wing think tank the Parkland Institute. He was courted by the NDP. But being the ego tripper he is he won't belong to a party he can't be leader of.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tip Cody I had not seen the Alberta Report published by the anonymous 'insider'. Though he was not the first to post on this. He did post an interesting take on it too. He claims it is because Backs published a press release on increasing the minimum wage. To quote from his post
ReplyDelete"Speculation is rampant that Backs riled party brass with a series of news releases that didn't jibe with Liberal policy at best, and was in direct contradiction at worst.
A release earlier this month from Backs on housing and homelessness called for the Government to immediately raise the minimum wage rather than institute land-banking, fund affordable housing or institute rent guidelines, as the Alberta NDP have been demanding for months. "
I had posted on Werners blog that I thought Backs being from the Building Trades Unions was closer to the NDP than to the other parties. This seems to confirm it.