This Week In Peterborough

While my current riding is Vancouver Centre, the one I grew up in was Peterborough, back 'out East' in Ontario. It occurred to me the other day that I hadn't heard a word from Dean Del Mastro since he was elected for the Conservatives with 35.9% of the vote in the last election.

So I looked up his website, and it turns out he has a blog. Although he might be better off without one. Consider this entry from November 9, 2006:

"In a move that can only be described as astounding, the Federal Liberal party officially aligned themselves with the Bloc Quebecois.

Now what is the noble cause that has united them? Well while they apparently agree that Quebec is a Nation, contrary to proud Canadians everywhere that's not it. Their new found co-operation surrounds the failed Liberal Kyoto plan, or lack thereof.

On May 16th of this year Rex Murphy of CBC's The National wrote:

The gun registry and the Kyoto protocol are, at least in one

respect, twins. They both illustrate the uselessness of piety

pretending to be policy, of half thought mixed with full-bore

emotion substituting for a rational response to a perceived

public problem.

He goes on to point out that Kyoto "is a great empty house of wishful thinking"; so it would seem that the Liberals and the Bloc have united in the cause of "uselessness"...



...why have they [the Bloc and the Liberals] aligned on this issue? Look no further than the deplorable cause of political positioning and posturing."

Never mind equating the words of Rex Murphy with the objective truth, the overheated language, and the apparently unironic implication that the Conservatives never engage in the deplorable tactic of political positioning, the piece I picked out was, "they apparently agree that Quebec is a Nation, contrary to proud Canadians everywhere".

From the CBC, "How each MP Voted on Québécois nationhood":

In Favour

76. Dean Del Mastro (Conservative, Ontario)

Appratently, by his own criteria set last month, Del Mastro is not a proud Canadian.

Moving on, a news search shows that Del Mastro, aside from being accused (with no proof so far) of meddling in local municipal politics, also made news for his comments on same-sex marriage:

"A solemn Dean Del Mastro says democracy wasn't served Thursday when his Parliament Hill colleagues voted down a motion to change the definition of marriage.

The same-sex marriage debate will now rest after a 175 to 123 vote in the House of Commons. Peterborough MP Del Mastro says it was intended to be a free vote for MPs but doesn't believe that was the case. He voted in favour of revisiting the issue and says many other MPs would have done the same if it wasn't for political pressure.
He was told by some that if they voted in favour they would be "assassinating their own careers."

Perhaps next time we can bring in some external auditors to verify that no political pressure was applied to anybody and then the results will be acceptable: an even freer, really free vote next time. In the meantime, this kind of sour grapes which makes no specific accusations and names no names is pretty pointless. But his best comment on the topic was this one,

"It's a different kind of relationship, one that needs to be respected. Their relationship can embody all the things of marriage but not be called marriage."

After all, there's nothing worse than getting gay cooties on what had been a perfectly good word.

It must be frustrating at times for the nearly 2/3 of Peterborough voters who didn't vote for Del Mastro to find themselves represented by this guy. Heck, I suspect it's often frustrating even for the 1/3 that did vote for him.

Update: Via Flash Point Canada, I see that Clear Grit also caught the about face by Del Mastro on the nationhood motion. the Clear Grit also quotes Del Mastro's blogged explanation of why he voted for the motion (although there's no source, so it's not clear where Del Mastro said this - was it on his blog and now removed, or is it from a local paper?):

"I chose to vote [in favour of] a motion [defining Quebec as a nation] that I believe united Canadians. I hope the member voted the same way on that motion because I believe in Canada. I believe in a united Canada and I believe in this party as a party that is uniting Canadians from coast to coast."

OK then.