Friday, September 24, 2010

The CBC's Rosemary Barton on C391: The Conservatives are whipped on their position here

Wednesday on CBC's Power and Politics during the big vote on Bill C 391 Rosemary Barton made the following claim:

" ..it may be fair to point out that the Conservatives are whipped on their position here, so even if there was a Conservative MP from Quebec that didn't feel comfortable taking this position they would be forced to vote ah with their party in the same way the Liberals were."  (Clip at bottom of post)

News to me and I assume to the conservative caucus too because the fact of the matter was that they were NOT whipped. We all know that the Liberals were whipped ( the first time for a private members bill I believe) and although the NDP claim not to have been whipped their vote they somehow managed to get just the right number of NDP MPs to change their votes and kill C391 (Cue the church lady: How convenient), but the conservatives were NOT whipped; they didn't have to be.

Killing the long gun portion of the firearms registry has always been conservative policy right from the first policy convention, in fact this is clearly written into the party policy declaration. It is a bedrock position of the CPC and one which every MP ran on it during every election since the party unification in 2003. There was no need to whip the vote as every MP is well aware of where THEIR party stands and there was absolutely no need to threaten them to do what they all have said they were going to do; vote to scrap the long gun registry. Reminding MP's of the importance of a vote is not whipping, and in this case with all of the media coverage on C 391 I doubt the CPC whip even had to do that.

So no Rosemary, it was not fair nor was it accurate to point out to the CBC viewing audience that the conservatives were whipped on C 391.

FYI : I have asked Rosemary Barton via Twitter 2 separate times about her comments and so far I have, big surprise, not received any response what so ever.  Update: Rosie responds, and unable defend her own words, blocks me!

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

TangoJuliette sez:

Not only are her allegations not "fair," they are not at all true.

Anonymous said...

If you believe the conservatives
were not whipped I have some land for sale, near the tar sands.

Anonymous said...

Rosie O'Barton was also reporting the registry only cost $4 million per year when the RCMP's own numbers say it costs $66 million and the CTF says it costs $106 million.

All part of the culture war I guess.
Or is it simple incompetence?

Alberta Girl said...

"If you believe the conservatives
were not whipped I have some land for sale, near the tar sands."

Rosie....is that you?

I'll take that land near the "oil" sands (funny how you can always tell a leftie - they use the inaccruate "tar"sands which they snarl out as they wrinkle their nose and curl their lips)Rosie.

Funny how our media get away with telling bald faced lies.

Fay said...

The media and police chiefs can get away with telling bald face lies.

Anonymous said...

CBC=Libs and NDP

Alan said...

One thing that really bugs me is the paltry costing that many are giving to this program.
$4 million has been popularly thrown about, but if you consider that 240 people work at the firearms centre in Miramichi alone, then they must be making around $16500/year in salary. Right-o.
And on top the cost of any admin, processing, enforcement, consultation, etc., and you have a much, much bigger amount.

Anonymous said...

$4 million wouldn't even come close to paying for the salaries of the Registry employees! Why is the CBC so dumb?

Robert G. Harvie, Q.C. said...

Comment from Toronto on my blog yesterday regarding the registry that those of us outside of the GTA need to take to heart:


"There are more people in the GTA than in your entire province. Add the population of Montreal, and you've got almost a third of the country.


You know the way this country works? It's called "representative democracy". That means that you do not get to dismiss the concerns of a fifth of the country because you're jealous because they're more important than the little hamlet that you hail from."

Read more:
http://searchingforliberty.blogspot.com/2010/09/why-gun-registry-because-montreal-and.html#ixzz10SG3jWy9

wilson said...

Conservatives in urban areas understand that the LGR (does not work) does not affect their lives,
while it does affect rural citizen's lives.

Urban Conservatives support rural citizens.

LibDipBloq MPs have used misinformation to rally their supporters.
The CPC has to re-educate them,
starting with an audit of the Police Chief's very politicized report.

maryT said...

If you read every page of the RCMP report you will find that 4M figure, it is the cost savings from turning the management of said registry over to the RCMP.
Just like no one in Washington read to 4000 page health bill, no one in the coalition or media read the full RCMP report.
One flipper was on TV saying he would vote against the conservative bill. It wasn't till the last day of the vote that it come out it was a motion by lib Holland to dismiss the bill that would be voted on, not the bill itself. Passing that motion meant that the PMB would not be voted on at 3rd reading, as it never happened.
And considering all conservative MPs were elected by voters who knew their platform included abolishing the registry.
Anon 7.00a.m. proves that most of the coalition supporters are trying to avoid the fact, lib/ndp mps can't be believed when they promise their voters to do something.
I would suggest these coalition member save their money and not campaign in AB. Good bye Duncan, sorry, you get no pension.
Funny, the coalition voted against the terrorism act but want to terrorize cdns by forcing a mandatory census on them.

Ardvark said...

You only have to whip a vote if there are those in your caucus that disagree with the position.

There was no need to do so on C 391.

Ardvark said...

Also did PM Harper tell the media multiple times ( as Ignatieff did) that he was whipping the vote?

That sure doesn't sound like the CPC were "they would be forced to vote ah with their party in the same way the Liberals were." does it?