Street Level

About a quarter-century ago — and boy, doesn’t that sound weird to say for someone who still thinks she’s a teenager — I found myself working with a supporter of the Progressive Conservative Party.

Now, this wasn’t extremely unusual, although the majority of those of us in the newsroom at this particular daily newspaper probably listed a bit more to the left than others.

But it was challenging.

My friend, you see, took great delight in goading me into debate, a not-all-that-difficult feat at the time, given my propensity to express my opinions to my co-workers.

This same man, recently retired and free from the anonymity under which newspaper editorial writers often work, seems to have undergone some sort of metamorphosis. Were I 25 years younger, I might even suggest he has finally seen the light.

Apparently, he’s no longer a believer in the infallibility of the Conservative party.

Now, you must know that my friend lives in Ontario, where Liberals are Liberals (not Social Crediters in disguise), NDPers really do believe the stuff their leaders spout off on and Conservatives are the progeny of Preston Manning and John Diefenbaker.

Those clear lines helped to define the parties, unlike here in B.C., where it’s really hard to know to which ideologies any of them plan to adhere.

My friend is not alone in his migration away from his party of choice to, in his case, the party of little choice — the Greens.

Consider another friend, one closer to home. I was really hoping Randy Patch would get the Liberal nomination. Not because I don’t like Ken Sommerfeld — I really don’t know him well at all, but when we’ve talked, he seemed likeable and sincere — but because I was sure Patch would take so many more with him.

It would have been interesting to watch the saga unfold.

But my Ontario friend has really abandoned his blue roots.

In a recent e-mail, he didn’t write about how things are going or how his girls are faring at school.

There was no gossip about all those people who spent decades putting up with me at our place of employment.

Nope. He just sent me one sentence. He said I was to check out a link on ndp.ca, and then I’d understand why he can’t vote Conservative again.

Now, I don’t look at that particular website. For some reason, I get e-mails about new press releases on it, but I just don’t bother because I really am not all that interested most of the time in what Jack Layton and his crew are doing.

It’s so much more fun to watch Stéphane Dion’s party try to dig itself out of the hole that he keeps filling up every time he makes an announcement, or to just watch Stephen Harper and marvel at how someone I know is made of flesh and blood can move through the world so cold and automaton-like.

But this time, I did check out the link and discovered the dozen reasons my old buddy has adopted for his inspiration.

It’s called the NDP scandal sheet, and it’s a compilation of 12 allegations against the federal Conservatives that, if others read them, might also lead to some concerns.

Many of them you’ve probably heard about already: Harper’s coiffeur (the one who talks to spirits, apparently) with the unreleased government salary; Heritage Minister Bev Oda racking up $6,000 in limo expenses for four days she spent at the 2006 Juno Awards — and that same Oda having to cancel a $250-a-plate fundraiser being organized by a woman who regularly lobbies Oda for CanWest.

But there were a couple of others that were also fascinating:

In March, 2006, Minister of International Co-operation Josee Verner paid an “occasional chauffeur” more than $4,000 for 124 hours of work — at $32 an hour — and didn’t list the expense on her travel forms.

Minister of Labour Jean Pierre Blackburn spent almost $150,000 on private jets that aren’t included in his travel expenses. For five of those flights, he was the only passenger. And for one, he rented a helicopter to take him on a trip that would have taken only 30 minutes by car.

It’s interesting reading. And it makes me wonder how many other voters are like my friend.

It’s not the big stuff that really gets to him as much as the little things, the sense of entitlement so many politicians develop while they claim to be looking out for the rest of us.

Posted by Dale at 8:51 a.m. Comments