Alan Ferguson, The Province
Published: Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Within hours of sitting bolt upright in my bed at the breaking news of David Emerson's defection to the Tories, I wrote that, while it would come as a bit of a shock to the voters of Vancouver Kingsway, on the whole it was a good thing to have a man of his experience on side for B.C.

My colleague Michael Smyth, whose political antennae are so much more acute, seized at once on the heart of the matter, which was the sense of betrayal felt by those voters who saw what Emerson did as an arrogant dismissal of the sovereign will of the people.

And while I continue to believe that, in a purely pragmatic way, Emerson is the ideal choice as minister for international trade, I now acknowledge that for many good, honest people his defection is gnawing away at the little faith they have left in our political system.

One may well ask (and I should have asked myself) how Stephen Harper could have been so blind as not to have foreseen the sustained vigour of the protests his appointment triggered.

Some commentators have speculated the choice was made for him by his advisers. But I suspect the decision was his alone.

Harper fixates on policy. And, while he has surrounded himself with possibly the brightest intellects ever to sit in power in Ottawa, he remains ill at ease and out of touch with ordinary folk.

It will be a great challenge for his government to remember that, however brilliant its policies, it is the people they are designed to serve who must come first. In the case of David Emerson, the people came a poor second.

We don't have to look far for another politician who learned the hard way you don't trample on the voters without paying a price.

In his first term as Premier, Gordon Campbell showed as much sensitivity as a Danish doodler -- and darn near lost an election because of it.

Having met Emerson briefly, I don't doubt he has been genuinely taken aback by the nationwide revulsion his defection has triggered.

He is a blunt-speaking man who doesn't suffer fools gladly. And, as is often the case with such people, he can be careless of public opinion.

It ought not to be a strike against you that you are without political skills. But in Emerson's case it has, unwittingly, been his undoing.

He was not the first to switch parties, but he may be the last to do so without first seeking the sanction of those whose votes he courted.

Belinda Stronach and Scott Brison, among others, trod this tricky path and survived; Emerson has stumbled.

So far, the minister is offering merely to write an apology to the voters of Vancouver Kingsway.

He may eventually say to heck with it, and quit.

But, if he intends to stick around, he has only one choice: Get himself elected under the banner of the party he intends to serve. Soon.

Canadians have decided that Emerson crossed, not just the floor, but an invisible line in the national political psyche that they just can't, and won't, stomach.

aferguson@png.canwest.com