Posted by Don Martin on 5/31/2004, 6:04 pm, in reply to "Re:Scott Brison M.P. for Kings-Hants Nova Scotia P.C. Finance Critic defects to the PaulMartinLiberals" May 30, 2004 Scott Brison says: 'every time I get mentioned by Harper, I go up two per cent in the polls.' Scott Brison, political enemy No. 1 for revenge-seeking Conservatives, is cruising on his own coat-tails to election victory in this spectacularly picturesque Central Nova Scotia riding. The Progressive Conservative leadership candidate of 2003 became a prized defector and Liberal parliamentary suck-up, er, secretary in 2004. But what sticks in Conservative craws is Brison's gleeful role as a partisan attack dog, enthusiastically snarling and biting at his former party as Paul Martin's loudest cheerleader. This from a Conservative who only last year described Martin as "being like Nortel at $120; over-valued and due for a correction" -- a quote which could easily be applied to the prime minister's electoral fortunes today. Brison also, accurately in my view, once described his newfound Liberal love as "a visionless federal government that has been more preoccupied with next week's polls than the challenges and opportunities facing Canadians in the 21st century." It's been such a dramatic about-face, Conservative leader Stephen Harper accused the openly gay 38-year-old of having sold out for "pieces of silver." The charge doesn't ruffle Brison. He seems serenely confident of winning, albeit slightly less so about the challenges facing his leader. "It's tough to govern with someone else's mandate," he says when talk turns to the federal election scene. "It's like trying to change the engine of a plane while you're flying it." But chat with the locals in the coffee shops, swing by the stores, corner the cops -- it doesn't really matter. They're all leaning toward voting Brison and damn the party affiliation, despite having the Conservatives floating a very credible opponent in doctor Bob Mullan. One businessman walked up to thank Brison for reopening a gateway into the northeastern U.S. for a local orchid-growing operation with 400 employees. The alternative was to send it through a plant inspection station at Niagara Falls. The local highway is being twinned. A library in Windsor, the birthplace of hockey, received federal funding. All credited to Brison's newfound position of power. I stopped perhaps two dozen residents in Kentville and nearby Windsor, with and without Brison in tow, and a decent quote denouncing his act of political chameleonship could not be procured, even with prompting. "What do we call you now -- a progressive Liberal?" a local senior joked, pledging his vote to the Liberals seemingly without reservation. Unless the Martin meltdown reaches deep into Atlantic Canada, the signs -- and I mean this literally because Brison's blanketed the riding in Liberal colours while Conservative signage remains hard to find -- clearly suggest this is the incumbent's victory to lose. He's like a town councillor more than an MP. This weekend he'll walk in the Apple Blossom Festival parade, carrying biscuits in one pocket for the dogs along the route and candy in the other for kiddie spectators. He'll try not to get his pockets mixed up. A reflective Brison calls the defection his life's hardest decision -- "tougher than my decision to come out." He dined with the Harpers last November in Stornoway, determined to satisfy his curiosity about the merged party's social conservative drift before deciding to join the movement. Two weeks after that, he sat down for a talk on economic policy with Martin. "Harper sees the role of the state in areas of fundamental human rights very differently from I do." Martin carried the day, parading his Kings-Hants catch before the cameras less than a week before he was sworn in as prime minister, when he promptly named Brison as his parliamentary secretary on U.S.-Canada relations. In that capacity, the eager basher Brison rises to my bait on Harper. "If I want to know what Harper's view of a policy is, I'll wait for a few days after it breaks in the United States," he charges. "I've got the sense Harper seems to want to become the United States." Seems a stretch to me. And despite Harper's rising poll numbers, Brison has nothing but contempt for the Conservative leader. "Every time I get mentioned by Harper, I go up two per cent in the polls. I should bring him around as part of my campaign strategy." Those are bold words for a well-trained Martin seal, linked to a party freefalling in the polls under a leader increasingly seen as a liability. If Brison's smart, and he is, he'll stick to his personal philosophy that "it's what you do between elections which gets you elected." Tainting his local reputation with national leadership politics could still find Brison exiting politics as a Liberal having to say he's a sorry Tory. Federal Election 2004 © The Ottawa Citizen 2004 http://www.canada.com/ottawa/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=db357ab7-1438-4c52-95bd-172db6a6351c
Brison weathers Tory scorn
Don Martin
The Calgary Herald
If a fed-up, pox-on-all-houses electorate gives up on picking a leader and votes for the local face, the turncoat will triumph.
