{"id":5209,"date":"2013-06-06T09:31:44","date_gmt":"2013-06-06T13:31:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=5209"},"modified":"2013-06-06T09:31:44","modified_gmt":"2013-06-06T13:31:44","slug":"i-fear-we-have-morphed-into-what-we-once-mocked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=5209","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;I fear we have morphed into what we once mocked&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After quitting the Tory caucus, MP Brent Rathgeber pens one of the most <a href=\"http:\/\/brentrathgeber.ca\/wordpress\/i-stand-alone\/\">devastating and pointed<\/a> critiques of the Harper government I have ever seen. One is left wondering how many others in the Conservative base feel the same way.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I STAND ALONE<\/p>\n<p>Late last night I notified the Board of Directors of the Edmonton-St. Albert Conservative Association of my difficult decision that I was resigning from the Conservative Caucus to sit as an Independent in the House of Commons.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><strong>Recent allegations concerning expense scandals and the Government\u2019s response has been extremely troubling. I joined the Reform\/conservative movements because I thought we were somehow different, a band of Ottawa outsiders riding into town to clean the place up, promoting open government and accountability.  I barely recognize ourselves, and worse I fear that we have morphed into what we once mocked.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>My constituents demand better.   My constituents simply do not care what somebody, who they hope will never become Prime Minister, did or didn\u2019t do seventeen years ago. They do care, however, about the relations between a sitting Senator and Langevin Block (PMO).  For a government that was elected on a platform of accountability, my constituents are gravely disappointed.  They appreciate human frailty but when a group misses its self-proclaimed standards, a little contrition and humility not blust and blunder, is the expectation.<\/p>\n<p><strong>To say that we are somehow better than the other guys is similarly woefully inadequate.  If we are measuring our ethical performance against the Sponsorship Scandalized Liberals, perhaps we need to set our ethical bar a little higher.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>I can only compromise so much before I begin to not recognize myself.  I no longer recognize much of the party that I joined and whose principles (at least on paper), I still believe in.  Accordingly, since I can no longer stand with them, I must now stand alone.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After quitting the Tory caucus, MP Brent Rathgeber pens one of the most devastating and pointed critiques of the Harper government I have ever seen. One is left wondering how many others in the Conservative base feel the same way. I STAND ALONE Late last night I notified the Board of Directors of the Edmonton-St. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5209"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5211,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5209\/revisions\/5211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}