Alberta MP Brent Rathgeber made public his decision on Twitter, saying he had informed the board of directors for his riding association and the Speaker of the Commons that he had resigned from the Conservative caucus.
“My decision to resign from the Caucus is because of the Government’s lack of commitment to transparency and open government,” he announced on Twitter.
Rathgeber was first elected MP for the Edmonton-St. Albert riding in 2008 and then re-elected in 2011.
Harper’s office reacted quickly, saying that Rathgeber should face the voters again.
“The people of Edmonton-St. Albert elected a Conservative member of Parliament. Mr. Rathgeber should resign and run in a byelection,” Harper aide Andrew MacDougall said in his own Twitter posting.
This was not the position the Conservatives took, however, when former Liberal MPs David Emerson, Wajid Khan and Joe Comuzzi defected to the government party over the past few years.
Rathgeber’s departure from the Tory caucus marks yet more bad news for Harper as the prime minister struggles with a Senate spending scandal that has already forced two senators from the Conservative ranks.
But Rathgeber’s decision could prove especially wounding for the Conservatives as he has been taking aim at the very principles the Tories rode to power on: transparency and accountability.
He made no secret of his unhappiness with the government’s refusal to back his private member’s bill, which was meant to shed more light on the salaries of federal bureaucrats.
He was upset that the government essentially gutted his move to force public disclosure of those mandarins earning more than about $180,000, instead setting the bar at about $444,000.
Rathgeber had earlier voiced displeasure with the concentration of power within the Prime Minister’s Office, saying it “operates in many ways accountable to no one other than itself.”
“I think it’s been going on for decades where power has slowly been transferred from this place first to the cabinet and then from the cabinet ultimately to the PMO,” he said last week.
“And I think it’s a problem. I’ve said that. I’ve blogged about that. I believe that the elected representatives ought to have a much greater influence and the political staffers a lot less,” he said.
“I believe that the Prime Minister’s Office for some time has, you know, shown lack of respect for the separation between the legislative and executive functions of government,” he said.
Original Article
Source: thestar.com
Author: Bruce Campion-Smith
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