After his 2007 standoff with Harper over offshore resources, Casey could have been elected dictator of Nova Scotia. He seemed to be the only federal Conservative taking the province’s side in the political scrap over the Atlantic Accord.
Casey wanted his party, the Conservatives, to respect the accord. The Harper government was trying to get around it via the federal budget. The budget would have added offshore oil and gas revenues here and in Newfoundland and Labrador to the federal equalization formula. Just as the offshore was turning profitable, Ottawa wanted to claw it all back.
Furious, Danny Williams launched his Anything But Conservative crusade in Newfoundland, wiping out the Conservatives in the 2008 election.
Nova Scotians, led by Casey and then-Premier John Hamm, also fought back. Casey voted against the budget and was expelled from the Conservative caucus.
As an “Independent Progressive Conservative,” Casey was banished to the opposition benches in the Commons. In one of those cosmic coincidences, he ended up sitting next to rookie MP Justin Trudeau.
“We ended up talking every day, I got to know him well,” Casey told me. “We kept in touch . . . he gets Atlantic Canada, that we’re not just a nuisance to the rest of the country.”
Casey subsequently won re-election as an independent, a rarity in federal politics. Having made his point, he retired from active politics in 2009 and his former riding president, Scott Armstrong, won the seat in a byelection.
Like most backbench Conservatives, Armstrong has rarely been heard from since.
Now Casey is returning to active politics under the Liberal banner. He’ll seek the Liberal nomination in Cumberland-Colchester and if he’s successful, plans to resume the fight to protect the interests of the Maritimes within Canada.
After two wins against cancer, Casey is back in fighting trim. He seems re-energized by the prospect of taking on the Harper Conservatives once again.
Casey always was a traditional Red Tory, never comfortable in the Reform-inspired Conservatives.
“They have an edge” that he doesn’t like. “Everyone is the enemy, the other parties, the media . . . they’re always suspicious and they’re always looking for a fight.”
What Casey calls “an every man for himself approach to government” has flowered under Harper. “That’s not the country I know.”
The Conservatives clearly seem worried about his return. Last week in the Commons, New Brunswick MP John Williamson fired the first shot, claiming Casey wants to raise taxes and cut programs.
“Voters will see past Casey’s stunt to further his own political agenda,” Williamson said.
He’s right on that point. Casey does have an agenda: asserting the interests of Atlantic Canada and restoring the role of MPs, something that has been eroded under the Conservatives.
“Parliament is more than just the 35 people in cabinet,” says Casey. “It’s there to hold government accountable, and the Conservatives don’t recognize that role at all.”
Armstrong clearly sees Casey as a threat. He says his former friend and colleague is more interested in high-falutin’ parliamentary issues than the bread-and-butter concerns of rural Nova Scotia.
Rhetoric aside, the looming fight for Cumberland-Colchester adds to the list of Conservative problem ridings in Nova Scotia. Two of the four Conservative MPs, Gerald Keddy and Greg Kerr, aren’t re-offering.
The new riding boundaries switched part of Liberal-held Halifax West to South Shore-St. Margarets. West Nova is a traditional swing seat.
Suddenly, Peter MacKay’s Central Nova is the only safe Conservative seat in the province.
The election might be a year away, but here in the East, the campaign is already getting interesting.
Original Article
Source: thechronicleherald.ca/
Author: DAN LEGER
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