MP Anderson rejects Liberals’ offer
“It’ll be a cold day in Hell before I even consider betraying my constituents”
by Scott Anderson, Member of Parliament for Vernon-Lake Country-Monashee
It’s important for my constituents to know that I, like others, have been approached by the Liberals and asked to cross the floor to join them. The Liberal Party of Canada is pulling out all the stops to lure Conservative Members of Parliament to cross the floor so they can have a majority and subject Canada to more years of economic and social malaise. With the complicity of the mainstream media, they’ve promoted the myth that there is some kind of movement to turf our leader, and it’s because they are afraid of Pierre Poilievre. They’d prefer a milquetoast Conservative leader and not a fighter who stands up to their lies and omissions.
To the Liberals who initiated this contact, let me say this:
Your headlines scream about great nation building projects, yet almost a year after getting Parliamentary approval there are no pipelines, no new mines, no energy corridor, and not one formal trade deal. Indeed, you haven’t even bothered presenting plans, because buried in the subtext below every headline are caveats that ensure nothing will ever be done. Simply put, you’ve done nothing but make empty promises, increase taxation, and throw billions away trying to entrench your power. What are you going to try to bribe the next Conservative MP with?
If broken promises were the only issue, it would be bad enough. But I sit across from you every day and see what most Canadians can’t see when they watch CPAC. I watch you laugh when we Conservatives bring up the closed mills, the shuttered businesses, the seniors who have to choose between eating and rent. I watch your self-satisfied scoffs when we ask you to cut taxes and allow Canadians to flourish again. I see you, sitting across the aisle in designer suits paid for by a job that’s inflation proof and safe, smirking at those who have to try to scrape a living out of the economic desert you’ve created. I watch you boast about your handouts, your rental housing that never seems to materialize, your leader who shows up a few minutes a month for part of QP before jetting off in search of more pointless headlines. And you have the gall to say that our pleading for the little guy is “carping.” I’m frankly disgusted.
So no, I won’t join your party. I have no intention of crossing the floor today, tomorrow or ever, regardless of what you offer me. It would be a betrayal of my constituents, a betrayal of the office to which I have been elected, and a betrayal of my own personal core beliefs. It’ll be a cold day in Hell before I even consider betraying my constituents, and you should probably stop asking because I will certainly advertise it every time you try.
