St. Albert-Edmonton voted for a puppet in favour of experienced MP

Editor’s Note: Since the original publication of this column, The Gateway was contacted by legal counsel for Mr. Michael Cooper. Mr. Cooper indicates through his legal counsel that he does not hold the views reported, which were based upon The Gateway’s construction of a survey that appeared on the website of Campaign Life Coalition. Mr. Cooper did not complete this survey. Campaign Life Coalition removed reference to this erroneous survey from its website. The Gateway acknowledges that the record had been clearly corrected, respecting the erroneous survey, before the publication of this column.

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A small tragedy occurred this week; a bona fide Shakespearean fall from greatness. In 2014 Maclean’s baptized Brent Rathgeber the MP who “Best Represents Constituents” in their Parliamentarians of the Year awards. He was a vociferous critic of the Conservative Party and a true people’s politician in the riding he served. But on Monday, the independent fiscally-conservative, socially liberal MP who had represented St. Albert-Edmonton for seven years was replaced by voters in favour of Michael Cooper, a party pawn destined for nosebleed seats in the House of Commons. Rathgeber, having formally ended his relationship with the Harper government in 2013, ran without attaching his name to a political party and paid the price with voters on election day.

To me it appears the constituents of St. Albert-Edmonton either voted under a misapprehension or were willfully resistant to logic on the 19th. How could a fair (admittedly conservative) riding turn its back on a politician who simultaneously deconstructed the misgivings of the Harper government and remained true to principle during his tenure as an MP? The disgraceful reality is that electors in the Edmonton suburb had the choice between a man who said, “(I) think legislators like myself need to take a stand that we’re not going to read these talking points that are written by PMO staffers and we’re not going to vote like trained seals” and a man who is every bit the aforementioned pinniped, and they settled on the latter.

I mean, Rathgeber published a book essentially cataloguing the parliamentary indiscretions of Mr. Harper and his crew. He was the best of both worlds for constituents; demonstrating conservative convictions while questioning the status quo. And for some reason on Monday people voted by party and not by person. Their interests were being presented to Ottawa by a local lawyer, and now Ottawa’s interests will be presented to constituents by a local lawyer.

Canadians elsewhere might have envied Rathgeber as a mere choice on the ballot, but Cooper’s healthy victory sequestered that envy straight away. Now instead of an independent voice in the capital, residents of St. Albert-Edmonton will have to be satisfied knowing their MP is a puppet of whomever succeeds Stephen Harper as leader of the Conservative Party. And that’s not the worst of it. Whether they were aware of it or not, or only aware of the party designation next to the candidate’s name, Michael Cooper has some rather extreme views on topics we as a society have made up our collective mind about. Local journalist David Climenhaga writing on Rabble.ca noted that according to the Campaign Life Coalition’s website, “Cooper has indicated he is opposed to a woman’s right to have an abortion in all circumstances — including those in which pregnancy is caused by rape or the health or life of the mother is at risk.” That’s beyond the pale even when compared to politics south of the border.

Rathgeber was a sensible, level-headed, thoughtful MP who left the Conservative Party when they wanted to boss him around. For the people who elected him to repay his courage by replacing him with a rookie party-cheerleader is a very disheartening turn of events.