OTTAWA–The strange, dual-political citizenship of Wajid Khan – the Liberal MP serving since last summer as "special adviser" to the Conservative prime minister on the Middle East and Afghanistan – may be coming to an end this week.
But whether Khan intends to stay as a Liberal or cross the floor to the Conservatives became more of a mystery yesterday when neither he nor the Prime Minister's Office wanted to answer any questions about the political future of the MP for Mississauga-Streetsville.
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Some Liberal insiders say they're sure that Khan has been waiting to make his move when he can exact a maximum price for crossing the floor...
Well, I certainly hope not. And if he does, I hope he takes shit from both his constits and the nation in general. (Given Mississauga's voting history, I assume this would be a fairly difficult riding for him to win as a Tory)
Personally, I felt his "special adviser" status to the Tories was defensible given the importance of the issues in question (MidEast, Afghanistan), even if it made things a little bit awkward for the Liberal Party.
But if Mr. Khan was in reality entering into negotiations with Harper and Co., then he deserves nothing but scorn for it.
h/t to Political Staples.
Update: Accidental Deliberations has some interesting musings on this topic:
But the more often Canadians see the apparent interchangeability between the Libs and Cons in the eyes of the MPs jumping back and forth, the less likely they are to believe the Libs' protestations that there's a real difference between the two.
I imagine AccDel thinks this will play to the benefit of the NDP. However, I suspect that seeing Lib MPS who are comfortable with turning from Red to Blue will just make Canadians more comfortable with voting CPC. Hope not, but there it is.
2 comments:
Mushroom, you think that Mississauga- Streetsville voters would so easily vote in a Caucasian parachute candidate from Newmarket, over a local who is South Asian? Remember, in the 2006 vote, both the Liberal (Khan) and Conservative candidates were South Asian and the margin of victory was not huge (~11%), so this says to me that partisanship in this riding is not that solid.
As noted over on Political Staples, Wajid Khan isn't just another MP... he was well known far prior to his becoming involved in politics...
quote from Greg Staples on his blog: "As I have said in the comments Wajid Khan is more than your typical backbench MP. He owns Dufferin Mazda which he has advertised for on the Fan590 for years (a decade?). His ads are so popular that there is an annual sound-a-like contest where various members of the Fan590 and audience attempt to do a Wajid Khan impression. So this (if true) could have a pretty sizeable impact."
And remember how the Cons were all about trying to spin the celebration of Khan's nomination into a racially-motivated chant? Someone hit the wayback machine and check out some of their comments...
We'll just have to get Shatner to deliver a photon blast against another regressive, so-con anti-rights candidate. And if Harpor carts off Wappel and anyone else, I'm thinking he'll help paint himself into a scary corner.
As to the NdP, why are you still trying to ride Harpor's coattails?
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