David Emerson and the joy of semantics.

Ah, I see how this works. Emerson didn't "leave" the Liberals. Rather, he was "asked to join" the CPC. "No way, officer, I didn't ask to buy cocaine from that guy. He offered to sell it to me first. So it's cool, right?"

I swear, no one can split hairs like a wanker.

THE EMERSON-APPROVED OFFICIAL TIMELINE: According to this piece in the Toronto Star, all of the negotiating happened after the election. And if you believe that, you're even dumber than Ezra Levant.

ONE MORE THOUGHT: As I've already written, there's at least some circumstantial evidence that Emerson's victory was helped by strategic voting to make sure that a CPC candidate didn't win in that riding. If that's true -- if Emerson either directly or indirectly appealed to normally NDP voters to vote Liberal to prevent a CPC win -- then it would seem that Emerson is at least ethically bound not to have switched parties to the CPC, no?

If you run, at least partly, on a platform of denying a seat to the CPC, it's the height of sleazy dishonesty to take those votes for a victory, then turn around and inflict a CPC winner on that riding after all. It wouldn't matter if you had second thoughts after the election. In effect, Emerson persuaded voters to support him with an implicit promise, and all the post-election rationalization isn't going to alter the fact that Emerson effectively lied to all those voters as to what their votes were going to mean.

Sadly, it doesn't appear that there's anything the voters of Vancouver Kingsway can do about it. One can only hope they have long memories.