Apolitical Staples

The people who left Harper’s team in 2004 and 2005 said the same thing. Nobody likes to be told to step aside.

However, it does look bad for Dion. It must - otherwise, why would Harper want to go to the polls early :)

Wasn’t the year-long leadership race supposed to be a process of renewal for the Liberal Party of Canada?

Sorry, but that party ain’t gonna renew itself any time soon. At least not from where I’m standing.

77 (45%) out of 172 Liberal MPs have retired in the last 5 years. That’s more than retired from the last 5 years of Mulroney’s government (41%).

But if there is one thing that the Liberals need it is renewal and this certainly gives them a chance at that.

Well said, Greg.

We come to an age of “over analysing” everything. The woman is 61 and has had some health problems. In fact she was away for several weeks due to her health. Duh.

Can’t people accept that maybe it is as simple as that?

When you are in government, especially for so long, you tend to stick around for the good of the party, because you are part of team implementing your priorities and agenda, because the leadership candidate you supported long ago is now there or asks you to stay longer, even because of the perks (as few as there in fact are for politicians, but that’s another story).

It’s why you get into politics, to put your beliefs into government policy and the personal loyalties, so you stick it out longer than you would if you were in opposition.

So when you are no longer part of the team implementing your priorities and you’ve already been at it for over a decade and there is a new leader, is it any surprise that there is a changing of the guard?

What’s the average age of all these departing MPs anyway? 63 years or so?

When 41% of Mulroney’s MPs retired in the last 5 years of his government, everyone viewed it as the beginning of the end for the PCs. The party hacks came up with every excuse why this was either a good thing (renewal) or no big deal. Of course, we ignored them.

Now when “77 (45%) out of 172 Liberal MPs have retired in the last 5 years” the party hacks come up with every excuse why this was either a good thing (renewal) or no big deal. This time we believe them. Go figure.

When you are in government and they are quitting on you, like they were under Martin, that is not a good sign.

But when you are not in government, it could very well be a bad sign but just as likely or even more likely, given the senior citizen age and number of years of service of the likes of Bill Graham (66, 13 years in government) and Robillard (over a decade in government), that it is just the changing of the guard.

Ted

I’m taking this thread to OT, but here goes.

Ted, The problem with your last comment is that it ignores the fact that twice the percentage of MPs have retired under Dion (about 18% in 4 months) than under Martin (about 9% between 2004 and 2006 elections).

This is not just a changing of the guard.

Every MP has a legitimate reason to retire. The timing of those retirements does have some significance.

I got to say though that this IS a STRENGTH of the Canadian parliamentary system. We have a good turnover of MPs. Incumbents actually leave either by losing or retiring. We have a conveyor belt of new talent and ideas into Parliament and old, tired ideas and people out. Let’s not sugar coat the reasons why though. Generous pensions. Little influence for backbenchers. Bad leadership.