MORE POLITICS THAN PRINCIPLES

Fildebrandt, Bernier suffered different forms of rejection by their parties; now they face the same struggle to remain relevant, Thomson writes

If misery loves company, provincial United Conservative outcast MLA Derek Fildebrandt must be a happy man.

He now has the company of federal Conservative outcast Maxime Bernier.

Both are political pariahs trying to build their own Conservative parties; Fildebrandt in Alberta, Bernier across Canada.

Both are making it sound like they are principled politicians who were simply fed up with a broken system.

“I am no longer a Conservative,” declared Bernier Thursday as he poked a stick into the federal Conservatives’ hornet’s nest.

“I have come to realize over the past year that this party is too intellectually and morally corrupt to be reformed.”

Fildebrandt, for his part, attacked Alberta’s United Conservative Party in July as “a clique of backroom insider politicians that think the party is simply a vehicle for them to exercise power, rather than for average conservatives to be heard in the larger movement.”

But are these politicians principled? Or simply frustrated and disgruntled?

The reality is both men would have been happy to remain in their respective parties. That is, if Bernier had won the party leadership last year, and if Derek Fildebrandt hadn’t been barred from the UCP. (He was declared persona non grata by leader Jason Kenney after a series of scandals including illegally killing a deer on private property.)

Even though Bernier voluntarily quit the federal Conservative caucus, he might have been ejected if he had stuck around. He jumped before he was pushed. He had embarrassed his fellow MPs and created a crisis for his party through a recent string of xenophobic tweets about “extreme multiculturalism.”

He was condemned by Liberals and Conservatives — but what was particularly worrying for Conservatives was that, according to news reports, he had support from some party rank-and-file who think that Canada has indeed gone too far with diversity.

That’s probably why Fildebrandt jumped to Bernier’s defence after the tweet-storm.

Fildebrandt proclaimed, without evidence, Bernier’s stance is “broadly accepted by the majority of Albertans and Canadians.”

And in a tweet, Fildebrandt added that his new party, the Freedom Conservative Party (FCP), would push for Alberta to have more control over immigration: “Most Canadians believe in a welcoming immigration system, but they expect that those coming here accept our basic shared values. The political class is almost universally terrified of representing the silent majority on this issue. The FCP is not.”

Ah, yes, the old “silent majority” shtick.

Put forward an argument that’s controversial and claim you’re actually speaking for the majority who can’t or won’t speak up for themselves.

Bernier and Fildebrandt are being deliberately inflammatory as a way to attract attention and support.

They are desperate to stay in the public limelight, aware they are in very real danger of fading into oblivion.

Their stance has more to do with politics than principles.

They realize that independent politicians do not do well in elections.

Just ask one.

Brent Rathgeber, the former MP for Edmonton- St. Albert, knows all too well the futile existence of an independent MP. He made national news in June of 2013 when he was the first MP to voluntarily quit the federal Conservative caucus.

Unlike Bernier, Rathgeber resigned over a matter of principle, not ego.

He had grown frustrated at being micromanaged and browbeaten by the “boys in short pants” in the Prime Minister’s Office who had interfered in his role as a representative of his constituents.

But leaving a party caucus, for whatever reason, leaves a politician isolated and vulnerable.

“You get absolute freedom, you can say whatever you want,” said Rathgeber in an interview Friday. “The problem is you don’t get to say it that often. If you don’t have party status, you’re not guaranteed questions in question period, you don’t have a seat on any of the parliamentary committees, you don’t have any resources.”

Rathgeber ran as an Independent in the 2015 election but lost to the Conservative’s new candidate.

He suspects the same fate awaits Fildebrandt and Bernier, even if they run under flags of convenience by making up new parties.

Like other observers, though, Rathgeber thinks Bernier could inadvertently help the federal Liberals win reelection next year by siphoning votes away from the Conservatives in closely-fought races.

In that case, Bernier will be making all Conservatives miserable, not just himself.