There's no 'I' in team--nor is there any freedom of conscience

Brent Rathgeber is a former member of the caucus of the Stephen Harper government who was disciplined by the party for blogging his mind on government practices that no thinking person would agree with. This is what he wrote in an excerpt from his book that was printed in the September 9/2014 issue of the National Post (http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/09/08/brent-rathgeber-from-an-ex-tory-mp-confessions-of-a-former-trained-seal/):

In the fall of 2012, the Conservative party leadership tried to discipline me when I refused to remove, or edit, several blog posts I had written that were critical of such non-conservative practices as ministerial opulence (e.g., expense claims for such things as $16 glasses of orange juice and parliamentary limousines), the F-35 fighter jet procurement fiasco, and taxpayer subsidies to private corporations.

In a riveting discussion of life on the backbenches of Parliament, he talks about fellow Conservative Member of Parliament Mark Warawa's experience with his private member's bill condemning sex-selective abortion, another topic on which Canadians are generally agreed:

In the Spring of 2013, Chief Government Whip Gordon O’Conner (pictured) took the team analogy to new and disturbing limits. Langley MP Mark Warawa wished to deliver a statement in the House of Commons, expressing his disappointment that his private member’s motion condemning sex-selective abortion would not be allowed to proceed to a debate. O’Connor justified denying Warawa the opportunity to speak in the House by stating that the caucus was a team and that he was the coach. As coach, he argued, he had the unfettered discretion to determine who gets to “play.”

As an illustration of how this treatment of MPs who don't "get team" is not restricted to the Conservatives, he cites the treatment received by two members of the current NDP caucus:

NDP MPs Bruce Hyer and John Rafferty, both rural Ontario MPs, split with their party leadership on the merits of the Long-Gun Registry and voted in support of a government bill to repeal it. Both faced internal discipline. As a result, Hyer left the NDP and sat as an Independent before eventually joining the Green Party caucus.

Of course, I have already cited in previous posts Justin Trudeau's requirements for current and future Liberal members that they park the heartfelt moral convictions against abortion at the caucus door. 

What is my point here? Simply this. Those well-meaning but deluded people who think that they can push for political solutions to heartfelt positions (such as pro-life) from within a government or any caucus* which is governed by today's crop of political leaders--guided as they are by polls and perceived societal norms--are dreaming (in my not very humble opinion) in technicolour. I'll give Rathgeber the final word:

I have participated in four elections and many election forums. In almost every one of these job auditions, the question is posed by pundits and voters: “How will the candidate, if successful, vote on a matter of local importance, if the position of the constituents is different than the official position of the party under whose banner the candidate is running?”

Invariably, the answer offered, especially by neophyte candidates, is: “Of course I will stand up for my local constituents.” 

The truthful answer should probably be something along the lines of: “I will support the party position and thereafter attempt to persuade you of the correctness of that position, because if I stray from the party position, I will be out of the caucus and off the team and I can do more for you inside the caucus than I can from outside the tent.”

I cannot recall how many times I have heard elected members use this logic to defend their refusal to fight against an objectionable decision the government had made. The reality is that the longer one has been part of the team, the easier it is to rationalize one’s decision to stay on the team as opposed to staying true to the principles that brought the member to Ottawa in the first place.

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*The majority of the present Conservative caucus have voted in favour of various private members bill that have promoted pro life causes, even when their leader urged them not to. Wonderful. Courageous. Every bill has failed, and the government has vowed not to bring any life-related bills to the house, ever.