Civil liberties and civility

Big political news in the neighbourhood: our Member of Parliament has decided to sit as a Civil Libertarian instead of as a Conservative. He was elected as a Conservative in a heavily contested riding in 2011 (in Alberta, 66.8% of the votes were for Conservatives but they got 96.4% of the seats. In our riding, Peter Goldring was elected with only 52.8% of the vote).

To see why Goldring is now sitting as an independent Civil Libertarian, read this article from the Globe and Mail.

Note the quote about how it is "hypocritical to hold principles and apply them only when convenient."

It is convenient for Peter Goldring to espouse civil libertarian principles now that he is facing charges for refusing to give a breath sample to the police when he was pulled over during a Checkstop campaign. If you check his voting record in the House of Commons, you could be forgiven for not thinking of him as a civil libertarian. It seems the Honourable Member has voted in favour of some quite non-libertarian bills while he was sitting as a Conservative. For instance, his party's omnibus crime bill, which included elements that even fellow Conservatives find too draconian. Goldring's outspokenness during the marriage debates are another example. Goldring is a civil libertarian when it is convenient.

For instance, according to the articles on his website he is against government support for private sector projects - specifically the new arena the Katz Group is planning in Edmonton. Yet Goldring has several times spoken glowingly of Mayfair Village, a private developer receiving public monies for a housing project, while decrying the non-profit Boyle Renaissance.

That is his right - but it is ironic that he has gone on record as being critical of people who are inconsistent in exactly this way.

Here's the problem: Goldring was not elected as a civil libertarian. He was elected as a Conservative. If he has experienced a conversion - a "Checkstop to Damascus" experience - then the right thing to do is resign and run again in a byelection. Or, if he is truly sitting as an independent civil libertarian, he needs to start voting against the Conservatives when they violate those principles.

The Conservatives ran on a get-tough-on-crime agenda. They claimed all sorts of "unreported crime" was happening, and they want to build prisons to accommdate the prisoners one assumes will be ferreted out by increased government intervention. Goldring supported that stance during the election. Yet when it is Goldring himself being asked to cooperate in a Checkstop - a measure introduced to reduce the cfrime of impaired driving - suddenly Goldring is a civil libertarian.

Some of the things Goldring has voted for in the past - such as mandatory minimum sentences for trafficking minors - I wholeheartedly agree with. But would a civil libertarian agree with them? As a civil libertarian, Goldring might be less palatable to the electorate than he was as a Conservative - and since he did not exactly win by a landslide, the principled thing to do would be to run again. If the Conservatives fielded another candidate, it is unlikely Goldring would beat them.

If Goldring intends to rejoin the Conservatives once his legal woes have been sorted out, that speaks of a different kind of hypocrisy - where his change of principles is a convenience to keep the Conservative party from suffering any ill consequences.

I understand Goldring's position about the Checkstop, but that does not make him a civil libertarian any more than my position on homelessness makes me a communist. Party and philosophy affiliations are not without meaning - and 52.8% of the vote does not entitle Goldring to assume his constituency supports hypocrisy.

Update February 2012: Goldring has discovered there is an actual Libertarian party so he will sit as an independent Conservative instead.