It is no insult to Manitoba MP Jake Hoeppner to suggest that his expulsion last week from the federal Reform party caucus was a good thing for both sides.
Hoeppner and the caucus have not been an easy fit from the beginning. It will be better for Hoeppner’s blood pressure.
The wonder is that they put up with each other for as long as they did.
A year ago, Hoeppner himself seemed to concede the point when he mused that he might resign or sit as an independent.
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The issue then was his frustration that the Reform Opposition was not giving enough priority to agriculture in the House of Commons.
Since then, leader Preston Manning’s attempt to dismantle Reform in favor of a more nationally accepted United Alternative has stuck in Hoeppner’s craw as a sell out to appease central Canada.
Hoeppner has taken to denouncing Manning and attacking in rather colorful language (the word ‘slime’ comes to mind) the leader’s “backroom” advisers.
For those who have followed the Parliament Hill career of the farmer from Snowflake for the past six years, there is nothing surprising about this.
After all, this is the politician who publicly suggested former Canadian Wheat Board commissioner Bill Smith, killed in an accident on a sales trip to China, was murdered because he knew too much. He stopped just short of accusing CWB staff of covering up the murder.
This is a politician who used his office to relentlessly attack the wheat board, even while he and his farm were in court fighting the CWB.
Reform officials insisted they did not see a conflict of interest. When Hoeppner turned his guns on the party … well, that’s a different matter.
Simply put, the maverick two-term MP has been a square peg that the system has spent six years trying to pound into a round political hole.
Ouch.
Hoeppner is a political anarchist. He does not believe in the discipline of organized politics or the need for centralized control over strategy and message in a party trying to assume power.
He seems to honestly believe the rhetoric of Reform, that voter wishes always should take precedence over party political agendas.
He says he would contest the next election as a Liberal if that’s what his constituents wanted. In a riding which last elected a Liberal in 1953, that is quite a display of political independence.
None of this makes Hoeppner wrong. It simply makes him ill-suited for the inevitable restraints imposed on politicians by a structured political system.
As Reform leaders try to prove to Canadians they have a disciplined alternative to the Liberals, they can hardly turn a blind eye to an MP who suggests the party chief is destroying the dream.
But Hoeppner has his own base of support to which he feels accountable. It is unlikely he defeated Tory cabinet minister Charlie Mayer and Tory heavyweight candidate Brian Pallister on Preston Manning’s coattails.
A Reform hard place just met a Hoeppner rock. He will be happier as an independent.
