In some ways, New Democrat agriculture critic Malcolm Allen can consider it a sign that he has arrived on Parliament Hill in his new role as a senior opposition critic.
After weeks of largely ineffective Conservative party attempts to discredit opposition critics through a series of news releases dubbed “Get to Know Mr. Mulcair’s NDP Shadow Cabinet,” the Tory mudslingers finally got around to Allen June 5.
It was pretty tame stuff.
Allen is an affable second-term southwestern Ontario MP who represents the diverse rural-urban riding of Welland but has little direct tie to agriculture and in life before politics was an auto plant electrician and a union activist.
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But that lack of direct farmer background for an agriculture critic or his union activism were not what the Conservatives targeted.
Instead it was the old and tired saw about the long gun registry.
Allen said before the parliamentary vote to end the registry that he was getting a lot of pressure from framers and hunters in his riding to support abolition.
But NDP leader Thomas Mulcair said all his MPs had to support the party position to retain the registry and he has vowed to reinstate the registry if the NDP wins the next election.
Two Thunder Bay New Democrat MPs defied Mulcair and voted with the Conservatives. One, Bruce Hyer, has since left the NDP caucus.
Allen voted the party line despite acknowledging pressure to vote otherwise.
“Mr. Allen has already shown that he cannot be counted on to stand up for farmers in the face of radical special interests that don’t understand life in rural areas or northern Canada,” said the Conservative message. “Farmers certainly cannot look to the NDP’s agriculture critic to stop Mr. Mulcair’s attempt to recreate the registry.”
That’s it? There is no mention of his or his party’s positions on actual agricultural issues?
This Conservative attack campaign, so successful against previous opposition Liberal leaders Stephaney Dion (“not a leader”) and Michael Ignatieff (“just visiting”), seems simply to be going through the motions in trying to smear the New Democrats.
As the Allen entry illustrates, it is pretty lame stuff indeed.
Maybe the Conservative war room simply can’t find juicy negative charges to throw at the opposition New Democrats.
Or maybe they really are going through the motions, happy to see New Democrats and Liberals splitting the vote, making it more likely the Conservatives can continue to govern after the next election with a minority of public support.
