Entrevue avec le député BRUCE HYER

Q&A EXCERPTS FROM M.P. BRUCE HYER ON QUITTING THE NDP:




Q: How do you square your feeling now with, I mean, right after the convention you were fairly complimentary of Mr. Mulcair and his leadership abilities?

A: I never believed in a million years that he would be silly enough to immediately say that he would bring back the long gun registry and write off Manitoba and Saskatchewan and Northern B.C. and other rural parts of Canada. I found that disappointing. But I was hopeful that maybe he felt the need to do that right away and then he’d just kind of put it on the back shelf for awhile and reflect on it. So that was the first warning signal. But, you’ll have to make your own decisions on this, but when I look at the list of who got appointed to what in the (shadow) cabinet, I think there are some clear biases there and I think there was some punishment for not supporting him in the [leadership] race in certain areas …




Q: So just to clarify, you had two concerns: one, you were concerned about her leadership in general and two, you were bothered by the fact that you were punished after the long gun registry vote?

A: Absolutely. And it’s not about me or my ego, it’s about many things. It’s about my ability to do my job to which I was elected. And so my effectiveness was curtailed during that very long period.




Q: And when did you make the final decision to become an independent MP?

A: Well, as you may know, I backed Nathan Cullen in a high profile way and I think that he would’ve been a fantastic choice as our next prime minister. But I came over to Tom after Nathan dropped off the ballot because I believed at that time that Mr. Mulcair was the next best choice and was a much better choice than Brian Topp. And then when Mr. Mulcair told me shortly after—he didn’t tell me directly actually, which I would have appreciated—but when I indirectly heard that he was lifting the sanctions that Nycole Turmel had put in place over the long gun registry, I was pleased and I was ready to give him a chance. I was ready to go back to work. He asked the caucus, if any of us had aspirations in the shadow cabinet, to send him our wish list. And so I sent him a very short wish list in which I requested that I be made the small business critic—where I have a lot of interest and expertise and I feel it’s important that someday one of the political parties is the small business party because I don’t think there ever has been one—with a secondary choice of electoral reform, which I think is crucial to the future of Parliament. I never got a response to my note to Tom. So then two things happened. One is, in fairly short order, he started to say, especially in Quebec, that he would bring back the long gun registry and he would whip the vote. And I could see we were going to be on to a collision course again because I knew that I would not vote to reinstate the long gun registry … So I went, Uh-oh, well, hopefully he’ll get a dose of common sense sometime in the future. There’s a lot of time between now and then. So I decided to wait and be patient. But then when the list of shadow cabinet appointees came out and out of 102 NDP MPs there were 78 appointments, some of them pretty fluffy, but nonetheless, to be left off of that, I said, Well, I didn’t come here to be a backbencher and that’s pretty much when I made my decision.




Q: In terms of the gun registry, your concern is that three years or four years hence if he becomes prime minister, that’s when this would happen? Because there’s no other votes really coming up on it between now and then?

A: Well, we get opposition day motions and I will be surprised if he doesn’t bring it back as an opposition day motion. And as you know, motions aren’t law, they’re feel good exercises. But even on that I would not abstain and I would not vote to bring back the long gun registry. And so I could see it coming that, in addition to not having a shadow cabinet role, that I’d be back in the dog house again... (By Aaron Wherry -- Macleans -- April 24, 2012)