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Whether driven by pensions, premonition or panic, Harper’s ministers and MPs are heading for the exits in droves — or seeking new political homes.

A group of Conservatives nearly as large as the entire Liberal caucus will not be re-offering in the next federal election. That includes five cabinet ministers, now that Industry Minister James Moore has decided on a career-path change. And the number is likely to grow as the summer wears on.

The wonder is that Michael Chong, the Conservative MP for the Ontario riding of Wellington-Halton Hills, has not joined the stampede. For one thing, Chong may be the closest thing the Conservatives have left to what used to be known as a Red Tory — long an endangered species, now verging on extinction.

Given that Justin Trudeau is arguably a ‘blue’ Liberal, these two men are not separated by much philosophically. Together they could be a powerful duo for changing how politics in Canada is practised.

Like Conservatives Bill Casey and Eve Adams before him, Chong has every reason to feel aggrieved. After putting in years of work on his widely praised Reform Act, a piece of legislation aimed at bringing average MPs in out of the cold of parliamentary irrelevance, and at placing limits on the powers of leaders in the system, Chong has been all but scuppered by a Senate almost certainly doing the PMO’s dirty work — again.

After navigating the Reform Act through his own caucus and the opposition parties, it looked like Chong had done the impossible. His bill passed the House of Commons and appeared to have the grudging support of Harper and his PMO apparatchiks. It would give MPs the power not only to trigger a leadership review from caucus, but also to oust their leaders. It would give MPs, not the leader, the right to eject members from caucus — and to reinstate them.

And one other vitally important thing: Chong’s bill would take away the veto that all party leaders currently have to override unwanted candidate choices made by local riding associations.

It all seemed like good stuff to revitalize a moribund parliamentary institution. Then Chong hit the Conservative Senate wall. Two Conservative senators, David Wells and Denise Batters, have proposed an eleventh-hour amendment that Jennifer Ditchburn of the Canadian Press has reported would “gut” Chong’s Reform Act. They accuse Chong of ignoring the will of party members in his bill, and of trying to bully the Senate into endorsing something that he couldn’t sell at Conservative policy conventions.

Chong’s rebuttal was a short right hand to the jaw of his detractors: The unelected Senate has no business blocking a bill that has already received all-party consent from the elected House of Commons and is aimed specifically at empowering MPs.

Beyond his current losing battle with colleagues in the Senate (the Senate vote on the Reform Act is slated for Monday afternoon), there are other good reasons for Chong to take a walk in the sun this summer to join the Trudeau camp. Chong was the Intergovernmental Affairs minister back in 2006 when the prime minister broke all the known rules with his unilateral declaration that Quebec was a “nation.”

If Michael Chong leaves the Conservatives, no one could blame him. And if he stays put, as he said as recently as May that he will, he just might end up vying for the leadership of a party that will soon have a vacancy at the top. If Michael Chong leaves the Conservatives, no one could blame him. And if he stays put, as he said as recently as May that he will, he just might end up vying for the leadership of a party that will soon have a vacancy at the top.

Harper did not bother to put the measure through cabinet; he simply did it by decree. Even though Chong was the minister responsible, he wasn’t informed about Harper’s decision until he was on his way to Wednesday caucus back in November, 2006. His then deputy minister, Louis Levesque, gave him the news.

The deputy also informed his minister that he, Levesque, had been in talks about the nation status issue the night before. It was staggering news. Chong’s deputy was involved in this hugely important decision and the minister was not? It was the clearest example of executive governance under Harper yet on record.

This rising star of the Conservative party was shocked by the PM’s unilateral action. He believed that it was the duty of the Clerk of the Privy Council to tell Harper that even the PM had to obey the rules. But with the Clerk’s office politicized under Harper, just like every other part of the government, that never happened.

There was a sense of urgency, even panic, in the national caucus. Chong passionately believed that there should be a debate on nation status. He also believed that in politics there should always be a way to bring forward compromises. His own view on the nation status issue was exactly like Pierre Trudeau’s, which was premised on the rejection of tribalism and ethnic nationalism. A fundamental violation of the way government policy was made had occurred and Chong wasn’t in the mood to play ball.

What made Harper’s action even more shocking to the national caucus was that the Bloc Québécois had introduced a motion the day before calling on the government to recognize the Québécois Nation — exactly as the PM was planning to do. Placating separatists is not normally the work of Conservative leaders, even in a minority government.

Harper’s unilateral authoritarianism did not come as a complete surprise to Chong. As an MP and cabinet minister, he had noticed that Harper liked to make most of the big decisions at meetings of Planning and Priorities, a small but powerful committee of handpicked subordinates which the prime minister chairs. In the early innings of the Harper government, full cabinet rarely met and P&P did most of the heavy lifting.

Chong mulled over whether there was a way he could rationalize support for nation status for Quebec. He concluded that it was policy and procedural poison. There was nothing he could do but become the first Harper cabinet minister to resign. The minister had his chief-of-staff call the PMO for a meeting with Stephen Harper about leaving cabinet.

For a week Chong was stonewalled by the PM’s then chief-of-staff, Ian Brodie. PMO staffer Dimitri Soudas intervened and tried to persuade Chong to change his mind. Chong held fast.

The meeting with the PM finally happened. It was a tense encounter in which Harper kept telling Chong he should support the measure. Chong replied that he would be publicly stating his reasons for leaving cabinet in a press conference to be held at 2:00 PM in room S-10 of Centre Block. Harper expressed surprise that Chong was resigning over the PM’s personal policy making. Displays of principle trumping self-interest have always been a mystery to Harper, as the resignation of Munir Sheikh would demonstrate almost four years later.

Another good fit between Chong and Trudeau is their position on C-51, the so-called anti-terror bill which has hurt the Conservatives and the Liberals in recent polls, while boosting the fortunes of the NDP. Chong voted for Bill C-51 but expressed reservations. It was his view that there should be parliamentary oversight of CSIS included in the legislation. He specifically argued that the Security Intelligence Review Committee is not good enough, because all of its members are appointed by the prime minister.

By voting for C-51 now on the promise of amendments later, Trudeau disappointed those Canadians alarmed at the bill’s lack of checks and balances with respect to civil liberties and sunset provisions. It’s the old gamble on having one’s cake and eating it too. We’ll see.

Meanwhile, though it would not be surprising to see Michael Chong change horses and move to the Liberals, there is one very big reason for the popular Conservative MP to stay put. According to pollster Frank Graves, the Harper Conservatives have little chance to form a majority government after the next election. Some have speculated that Harper might stay in power by through some Machiavellian coalition arrangement, but that seems highly unlikely.

NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair is already on record saying that he will do anything to end Harper’s hold on power. That leaves the Liberals.

As tempting as it might be to do the Nick Clegg thing, look what happened when the Liberal Democrats hopped in bed with the Conservatives in the U.K. They did that deal for a deputy prime ministership and cabinet positions when the party had 57 seats. They rationalized being strange bedfellows by saying they could make a difference in the government’s agenda.

After the 2015 election, the Liberal Democrats had lost all their London seats save one and were reduced to just eight seats nationally; Clegg resigned in disgrace. Any progressive party in Canada that gets under the duvet with Stephen Harper will disappear into the same oblivion.

If Michael Chong leaves the Conservatives, no one could blame him. And if he stays put — as he said as recently as May that he will — he just might end up vying for the leadership of a party that soon will have a vacancy at the top.

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Michael Harris is a writer, journalist, and documentary filmmaker. He was awarded a Doctor of Laws for his “unceasing pursuit of justice for the less fortunate among us.” His nine books include Justice Denied, Unholy Orders, Rare ambition, Lament for an Ocean, and Con Game. His work has sparked four commissions of inquiry, and three of his books have been made into movies. His new book on the Harper majority government, Party of One, is a number one best-seller.

Readers can reach the author at [email protected]. Click here to view other columns by Michael Harris.

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