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Not content with using her privilege as an MP in one riding to mail promotional flyers into the other, improperly accessing a confidential party database, and terrorizing a party meeting or two, Ms. Adams also sought to exploit the position of her fiancé, the party’s then-executive director, Dimitri Soudas, who made hundreds of calls from the same database on her behalf, in plain violation of his contract.

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Amazingly, things ended badly, with Mr. Soudas turfed from the position to which he had only lately been appointed — by the prime minister himself — and Ms. Adams barred, not only from seeking the nomination in Oakville North-Burlington, but as she was informed in a letter from party president John Walsh two weeks ago, in any riding in the country.

Had Ms. Adams gone before the nation’s media and confessed that the reason she was joining the Liberals was because no other party would have her, that would have been excruciating enough. But it could not have been half so mortifying — to anyone capable of it — as what she actually said, which was that this was all a matter of high principle.

The Conservative party “no longer shares my values,” she declared (which seems unfair: surely there’s still a place in the modern Conservative party for someone whose “values” include winning at any cost). “I can no longer support mean-spirited leadership” — whoa, maybe she has had a change of heart — “that divides people instead of bringing them together.” She was especially offended by the party position on income-splitting, a policy she said, in words that might almost have been written for her, “benefits only the richest few.”