Today, new PM Harper announced his cabinet. Among them is David Emerson, who two weeks ago was elected as a Liberal. A short while back, Belinda Stronach, elected as a Conservative, became part of the Liberal cabinet. Doesn't anyone owe anything to those who elected them in Canada?

Emerson is the member for Vancouver Kingsway, which has elected a Conservative candidate only once in its history - in 1958. Harper has said, "Mr. Emerson has to explain his decision to his constituents. I don't think he'll have any difficulty doing that." So that's alright, then.

I think the explanation is that Harper was looking for someone with a little experience and strength of character to work on trade problems - like the lumber dispute - with the US. The dribbling, neo-con Albertans who make up the rest of his cabinet would have been too much of a pushover for anyone from the Bush administration - who would only have needed to hand out signed photographs of George to get any agreement wanted.

could it be -- just wondering -- that in Canada sometimes people get political appointments based on expertise in a matter? If so, we'll have to watch to see how that approach works. If it looks good, we could try it here.

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that in Canada sometimes people get political appointments based on expertise in a matter?

Or, in the case of Stronach, when you need one vote to keep your government from falling.

Actually it's a well-known fact here in Canada that Alberta was populated by (among others) a large number of Americans who drifted up from the plains, from as far south as Texas, bringing their guns (and sometimes little else) with them -- except their attitudes. This makes Alberta the hotbed of anti-gun-control sentiment, for example. And it has a lively and thriving separatist feeling.

It even started a new party, Social Credit, based on a weird fimancial model: if money circulates, real wealth is generated. So they issued an Alberta 'dollar' which depreciated at the eand of each month, so people played 'hot potato' with these dollars, then turned in what they couldn't get rid of at the end of each month, for fewer next-month's-dollars.

This policy didn't last long, for some reason.

The party was anti-eastern-canadian, anti-big-bank, and anti-Semitic. (You know, the "international Jewish bankers' conspiracy"). This was potent stuff during the Depression years.

William Aberhart, a prominent evangelist in Alberta, (founder of the Prophetic Bible Institute), founded the Social Credit party there and was premier from 1935 until he died in 1943. Ernie Manning, Social Credit, was premier of Alberta for about 25 years. He also hosted 'Back to the Bible Hour' on radio.

(British Columbia also had a Social Credit party in power for many years, under Premier W.A.C. ("Wacky") Bennet. )

The Social Credit party followers in Alberta voted (old) Conservative federally, where Social Credit was nowhere (nationally). The Conservative party gradually morphed into the Reform Party, after the traditional Conservative party died in 1993. The Reform was populist, though, and there we see the influence of Alberta. The Canadian Alliance party (containing Stephen Harper) was formed when people from these different groups realized that no individual one of them would ever form a national government. So they formed a single party renamed "The Conservative Party of Canada", which did quite decently inthe 2004 election. And of course Harper won this year.

He had to key down his pitch to do it, though. And the only reason he got in was because Canadians had finally become disgusted by the arrogance of the Liberals. Of course, if Harper had decided to go for Premier of Alberta instead of Prime Minister of Canada, he could have been much more up-front about his real agenda -- and won.

Still, Alberta supports socialized medicine. If you let them have access to private services as well.