{"id":21809,"date":"2018-10-03T17:38:03","date_gmt":"2018-10-03T21:38:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=21809"},"modified":"2018-10-03T17:38:03","modified_gmt":"2018-10-03T21:38:03","slug":"motives-behind-alleslevs-floor-crossing-questioned","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/motives-behind-alleslevs-floor-crossing-questioned\/","title":{"rendered":"Motives behind Alleslev\u2019s floor crossing questioned"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Die-hard Liberals will wail about betrayal. Committed Conservatives will imagine a lurch toward power. Some will point to Ms. Alleslev\u2019s military and corporate background and see a small-\u201dc\u201d conservative shifting to her natural home.<br \/>\nOthers will attribute her decision to pique at losing her job as a Parliamentary Secretary.<br \/>\nSevere skeptics will say she\u2019s an opportunist who, fearing a Liberal losses in the 905, is trying opportunistically to attach herself to the Doug Ford insurgency and ride that populist beast to re-election.<br \/>\nMany will take her at her word.<br \/>\nI don\u2019t know; few of us do.<br \/>\nShe explains that the world has changed. That, however, is mainly the effect of the current US president. How would electing a party that is better aligned with Mr. Trump be helpful? She adds that Canada\u2019s economic, foreign and defence policies are entwined, but does anyone seriously oppose comprehensive, coherent public policy?<br \/>\nThen, there is her sense of \u201curgency,\u201d her reference to a \u201ctipping point,\u201d her talk of a \u201cperfect storm\u201d and her expressed need for \u201cleadership.\u201d Apart from whether Andrew Scheer is up to the task, I worry whenever anyone seeks a \u201cstrong leader\u201d to take us from danger to redemption.<br \/>\nDemocracy rests more on an informed, active electorate than charismatic leadership. Craving a saviour hints at desperation and undue deference. It is a sentiment that implies a submissive citizenry. It betokens authoritarianism. We embrace it at our peril.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Howard A. Doughty<br \/>\nOak Ridges<\/strong><\/p>\n<a class=\"synved-social-button synved-social-button-share synved-social-size-24 synved-social-resolution-single synved-social-provider-facebook nolightbox\" data-provider=\"facebook\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" title=\"Share on Facebook\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newspapers-online.com%2Fauroran%2Fwp-json%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fposts%2F21809&#038;t=Motives%20behind%20Alleslev%E2%80%99s%20floor%20crossing%20questioned&#038;s=100&#038;p&#091;url&#093;=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newspapers-online.com%2Fauroran%2Fwp-json%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fposts%2F21809&#038;p&#091;images&#093;&#091;0&#093;=&#038;p&#091;title&#093;=Motives%20behind%20Alleslev%E2%80%99s%20floor%20crossing%20questioned\" style=\"font-size: 0px;width:24px;height:24px;margin:0;margin-bottom:5px;margin-right:5px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Facebook\" title=\"Share on Facebook\" class=\"synved-share-image synved-social-image synved-social-image-share\" width=\"24\" height=\"24\" style=\"display: inline;width:24px;height:24px;margin: 0;padding: 0;border: none;box-shadow: none\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/plugins\/social-media-feather\/synved-social\/image\/social\/regular\/48x48\/facebook.png\" \/><\/a><a class=\"synved-social-button synved-social-button-share synved-social-size-24 synved-social-resolution-single synved-social-provider-twitter nolightbox\" data-provider=\"twitter\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" title=\"Share on Twitter\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newspapers-online.com%2Fauroran%2Fwp-json%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fposts%2F21809&#038;text=Like%3F\" style=\"font-size: 0px;width:24px;height:24px;margin:0;margin-bottom:5px;margin-right:5px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"twitter\" title=\"Share on Twitter\" class=\"synved-share-image synved-social-image synved-social-image-share\" width=\"24\" height=\"24\" style=\"display: inline;width:24px;height:24px;margin: 0;padding: 0;border: none;box-shadow: none\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/plugins\/social-media-feather\/synved-social\/image\/social\/regular\/48x48\/twitter.png\" \/><\/a><a class=\"synved-social-button synved-social-button-share synved-social-size-24 synved-social-resolution-single synved-social-provider-mail nolightbox\" data-provider=\"mail\" rel=\"nofollow\" title=\"Share by email\" href=\"mailto:?subject=Motives%20behind%20Alleslev%E2%80%99s%20floor%20crossing%20questioned&#038;body=Like%3F:%20https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newspapers-online.com%2Fauroran%2Fwp-json%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fposts%2F21809\" style=\"font-size: 0px;width:24px;height:24px;margin:0;margin-bottom:5px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"mail\" title=\"Share by email\" class=\"synved-share-image synved-social-image synved-social-image-share\" width=\"24\" height=\"24\" style=\"display: inline;width:24px;height:24px;margin: 0;padding: 0;border: none;box-shadow: none\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/plugins\/social-media-feather\/synved-social\/image\/social\/regular\/48x48\/mail.png\" \/><\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Die-hard Liberals will wail about betrayal. Committed Conservatives will imagine a lurch toward power. Some will point to Ms. Alleslev\u2019s military and corporate background and see a small-\u201dc\u201d conservative shifting to her natural home. Others will attribute her decision to pique at losing her job as a Parliamentary Secretary. Severe skeptics will say she\u2019s an [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-letters-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5FL","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-25 10:06:48","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21809\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}