Post-mortem

Scott Piatkowski, who happens to be one of the members of the Ontario NDP Executive, offers his take on the expulsion of Buzz Hargrove:

When people join the New Democratic Party, they sign a statement acknowledging that they are “not a member or a supporter of any other political party.” Every year that Buzz Hargrove signed his membership card, he agreed to that condition again.

But, Hargrove clearly couldn't (or wouldn't) adhere to that fairly simple condition and, in doing so, he effectively renounced his party membership. What the Executive did in suspending his membership simply confirmed the divorce — while giving him the opportunity to admit his error and to promise that he wouldn't repeat it. The fact that he's stated that he will not agree to the conditions set by the Executive (exactly the same conditions he had promised to meet when he first signed up and every year thereafter) only confirms that he does not belong in the party.

None of the reasoning is much of a surprise in light of the discussion at the time. But if there was every any doubt, Piatkowski's comment makes it absolutely clear that the issue was never one of policing thoughts or ideas, but instead a matter of ensuring that Hargrove would live up to a minimal standard of loyalty (i.e. not openly acting to the deliberate detriment of the party) to which he'd agreed in the past. And given Hargrove's stated intention not to live up to his end of the bargain, it would have been a sign of foolishness for the party to conclude that it should continue to offer Hargrove the benefits of membership.