Secrets and lies

Your open, accountable governing party in action, as the Cons try to avoid explaining why a nomination challenge to Rob Anders will not be tolerated:

So how squeaky clean must a potential candidate be to challenge one of the most controversial members of Parliament?

Nobody knows for sure since no reason has been given as to why the former Conservative riding president for Calgary West has been disqualified in his bid to challenge four-term incumbent Rob Anders for the riding nomination. James Bereznay, vice-president of the riding association, said Wednesday that businessman Walter Wakula's bid to run against Anders was rejected earlier this month.

Bereznay dismissed suggestions that information should have been released or that the public should be told why Wakula, a member of the University of Calgary senate, was turned away.

The move wasn't secretive, he said, but further comment would have to come from Michael Donison, the Conservative national executive director in Ottawa.

And just in case there was any danger of the buck being passed to somebody with something to say:

Donison did not immediately return calls.

It's hard to imagine what candidacy standards the Cons are applying to Wakula's nomination that wouldn't disqualify Anders himself from continuing to embarrass the party. That said, it does seem glaringly clear that while claiming to want to keep their MPs accountable, the Cons are more than willing to go to great lengths to prevent challenges from being viable or even (in this case) possible - particularly in light of a similar disqualified challenge to Nina Grewal mentioned in the article. And that pattern of arbitrarily preventing challenges should leave PMS as silent as his party is now next time he has to defend the Cons' track record on internal democracy.