Popular revolt

Today's story about how the manipulation of the Cons' Edmonton-Sherwood Park nomination meeting won't likely affect the results in a riding which they won by nearly 27,000 votes in 2006. But it can only combine with past riding-level distortions to reinforce concerns about the Cons' anti-democratic bent:

Voters in Edmonton-Sherwood Park will have their pick of two conservatives this election as a result of an acrimonious split in the Tory riding association's board over former Mill Woods candidate Tim Uppal's nomination victory.

The majority of board members quit after Uppal soundly defeated local municipal councillor Jacquie Fenske for the Conservative nomination, and his team took control of the board...

Noonan believes the party took advantage of a weak local board to put in place its favoured candidate from outside the constituency. "I don't know how many other places they have done this, but I am working like hell for Jim to teach the S.O.B.s a lesson. It's as simple as that. If this is what the Conservative party has become, they should go down into Central America."

He doesn't know if Prime Minister Stephen Harper endorsed the move, but says he and several other board members received a taped phone call from Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day endorsing Uppal before the nomination vote.

Former board member Donna Clarkson says eight of 12 board members quit or left over the issue.

"For these people to come in and tell us how to run our board -- we just had enough of it."

Ford, who assisted Fenske in her nomination bid, says association members weren't given sufficient notice of the nomination meeting. Although most members reside in Sherwood Park and Fort Saskatchewan, the vote was held in north Edmonton, he says.

Now, it's worth noting that the group of dissenters is hardly without its own problems. Indeed, it's the new independent candidate who's apparently using the problems with the Con party apparatus as an excuse to propose legislation to freeze non-citizens out of any nomination process.

But the fact that the Cons are willing to run roughshod over their own riding associations in order to secure the political outcomes they want can leave no doubt that groups who are less friendly to the party are even more likely to see their interests trampled. And that can only highlight the importance of breaking Harper's hold on the country while voters have the chance.