Rota’s Registry Dilemma
The Nugget ran a piece on Friday describing the pressure that Anthony Rota is under from the Harper government to vote alongside Conservatives to scrap the long gun registry. Will Anthony Rota succumb to the pressure and support the Conservative agenda? Strategic voters, who tend to vote against their conscience, for a viable alternative to whatever Conservative candidate is running, are waiting to find out.
Mr. Rota campaigned on a promise to help scrap the registry, and that is fine, it probably got him some votes from amongst the hunters in this community of which there are many. However, Mr. Rota would be wrong to think that he has a mandate from Nipissing to scrap the registry, simply because he campaigned on that promise. On this issue, he diverged from the national Liberal platform. But, many people do not vote for the candidate, they vote for the party that the candidate represents.
Just as there may be people out there who voted for him because he, as an individual, promised to help end the registry, there are also people out there who voted for him because he is a Liberal, and the Grits promised not to scrap the registry.
Thankfully for Mr. Rota, he has cover for changing his mind. At the time of his election, the chiefs of police of this country had not yet endorsed the registry as a valuable crime fighting tool. He doesn’t have to change his mind because Ignatieff is whipping the vote, he needs to change his mind because he has an unclear mandate from his constituency, and because the police want the registry.
Every single person that voted against his or her conscience in the last election to prevent a Conservative victory will be watching Mr. Rota to see how distinguishable he is from a Conservative.
