The REAL reason the Emerson appointment was troubling

It may surprise some (if not all) that I'm bringing up the matter of Trade Minister Emerson now, but I think a very important angle of the appointment has been missed.

Down here on the south side of the 49th parallel, we see party-switchers (as we call them) more frequently than Canadians do; so, with all due respect to Vancouver, the issue of for whom or what a constituent votes is not what bothers me. The greater problem - and dare I say, danger - is what it portends for the current government policy, particularly toward Communist China.

David Emerson was no ordinary Liberal. He was a minister in a Cabinet that repeatedly drove the anti-Communist, pro-China-democracy community to apoplexy. In particular was the concern of the ChiComs worming their way into Canada's bountiful natural resources - including Albertan oil (fourth item, Edmonton Sun) and Saskatchewan's oil and uranium (Globe and Mail) - and Canadian held resources abroad (BBC). Emerson, as Industry Minister, appeared unfazed by this (Wall Street Journal via Pittsburgh Post-Gazette).
In fact, the performance of the late Martin government was the main reason so many from outside Canada paid attention to last month's election in the first place. We were hoping that the Conservatives in government would be as strongly anti-Communist as they had been in opposition (Epoch Times).

Now, to be fair, Stephen Harper has been Prime Minister less than three weeks. We have seen no budget, and thus we can still hope the amount of foreign aid going to Communist China from Ottowa (UPDATE: whoops! Ottawa) is reduced to a reasonable number (i.e., zero). Furthermore, the appointment of Stockwell Day as Public Safety Minister could be terrible news for the Communist espionage network in North America (Hansard), and terrific news for its victims. However, when placed in the context of the Cabinet as a whole, we are presently, and sadly, closer to our worst fears than our best hopes.

Now is not the time to ask whether or not David Emerson "abandoned" his Vancouver constituents who voted Liberal. We should instead ask how much Harper et al sacrificed the interests of Canadians who - on this issue at least - voted Conservative.

Cross posted to the Shotgun