OTTAWA -Buying an MP is not cheap, but it's done with surprisingly guilt-free ease and recent regularity.
When one party wants to deliver a painful partisan whack on an opponent or salvage a pivotal vote to keep a government alive, it need only mix the correct dose of political power with the right amount of compensation and, presto, you land an MP -- body, soul, riding seat and standing vote.
That's why there's a certain preachy hypocrisy to Liberals trashing Conservatives over the lingering million-dollar question in the Chuck Cadman saga.
Consider the top vote-buying attempts of the past five years -- some of them successful, others, not so much.
Belinda Stronach The billionaire Aurora MP staged the vote sale of the decade with her blockbuster switch from a Conservative leadership hopeful to Liberal Cabinet minister just two days before Paul Martin's Liberal government was due for a May, 2005, toppling. Former Ontario premier David Peterson negotiated a clover landing in Cabinet as the price for Ms. Stronach's defection.
Cost of her vote: $50,000 for two-thirds of a year as a minister (although, if it makes you feel better, Ms. Stronach does donate her MP pay-cheques to charity).
Value: She hurt the fledgling Conservative party's bid for a more moderate image, but in preserving the government, she may have inadvertently delayed the election until the Conservatives enjoyed the winning conditions to defeat the Liberals.
Germant Grewal A Liberal minister and Paul Martin aide were dispatched to wrangle a price for his defection as insurance on a squeaker budget vote. A Cabinet gig for him and a Senate seat for his wife were demanded before talks fell apart.
Cost: It's hard to put a price on the "nice comfy fur" Mr. Grewal was promised to smooth his landing with the Liberals. An eight-month Cabinet post would have cost $50,000, but that spousal Senate seat until her retirement at age 75 would have hit us for $3.2-million.
Value: A big fat ugly negative. If it was his idea of entrapment, Mr. Grewal's secret tape recordings revealed the Liberals were on a desperate vote-buying binge. If it was a genuine defection negotiation, same thing.
Scott Brison His claim to fame was being the first openly gay MP to eventually enter into a same-sex marriage. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But Brison felt like a lousy fit with the reunited Conservatives and sent out defection vibes in December, 2003. The Liberals opened their eager arms with a job offer as Paul Martin's parliamentary sidekick.
Cost: $150,000 (six months as parliamentary secretary, two years as Public Works Minister).
Value: By staging his defection just days after the Conservatives reunited, Mr. Brison served as a Liberal poster boy to paint the new party as intolerant. Besides, he's fun to have around a caucus meeting.
David Emerson His Liberal party couldn't beat the Conservatives, so two weeks after the 2006 election he decided to join them. Mr. Emerson was aggressively wooed by Stephen Harper, whose new government had been denied a Vancouver MP and decided to buy one with a Cabinet job.
