Diane Ignatie.... er, I mean, Haskett

Next time any Tories tell you they are shocked - shocked - that the Liberals may or may not be about to nominate a leader who... gasp... actually once left Canada!!! For years!!! - then bear witness to Dianne Haskett, your federal Tory candidate for London North Centre, in the November 27 byelection.

As whistle-worthy biographies go, Dianne's no Iggy, but she's no slouch, either. Holder of an LL.B. and LL.M.; founder of a six-lawer London law firm; London city councilwoman and two-term mayor from 1994 to 2000; speechwriting, research and marketing and acting in an advisory capacity in Senate and Congressional campaigns, including for Elizabeth Dole; member of the Board of Trustees for the International Center for Religion and Diplomacy in Washington, D.C. and of Trinity Christian School of Fairfax, Virginia...

.... hey, wait a minute, like, aren't Virginia and Washington, D.C. in the United States? I guess abandoning Canada is only bad if you're a Liberal, because then your patriotic credentials are inherently dubious, right?

Anyway, I have no problem with Iggy's academics or Haskie's politics taking them respectively outside of their home and native land. Because that'll happen to the best of us. My point is:

I remember Dianne from back in fall of 1997, when she gained nationwide status as the Thomas More of the anti-gay movement. Yes, Dianne was mayor of London in 1995 and refused to issue a "Gay Pride Proclamation", thus landing herself and her councillors in hot water with the Ontario Human Rights Commission. (You may agree with Rick Mercer's belief that she "violated the rights of gay taxpayers"; or the REAL Women of Canada's much more moderated opinion that this was tantamount to Christians being fed to lions. My advice: just read the OHRC decision, and decide for yourself.)

Anyway, it was a theocon's political fantasy: an evangelical Christian woman! 100% on the defensive! Whose only crime is that she doesn't want to make a gay pride proclamation! And for this, she's punished by a sinister organization fronting "human rights!" A victim of the gay rights movement! You would think this pamphlet could write itself, but leave it to Dianne to ice the cake a little more: in protest, she holed herself up in her house for three weeks, in the midst of a mayoral re-election campaign, no less. Call it a case of taking your frisbee and going home, but, no matter: she won the election by a 2-1 margin.

Needless to say, London remembers Dianne. She's got the roots, and the experience, and the education. She's a perfect Tory candidate for the London North Centre Riding....

.... except for this whole thing about Stephen Harper basically shutting up MP's and candidates from making controversial comments on social issues, the kinds of comments which killed them in 2004 and probably weighed them down from a wider victory margin in 2006. Theocons will scoff, but you know it must be pretty fucking bad when, four months after a relatively victorious election, the Prime Minister has to issue a directive telling his own MP's not to comment on the wedding of the gay Mounties.

Which probably wholly explains why the OHRC escapade and her deeply-held evangelical beliefs aren't mentioned in Dianne's campaign bio, and why same-sex marriage gets no space in her website as an "issue" (as far as I can see, not even an innocuous show of support for a "free vote"). Read her Wikipedia biography, and compare it with her campaign website. This isn't just a muzzling; it's a lobotomy.

The no-talkie-gay-mountie directive was, according to an anonymous Tory caucus member, delivered to all MP's but was aimed at "the small minority who might say something stupid." Harper has done a bang-up job of party discipline and keeping on a mainstream, broad-appeal message. Now that the "small minority" has clearly gained one more member, and the long-promised "free vote" beckons, we shall see if the bars will bend, or break.