Talk:David Kilgour

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article must adhere to the policy on biographies of living persons. Controversial material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libellous. If such material is repeatedly inserted or if there are other concerns relative to this policy, report it on the living persons biographies noticeboard.

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page.	Biography Portal
Start	This article has been rated as Start-Class on the project's quality scale. [FAQ]
	This article is supported by the Politics and government work group.

I am a newbie to wikipedia, so I will hold off on making changes to this page, but I wanted to note couple of points:

I believe this article is a little misleading. It states that "because of the unusual structure of the 38th House of Commons, in May 2005, David Kilgour's lone vote had the power to bring down or support the government. He used this influence to make Canada send extra peacekeepers to Darfur". This implies that in exchange for a further commitment to Darfur, the government secured the support of David Kilgour in the crucial May 2006 confidence votes. This is incorrect or misleading in two ways.

First, Kilgour actually voted against the government on the second of the two budget/confidence votes (C-48). Since the Conservatives had declared support for the first vote (C-43), which Kilgour supported, it was never really in danger of failing, and so his support here had no effect on the outcome. Second, although the government did act on some of the 10-item to-do list he crafted upon quitting the Liberal party in April, the government strongly denied this was related to the confidence vote (an assertion that could be questioned without an undue amount of cynicism http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1115638352964_4/?hub=TopStories). Regardless, in the days leading up to the vote, CTV reported that "independent MP David Kilgour says although he's pleased Canada is preparing to send troops to Sudan, the move isn't enough to secure his support for the teetering Liberal minority" (http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1115638352964_4/?hub=TopStories). So, rather than claiming that Kilgour "used his influence", a more correct recounting of events would be that the government attempted to gain his support by appealing to cause he had championed, without success. In fact, the lone vote that prevented the defeat of the government came from independent MP Chuck Cadman, not Kilgour, whose vote allowed a tie of 152-152, enabling the Liberal Speaker to cast the deciding vote in favour of the government. The importance of Cadman's role, since he kept the direction of his vote secret until the last minute, unlike Kilgour, is reflected in media commentary on the vote.

(Really, the whole "one vote" thing is a little silly, since any MP could have broken ranks, and there were three independents that could have changed the outcome. Cadman's role is simply more dramatic because he did not let his intentions be known until the vote, at which point all other members had declared their voting plan.)