At Issue: MP Eve Adams's switch to the Liberals from Conservatives
Adams says she plans to run for Liberal nomination in Toronto riding
The defection of MP Eve Adams from the Conservaties to the Liberals dominated the discussion for CBC's At Issue panel on The National this week.
After turning her back on the Conservatives, Adams said she plans to seek the nomination to carry the banner for the Liberals in the next federal election in the Toronto riding of Eglinton-Lawrence.
"I think there's a lot of concern in Liberal circles," said National Post columnist Andrew Coyne.
"I think people are really wondering what the game plan here [is], and what exactly is the upside for them."
Coyne said the only way to interpret the move to bring Adams into the Liberals is that the big prize is her fiancé, Dimitri Soudas, a former longtime aide to Stephen Harper and, later, the Conservative Party's executive director.
"I didn't know that the Liberals lacked for brassknucklers that they would have to borrow Stephen Harper's," said Toronto Star columnist Chantal Hebert.
Soudas was Conservative Party executive director from December 2013 until he was dismissed in the spring of 2014 for trying to interfere in Adams's battle to win the Conservative nomination in the new riding of Oakville-North Burlington.
Althia Raj, Huffington Post Canada's Ottawa bureau chief, said Soudas essentially caused Adams to lose that nomination race.
"I think that Dimitri Soudas is going to stop at nothing to make sure that Eve Adams is going to be a Liberal member of Parliament in the next election," Raj said.