Left: Eve Adams. Right: A diagram of the forces on the brain in a concussion.
It's good to hear that Eve Adams's concussion has cleared up. The MP for the riding of Mississauga-Brampton South pulled out of the Conservative nomination race for a different riding, Oakville North-Burlington, last August, citing her health. She had suffered a concussion as the result of a fall in Ottawa the previous February, she said, but had battled on bravely against her doctor's orders. The strains of a nomination race became too much, however, and she stepped aside in order to heal her brain.
Ms. Adams is now back in the game. She announced Monday she is going to run in yet another riding, this one called To-Be-Announced. But she will seek the nomination for the Liberals instead of the Conservatives. To do so, she crossed the floor in the House of Commons and joined Justin Trudeau's party.
The MP says she no longer shares the values of the party she was elected to represent in 2011. "I want to work with someone who inspires, not with fearmongers and bullies," she said at a press conference while sitting beside a beaming Mr. Trudeau.
Perhaps coincidentally, Ms. Adams had been told by the Conservative Party in late January that she was banned from running as a Tory anywhere in Canada. The story goes like this: The boundaries of the riding Ms. Adams represents are being rejigged for the 2015 election, so she decided she could best serve her (former) party leader by trying to win the nomination in a safe new Conservative riding created by the same gerrymandering.
By the time she was done helping her party, Ms. Adams's fiancé, Dimitri Soudas, the director of the Conservative Party, had been fired for working on her nomination effort, which violated his obligation to be neutral about such things. As well, Ms. Adams and the other candidate vying for that nomination had accused each other of so many dirty tricks that the party delayed the nomination and considered disqualifying both from running. It was after that that Ms. Adams courageously decided to tend to her concussion.
Floor-crossing and naked partisan politics have a tendency to make voters cynical. So it's really inspiring to see concussions being taken seriously by MPs. This is a triumph for those of us who have been calling for society to be more aware of the dangers of traumatic brain injury. All Canadians banging their head against a wall today are united by the politics of Ottawa.