John Rafferty doesn’t know what the future will bring.
The Thunder Bay-Rainy River NDP Member of Parliament, who along with MP Bruce Hyer (NDP, Thunder Bay-Superior North) voted to abolish the controversial long-gun registry Tuesday, said he hasn’t heard from the party since receiving his initial punishment Wednesday.
And while he plans to vote the same way when the bill comes up for third reading, he assumes further punishment could be coming.
“I don’t know what they have planned,” Rafferty said on his way back to Thunder Bay Thursday morning.
Rafferty said while he’s back in town next week, he’ll be looking for suggestions from constituents on what his next move should be. Some tbnewswatch.com users have commented online and already made some recommendations for the two MPs.
“Cross the floor-simple as that,” said a user going by the screen-name Baybrewer.
“If I were Rafferty and Hyer I would quit the party and sit as independents, after all that is all they were within the NDP any ways,” another user, who goes by the name The Wolf, stated.
But Rafferty said it might not have to come to that.
“I think it’s certainly too early at the moment to make a call on anything like that,” he said.
Some people who spoke with tbnewswatch.com Thursday outside of the Hoito thought the party went too far by kicking Hyer and Rafferty off of committees and critic posts, gagging them in the House and limiting their travel.
“Where’s the democracy that the NDP always float about? These guys are only doing what the people in the riding want,” Randy Maenpa said.
While Maenpa doesn’t think the riding is being punished too much, gagging the MPs does hurt their constituents.
That’s against the constituents,” he said.
Maenpa also said he wants interim NDP leader Nycloe Turmel to be more clear on when and if the MPs will have the sanctions lifted.
A man who would only call himself Dan told a tbnewswatch.com reporter that what the party did to Hyer and Rafferty is wrong.
“You can only do so much when your hands are tied. You can’t be influential for the people you’re supposed to represent,” he said.
