Expulsion
By 2001, Pankiw's relationship with much of the Alliance caucus and especially the leader, Stockwell Day, was reported to be strained. Pankiw eventually joined with a small group of MPs informally led by Chuck Strahl and called for Day's resignation. As a result, Pankiw was suspended and eventually expelled from the Alliance caucus and party. After joining with other expellees to form the Democratic Representative Caucus, Pankiw sat with other DRC members in the Progressive Conservative-DRC coalition.
The election of Stephen Harper as leader of the Alliance resulted in the dissolution of the PC-DRC coalition and in most of the DRC members returning to the Alliance fold. Pankiw also applied for re-admission. However, by this time he was involved in another controversy, after an Aboriginal lawyer alleged that an inebriated Pankiw had made lewd gestures to him in a Saskatoon bar, and challenged him to a fight.
Pankiw was denied re-admission to the Alliance. He was also refused membership in the new Conservative Party of Canada, and served the rest of his term as an independent MP.
Read more about this topic: Jim Pankiw
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