Garth Turner has been suspended!
Garth Turner suspended from Tory caucus
Last Updated: Wednesday, October 18, 2006 | 12:42 PM ET
CBC News
Ontario MP Garth Turner has been suspended from the federal Conservative caucus for criticizing the prime minister.
Turner will be sitting as an independent.
Government House leader Rahim Jaffer said Wednesday that Turner was ousted on the recommendation of the party's Ontario caucus after he made one too many attacks on Prime Minister Stephen Harper and too often violated caucus confidentiality.
Jaffer said the suspension was a long time coming and the votes were unanimous.
Turner, who represents the Halton riding, has kept a blog on his website since the federal election last January.
Shortly after the Conservatives came into power, Turner spoke out against former Liberal MP David Emerson's defection to the Tories.
Personal Note:
I'm in shock! No not because the man has been helping me, you must remember he has been helping you too. I don't know this mans personally but I know him politically. Not because we discuss things because we don't, we agree on many ideas in which we discuss. I've been reading his blog for months and as I've said before he is a breath of fresh air. I blogged on Garth before and I still stand by that. He did post against the idea of David Emmerson but so did we. Garth says what he needs to when things seem wrong, but Garth always steadily fights like a tiger to defend the Conservative view. He is fully Conservative but with his own mind. He protects the rights of his riding like no other MP I've ever seen. Garth does what his riding asks him to do, he does not accept anything just because of his party, he represents his riding.
Garth has put his focus on the people, listening, communicating and being face to face with anyone who agrees or disagree's with him.
When is the last time you got to know an MP like we have gotten to know Garth.
When you post on his blog to comment does he not answer you. Has he not offered to help you even though he is not your MP.
I can tell you the last time I talked to my MP was Feb just after the election, then guess what absolutely no contact since then. Even my mayor has spoken to him about this but still nothing. If I find out my MP was one of them that ousted Garth, he's gonna know what a mad mommy really is.
I'm sorry if you feel betrayed for me writing like this, but too bad. I appreciate Garth's openess and fairness on all voters no matter what party they are from.
Now if Garth was caught telling tales on his blog, then I could understand why he was ousted but I did not see that. I read his blog for months. So I shall wait for evidence to come from the Conservatives for this matter. Either way to me he is a good guy.
Please email Garth and let him know he still did some good.
garth@garth.ca
Last Updated: Wednesday, October 18, 2006 | 12:42 PM ET
CBC News
Ontario MP Garth Turner has been suspended from the federal Conservative caucus for criticizing the prime minister.
Turner will be sitting as an independent.
Government House leader Rahim Jaffer said Wednesday that Turner was ousted on the recommendation of the party's Ontario caucus after he made one too many attacks on Prime Minister Stephen Harper and too often violated caucus confidentiality.
Jaffer said the suspension was a long time coming and the votes were unanimous.
Turner, who represents the Halton riding, has kept a blog on his website since the federal election last January.
Shortly after the Conservatives came into power, Turner spoke out against former Liberal MP David Emerson's defection to the Tories.
Personal Note:
I'm in shock! No not because the man has been helping me, you must remember he has been helping you too. I don't know this mans personally but I know him politically. Not because we discuss things because we don't, we agree on many ideas in which we discuss. I've been reading his blog for months and as I've said before he is a breath of fresh air. I blogged on Garth before and I still stand by that. He did post against the idea of David Emmerson but so did we. Garth says what he needs to when things seem wrong, but Garth always steadily fights like a tiger to defend the Conservative view. He is fully Conservative but with his own mind. He protects the rights of his riding like no other MP I've ever seen. Garth does what his riding asks him to do, he does not accept anything just because of his party, he represents his riding.
Garth has put his focus on the people, listening, communicating and being face to face with anyone who agrees or disagree's with him.
When is the last time you got to know an MP like we have gotten to know Garth.
When you post on his blog to comment does he not answer you. Has he not offered to help you even though he is not your MP.
I can tell you the last time I talked to my MP was Feb just after the election, then guess what absolutely no contact since then. Even my mayor has spoken to him about this but still nothing. If I find out my MP was one of them that ousted Garth, he's gonna know what a mad mommy really is.
I'm sorry if you feel betrayed for me writing like this, but too bad. I appreciate Garth's openess and fairness on all voters no matter what party they are from.
Now if Garth was caught telling tales on his blog, then I could understand why he was ousted but I did not see that. I read his blog for months. So I shall wait for evidence to come from the Conservatives for this matter. Either way to me he is a good guy.
Please email Garth and let him know he still did some good.
garth@garth.ca
posted by Sara @ 1:08 PM
15 Comments:
At 1:33 PM,
Joanne (True Blue) said…
Garth is a man of the people, but unfortunately he doesn't seem to understand the importance of discretion. I would say that the caucus probably didn't see him as a team player.
I believe the decision was unanimous.
At 1:46 PM,
Sara said…
yah and my MP was one of them!
that was the thing though Jo he was a man of the people, he is a man of the people. That is the kind of MP I would like.
At 1:47 PM,
HearHere said…
I don't think this had as much to do with his opinions as that he breeched caucus confidentiality. He recently posted a shopping list of what to expect in the upcoming budget. This is not only a breech of caucus confidentiality it is illegal and a breech of parliamentary protocol. That is why there was a CRIMINAL investigation when the Liberals were leaking details of the upcoming Income Trust rules. I was also quite shocked at Turner's callous derision about several groups who made presentations at the finance committee. He likened them to money grubbers who were just waiting for the Liberals to get back in power so they could get back to the trough.
Quite unbecoming to show such disrespect for presenters, of which you were one I recall.
No elected official should get away with showing such disrespect for any citizens even if he did not agree with them. Ditto his attacks on some members of the Christian right. He was as voracious and radical as they were. This conservative party is maybe boringly so middle of the road and moderate.
Opinions are one thing; presenting your own ideas are one thing; attacking those that do not agree with you is more Liberal or NDP don't you think?
At 1:55 PM,
Sara said…
he did a list on what he personally expected and what he would personally like, the list was not taken from anyone or documents.
These were just his opinions. When is the last time you heard the opinion of your MP? I don't know mine, the last time I saw him was when he needed my support for the election, no more after that.
At 2:00 PM,
Spitfire said…
Yeah, I was shocked too. Often I have seen some posts by fellow blogging tories about how many do not like Garth, but I always have been a Garth supporter. I've been reading his blog for about 18 months now.
There is however a fine line between giving a politics a voice or a human feel and breaking confidentiality of the party's meetings.
I know Garth has said before he is willing to sit as an independent, so I don't think this will affect him as much as it will affect the Conservative party. I think it will reflect good that the Conservatives demonstrate they will not tolerate any rule breaking.
On a side note I think the CBC article that you've posted is very poorly written and very misleading. This had nothing to do with criticizing the PM. Gah...I hate the CBC.
At 2:04 PM,
wilson61 said…
Liberals loved having Garth doing their work for them.
I thought Garth's TV was a good idea, until he went out of his way to give May a shot at Ambrose.
Maybe the Enviro 'leak' was traced back to him??
Unanimously rejected from the Ontario caucus, and then the National caucus, there is more to this than a big mouth blog.
Garth is now sitting where he was acting, as an independant.
At 2:06 PM,
Sara said…
if there is a better one let me know.
At 2:21 PM,
Surecure said…
I think the one thing people have to remember is that Garth is not one of a kind because he has his own views. Every single MP has their own views. Every single MP works for the best of their constituents.
But the thing one must remember is that you cannot effect change if you are on the outside looking in. And if history has proven anything, it is that a Conservative government can only operate so long as there is a cohesive, unified front. Does that mean that he has to vote against his conscience or against the best of what is for his constituents? No. It means that you save your bullets for the real fight and you don't fire them off at every opportunity you get. And that's just not Garth's style.
Garth's problem is that he seems to think that he is immune to the causes of government overthrow. How many MP's can you name who publicly criticized and exposed major elements of their party's government at a rate of once per month? I can't think of one that made that kind of a stink once per year!
Make no mistake. This wasn't about the opinions Garth had. There are plenty of MP's in the CPC who held his opinion. This wasn't about the fact that Garth was representing the interests of his constituents. Every MP does the same thing.
This was about Garth's strange need to always make noise and be the centre of attention. And you can't do that without alienating those around you. His colleagues in caucus all know that you have to work together as a team and make compromises in order to effect change. Garth seemed to like to go it alone, compromise on nothing and open weaknesses up in the armor of the team he supposedly wanted to be a PART of.
And now he doesn't have to compromise on anything and he can go it alone as much as he wants. In a sense, he got what he wanted. Too bad now he's going to learn that without a team to back him up, he isn't going to get anything done.
And that's the saddest part... especially for his constituents.
At 2:24 PM,
SouthernOntarioan said…
To be honest, I liked Garth back when he was criticizing the Emerson move.
But he got on my nerves when he started claiming that Harper was trying to oust him in the nomination riding. Then he just got annoying when he railed against his opponent because he opposed SSM. Calling him bigoted, etc...
I don't care what you feel about SSM, but name calling is insulting.
I'm not unhappy that he's out of the Tory caucus, but I think its bad news day for Harper and the Tories in general.
Oh, and Sara, the motion passed unanimously. Meaning that 100% of the Tory caucus agreed. So, chances are pretty good (100%) that your MP voted in favour of it.
I'd like to see their exact reasoning though. If it was the leak of the Clean Air Act then I'd say they were fully justified.
At 2:31 PM,
Hailey said…
They should be ashamed.
At 3:26 PM,
Another_Sean said…
Hailey, It's not enough to say "They should be ashamed". You need to tell us WHY they (whoever "They" are) should be ashamed.
Personally, I look upon this a bit like being in a very competative business where one of your co-workers is moonlighting as a business reporter who is doing feature articles daily criticizing your company's future plans.
Somehow, I suspect that behavior would not be seen as enhancing the long-term prospects of the business.
At 3:31 PM,
Sara said…
He is a new age MP I've said it before. Garth gave us something no other MP did. His own personallity, non partisan MPTV and real people. He uses information to bring us together instead of cold rumours and hearing from the grape vine.
You know I tried to get through to my MP today and instead of getting a he'll call you back I got into a fight yet again with his assistant. His assistant told me Lobbying was useless.... Do you see why I would prefer Garth.
At 9:12 PM,
Sara said…
Surprisingly he did call me back. I can't really say much about it I'm not sure I know exactly what was said myself. Oh well back to the drawing board!
At 10:16 PM,
Hailey said…
The Conservatives have always taken the position when in opposition that primary loyalty is to one's constituency and not to a party. Harper referred to the liberals as "trained seals" because of their unwillingness to allow people to speak out.
That they are now bullying people into silence is shameful.
At 6:39 PM,
Surecure said…
If you think that MP's should publicly criticize their own party at the top of their lungs on every single thing they disagree with, then you can't possibly understand what party politics is about.
Party politics is about finding like-minded individuals and joining together knowing that you can get more done together than alone. The only understanding in party politics is that on occasion (not always, just on occasion) you are going to have to grin and bear it on elements you don't agree with.
And why is that? Because not everybody in a party is going to agree with everything that the other people in the party stand for. That's called reality. But, in a party you work together to come to a compromise on those things you disagree with. You don't go screaming from the table whenever anybody says something you disagree with.
That is where Garth made a mistake. He thought that when you join a party there are lots of advantages and no compromises. He didn't realize that along with the advantage of a group of people who will help to represent your constituents' needs, you also have to be fair and at least try and work with those who you will one day need to support you.
Garth's everyday solution was to run to his blog and criticize everything he disagreed with right away, even before he knew what was being worked on (i.e. the income trust issue he criticized before its release only to find it was exactly what he wanted). That is not the action of a member of a party, it is the action of an Independent. If an MP wants the freedom to criticize any party he/she wants, whenever he/she wants that MP is best suited as an Independent. But, if that MP wants the advantage of having others to support his/her efforts, than that same MP must on occasion make an effort not to tear apart the efforts of those he/she will need later on.
Garth wouldn't do that. And thus, the party realized that he was a liability, not an ally. Nobody said he couldn't voice his views. And nobody said he had to vote with the party line. What was said is that he should try and work with the party itself before publicly bashing views from within the party opposite to his own.
People are saying the CPC tried to silence him. That's not at all what they did. They simply asked him to work with the party, not fire shots at the party on his blog. Thinking that you can redefine how party's work is like thinking you can reinvent the wheel. It works a certain way because that is its design.
Garth (as many in the news world did) liked to call himself a "maverick", which happens to be a synonym of the word "independent". Garth's style isn't suited for party politics. If he can't work to find compromises within a party, how could he ever help to form compromises between parties?
Perhaps 'independent' is the label he should have grasped in the first place.
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