p2pnet.net News:- Canadian MP Garth Turner has been kicked out of the ruling Conservative party caucus because, say his critics, he complained about the government.

Worse, he did it online, and he did it repeatedly.

“Turner’s ouster was first recommended in a vote by the 40-member Ontario caucus yesterday morning after more than a month of discussions, said caucus chair Gord Brown (Leeds-Grenville)” states The Toronto Star.

“Turner attended that meeting, and lost the vote, but the defiant MP said he had little warning the blow was coming. ‘A couple of people had expressed concerns’ about his writings on his Internet log, he said, but he denied he ever breached the secrecy of caucus discussions.”

Says an OpEd in The Globe & Mail, “He says it was because he was a free spirit. They say it was because he was a snitch. It doesn’t matter. Garth Turner is about to become Stephen Harper’s bane.”

And he’ll continue to be a bane. Online.

“I have said here many times, and consistently since I was elected this last time, that I work for the voters – the people, the taxpayers,” he declares on his blog.

What?!?!? Work for the voters? The people who elected him to represent them? Oh, the Shame!

“After that I heed my party and the political establishment,” he declares. “All are important, of course, but the people come first.”

Turner, “cited his criticism of the lack of action on climate change, his lobbying for changes to the income tax system, and his criticisms of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s embrace of Liberal floor-crosser David Emerson and the appointment to cabinet and the Senate of the unelected Michael Fortier,” says The Toronto Star.

“He had also slammed Harper’s decision to reopen the same-sex marriage debate, but did not cite that yesterday as part of his problems with the Prime Minister’s Office. Still, Turner said his early criticisms had ’set a tone’ for his relationship with the PMO.”

However, “The member for Halton is a former newspaper columnist and successful businessman,” says The Globe & Mail. “Both careers encourage independent thinking and frank talk.

“But the demands of a political party are absolute. Certainly, caucuses can accommodate large egos. (When was the last time you stood at the front of a room grinning and waving your arms while hundreds of people cheered and chanted your name?) But those egos must ultimately submit to party discipline.”

What does Turner say about it today?

Well, I made it home from Ottawa late tonight, and to a wife who looked at me on the driveway and said, dryly, “Well, you may just have outdone yourself.”

And I can’t blame her for wondering just what the hell happened between the time she called me during my 6 am bran flakes and the phone conversation we had at noon. At that time I was watching myself being thrown out of caucus on television.

But as the hours unfolded, I certainly got a clearer picture of the events enveloping me, and the hands behind them. Even before the caucus room doors opened at noon to let the world know my fate, the House of Commons tech guys told me they were under orders from the party to unplug my office computers. I asked what was going on, and was told they had written orders earlier that day from the Conservative Whip to shut me down and reconfigure.

Then I heard my seat in the House of Commons has been moved. Some media folks informed me that not only was I banished to the Liberal side, but that a new seating plan had been printed. And I marveled that something which normally takes days had apparently taken minutes.

All of this, of course, seemed stranger still when I heard the news reported that the Conservative caucus, through a spontaneous grassroots action and without the knowledge of Stephen Harper, or the PMO, had taken a vote and unanimously kicked me out. The charge: compromising caucus confidentiality. The proof: None presented.

Well, things just kept piling up. Some MPs revealed this evening that a vote was not called in national caucus. Silence was taken by the party leadership, on the stage at the front of the room, as concurrence. This differed from the earlier Ontario caucus (this story began there), where a vote was taken, which was not unanimous.

But, hey, this is yesterday’s news. So was Charles McVety, the Toronto televangelist who orchestrated the attempt to scoop away my Conservative nomination in Halton two months ago. He was available to comment on my demise, calling it a “great day.” He also mentioned on CBC that he has a Conservative candidate picked out for my riding.

So, Dorothy asked, what happens next?

Not ever being able to put one past my wife, I told her that the best thing about my day was how a million people had cared enough to come read my blog, that hundreds had commented – many positively, that six hundred emails had flooded in, melting my Berry, that the radio guy in Victoria told me their switchboard was lit up, that my riding executive pledged their troth, that our constituency office was overwhelmed with support calls and that I had people getting on planes to Ottawa to help me out this afternoon. And, as Esther told me a while ago, I don’t know the half of it yet.

And I suppose I don’t.

Quite the day, all round. At the close of it, I am more resolved than ever to do the right thing. It was not easy standing up to those forces today. But we did. And if that was the best shot, I may actually live until Friday.

Meanwhile, “And now he is on the outside, offering the blogosphere an even more unvarnished critique of his former party’s performance, and reminding us that being a socially progressive libertarian in Mr. Harper’s caucus is a tough row to hoe,” says The Globe & Mail. ‘I have a hard time understanding who wins out of this particular situation,’ Mr. Turner told reporters.

“It ain’t Stephen Harper.”

Stay tuned.

Also See:
The Toronto Star – Why Turner was turfed from party, October 19, 2006
The Globe & Mail – MP’s expulsion dark news for Harper, October 19, 2006
blog – Honey, I’m Home ….. October 17, 2006

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