By Arthur Weinreb
Friday, February 9, 2007
It should really not come as any surprise that MP Garth Turner turned up this week as a member of the Liberal Party. As has been noted, an election is not that far off and it's hard to bring in the cash to run when you are an independent.
The self absorbed MP has been an outspoken critic of the increasing trend of members of Parliament to cross the floor. Although members have always crossed the floor from time to time, the practise is starting to resemble major league baseball as the trading deadline approaches.
Turner's problems with Stephen Harper's Conservatives started almost as soon the "new" government was elected early last year. Turner criticized Harper for making turncoat David Emerson a cabinet minister and for putting the unelected Michael Fortier in the cabinet as, of all things, the Minister of Public Works, a portfolio that was at the centre of the sponsorship scandal. At the time, Turner wrote on his blog, "If you want to be a Liberal, be elected as a Liberal". This kind of telling it like it is resonated well with a lot of the electorate; especially those in Emerson's Vancouver riding who ended up with a Conservative MP within days of electing a Liberal member. Some democracy.
As a true Liberal that Garth has now become, this particular logic does not apply to him. Others MPs should either sit as an independent or resign and run again when they leave the party that they were a member of when they were elected. With Garth, of course it's different. Different rules apply when it concerns "me".
Turner tries to put himself in a different category than the other floor crossers because, as he said, "I didn't leave my party, my party left me." On closer examination, the distinction is more one of semantics than real.
It's true that he was tossed out of the Conservative caucus three months earlier and his actions were different than that of Emerson who could have happily remained a member in good standing of the Liberal Party of Canada. Emerson's move across the floor was sheer opportunism that he rationalized by saying he could best help Canada by doing what he did. He left his losing party within days to sit as a government member.
But Turner's crossing the floor is not that much different than that of Belinda Stronach and Wajid Kahn. Kahn wasn't kicked out of the Liberal caucus because, unlike Turner, he didn't stick around long enough to get booted although the writing was on the wall. The MP was clearly on a collision course with the new Liberal leader and had he not jumped when he did, he would have been thrown out of the caucus for the work that he was doing on behalf of the Conservative government.
Similarly, Belinda Stronach was on a collision course with Stephen Harper and unless she changed her ways, which she gave no indication of doing, she would have reached the point where she would have been given her walking papers. The fact that Stronach and Khan jumped before they were pushed hardly makes them any different than Turner. Turner's comments are just a way for him to weasel out of what he thinks should be the general rule -- that an MP shouldn't represent a political party in Parliament unless they have been elected under that party's banner unless their name happens to be Garth Turner. Do what I say, not what I do -- the motto of modern liberalism. Garth wasted no time in becoming not only a Liberal but a true Grit.
Another reason that Turner gave for becoming a Liberal is that the old Progressive Conservative Party is dead (although with the new green Steve, there is certainly an argument that it's coming back). The latest turncoat said, "Today, the Liberal party is as close to my Progressive Conservative roots as I'm going to get." This is the same reason that Scott Brison gave when he left the Tories to sit as a Liberal in 2003. Well, now we and especially the voters in Turner's Halton riding know the difference between Turner and Brison -- three years. Turner might like to explain why it took him over three years longer than Brison to figure out that the CPC is not the PCP.
It is fun to watch Turner squirm as he tries to rationalize his sitting as a Liberal when he was elected as a Conservative -- a practise that he has strongly condemned in the past. The hypocrisy of his actions makes him a perfect fit in the Liberal Party.
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