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Garth Turner


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Turner should have practiced what he preached and remained an independent until the next election.

If, in fact, he polled and saw that the residents of his riding were leading Liberal and, as such, he became Liberal...did that affect his decision? What if the constituents were leaning NDP?

It just seems a bit sketchy.

His riding is leaning Liberal. The only reason the CPC won it in the last election is that Garth ran in it. Undoubtedly his margin of victory will increase in the next election. Besides his views are much more aligned with the Liberals than with the Reformers. So he is more Liberal than Conservative and he wants to get re-elected - joining the Liberals is the obvious choice here.

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I thought he said he joined the Liberal's more for financial benefits. I don't know it all seems kind of f%$ked up to me, first he was leaning Green, then he gets into bed with a party which is equally as notorious as the tories for not giving much power to individual MP's.

As for him not getting elected as a Green, I think that he could have gotten re-elected if he is like that much by the constitutents. But even looking at the London byelection the Green's nearly took the riding, and I have a feeling the Green Party may take a few seats in the next election if the NDP continues to fall in the polls.

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I thought he said he joined the Liberal's more for financial benefits. I

Bingo - Now you've got it.

Watch his website video, he says and it doesn't take much to figure out why he didn't want to be an idependant anymore.

Himself says: "when it comes to the next election I couldn't even issue a tax receipt for donations."

Except that he has it wrong; an independant can issue tax receipts but what he can't do is claim a % back from Elections Canada for money spent on an election. Become a Liberal - Bingo you can get 60% back...

Nice to know money trumps principle!

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Except that he has it wrong; an independant can issue tax receipts but what he can't do is claim a % back from Elections Canada for money spent on an election. Become a Liberal - Bingo you can get 60% back...

Nice to know money trumps principle!

As an independent, he can issue tax receipts only after the election is called, so saying that he cannot issue tax receipts is technically correct as the election has not been called yet.

He would have had a fair chance of winning his riding as an independent if income-splitting was going to be introduced in the next budget (which he would have advertised as a product of his efforts) but Flaherty shot him down just a few days ago. Without income-splitting to brag about, winning as an independent became unlikely, so he figured that it was time to join the Liberals. It's a no brainer.

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I thought he said he joined the Liberal's more for financial benefits. I don't know it all seems kind of f%$ked up to me, first he was leaning Green, then he gets into bed with a party which is equally as notorious as the tories for not giving much power to individual MP's.

As for him not getting elected as a Green, I think that he could have gotten re-elected if he is like that much by the constitutents. But even looking at the London byelection the Green's nearly took the riding, and I have a feeling the Green Party may take a few seats in the next election if the NDP continues to fall in the polls.

He figured the Liberals have the best political machine there...it was a politically salient decision.

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Polls don't mean anything. If someone said they wanted him to go Green, did they say it because they would vote Green or because they thought that as a Green he would be less of a threat to their preferred candidate (Conservative or Liberal)?

I don't think I'd be as dismissive of what the feeling of the riding might have been. I suppose Turner will find out what those feelings are come the next election. However, Turner himself was a popular choice in the area. It is possible that the force of his own character could have seen the riding re-elect him as a Green.

I think ultimately he sold out the the Liberal machine.

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I think ultimately he sold out the the Liberal machine.

The only reason Garth did it was, because of well - Garth.

He opines on his blog garth.ca, of providing "leadership through principle and independence." - but by joining the Liberals he is giving up both of those. Face it, its the Liberals who have perfected rigid party discipline. Wajid Khan was told to follow the party line or leave.

Wonder if Dion has read Turner's blog yet :)-

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I think ultimately he sold out the the Liberal machine.

The only reason Garth did it was, because of well - Garth.

He opines on his blog garth.ca, of providing "leadership through principle and independence." - but by joining the Liberals he is giving up both of those. Face it, its the Liberals who have perfected rigid party discipline. Wajid Khan was told to follow the party line or leave.

Wonder if Dion has read Turner's blog yet :)-

I think that's a pretty fair statement. If he was a true opponent of party discipline and that's why he left the rigid Tory caucus, he'll be an independent fast enough in the next Liberal government.

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I think ultimately he sold out the the Liberal machine.

My question is:

Why were the Liberals buying his goods?

I can understand why Turner made the move, but why did Dion take him in? If Turner ran as an independent, the seat may as well be gift-wrapped and delivered to the Liberals.

Based on Turner's history, I don't feel this one seat is worth the potential problems this guy could bring to Dion and his party.

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I didn't see it listed as one of their priorities for the coming months. And if they are working on it, why let Khan cross the floor?

They aren't working on it. The CPC and especially Harper have been outspoken against rules on floor crossing.

The Conservatives voted against having floor-crossers face by-elections, Mr. Harper was absent for the vote. [edited]

Indeed. In Harper's pre-election interview with Mansbridge he clearly indicated he doesn't want to change the current system. I tend to agree with his position in this regard.

Why should anyone stay independent? He wasn't elected as an independent and if it wasn't for him, the Liberals would have won that riding anyway. Harper kicked him out of caucus. Garth is now going where most of his constituents would have liked him to be anyway.

I'm not sure how much truth is behind that, we'll see soon enough. Would the CPC run a big shot candidate there just to spite Garth?

Based on Turner's history, I don't feel this one seat is worth the potential problems this guy could bring to Dion and his party.

Bingo. Saturn thinks the seat is a sure Liberal seat. Why take on a massive liability like Garth is? They would have had his vote one way or another next election without the baggage.

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I think ultimately he sold out the the Liberal machine.

My question is:

Why were the Liberals buying his goods?

I can understand why Turner made the move, but why did Dion take him in? If Turner ran as an independent, the seat may as well be gift-wrapped and delivered to the Liberals.

Based on Turner's history, I don't feel this one seat is worth the potential problems this guy could bring to Dion and his party.

That's the interesting part. That's what I really want to know because I don't see much of a benefit to the Liberals either.

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I didn't see it listed as one of their priorities for the coming months. And if they are working on it, why let Khan cross the floor?

They aren't working on it. The CPC and especially Harper have been outspoken against rules on floor crossing.

There was a Conservative member's private bill against floor-crossing on the order paper but the member withdrew it when Emmerson crossed the floor. The CPC talked against floor crossing a lot when Belinda crossed but when 6 months later most CPC MPs voted against a bill that would have put some rules in place against floor-crossing. As usual what the Conservatives say differs quite a bit from what they actually do.

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Here's the thing though, as an independant it's possible to be elected. In the last federal election an MP was elected as an independant in Quebec. From what Turner said, it seems like he's more in it for financial reason's, and the chance to sit on a committee.

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Interesting column from Chantal Hebert on Mr. Turner:

http://www.thestar.com/printArticle/179800

Turner now Liberal red but he's no Red Tory

TheStar.com - opinion - Turner now Liberal red but he's no Red Tory

February 09, 2007

Chantal Hébert

No one would accuse Liberal leader Stéphane Dion's research team of lacking the journalistic instincts to dig into a story. After all, some members of the group that lays the groundwork for the official opposition's onslaught on the Conservative government these days once starred in the Parliamentary press gallery.

But they might have done more homework before letting Dion herald the Liberal conversion of maverick MP Garth Turner as a progressive second coming.

In two statements that should have Joe Clark spinning in his political grave, Dion framed Turner's decision as proof that the Liberal party had become the new home of the Red Tories, the progressive wing of the defunct Progressive Conservative Party.

Well, Turner has certainly been many things over the course of his political life. But a Red Tory he most certainly was not.

On the contrary, when he ran to succeed Brian Mulroney in 1993, it was as the candidate of the ultra-right wing of his party.

At the time, Turner promoted the most radically conservative policies of all five contenders, including deep cuts to social programs, reduced old-age security pensions, maternity leave and employment insurance payments, and the introduction of hospital user fees. He also called for the privatization of Canada Post and the CBC and the elimination of the multiculturalism ministry.

Over the course of that campaign, Turner was often described as a soulmate to Reform party founder Preston Manning, a comparison he did not reject.

"There are a lot of Conservatives who think the party today is too centrist," Turner told The Globe and Mail in June 1993. "Those people are looking for a return to conservative values within the Conservative party. And quite frankly, I'm out to appeal to a number of those people, because I share that belief. It's basically a conservative message. It's just one that they haven't heard from the Conservatives for a while."

If he had been more fully briefed on his recruit's well-documented background, Dion might have been more selective in his choice of words. But he would likely have been as effusive in his welcome. It seems the Liberal party felt it needed Turner as much as the banished Conservative MP needed a new home.

Few political manoeuvres reveal as much about the fears of a party as the successful seduction of MPs previously elected under a different banner.

Notwithstanding Dion's fighting words, such manoeuvres are all about papering over glaring weaknesses.

After the last Quebec referendum, Jean Chrétien went out of his way to get a handful of Quebec Tory MPs to cross over to the Liberals to drive home the message that his party was the only viable federalist alternative to the Bloc Québécois.

By bringing Bloc co-founder Jean Lapierre back into the Liberal fold, Paul Martin wanted to attract nationalist voters. And he hoped that winning over Progressive Conservative Scott Brison would help the Liberals fend off a reunited right.

David Emerson and Michael Fortier would not be in the Conservative cabinet if the party had done well in Montreal and Vancouver in the last election. And ex-Liberal MP Wajid Khan might have been excluded from Harper's caucus if he had not held a seat in Toronto's crucial 905 belt.

In Turner's case, the Liberal hype over the recruitment of a right-wing MP addresses three unpalatable realities for the party.

The first is that it has yet to find its ideological compass. Dion is right on at least one score. Compared to the significant rump of social conservatives in his caucus, Turner does qualify as a progressive.

The second is that the Liberals have yet to find a way to make up for what is likely to be a permanent loss, i.e. the return of a significant number of traditional Conservative constituencies to their natural ideological home.

Turner's Halton seat is one riding that the Liberals won handily when the right campaigned under two conflicting banners.

It is no accident that the Liberals first lost their majority, and then power, after the two conservative factions reconciled.

Finally, the warm welcome extended to Turner reveals just how anguished Liberal strategists are over how Dion will play against Harper in the suburban belt of Southern Ontario, in places where his dream team of Gerard Kennedy, Bob Rae, Michael Ignatieff and Martha Hall-Finlay, with their trendy downtown Toronto undertones, will not be able to do the job for him.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chantal Hébert's national affairs column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. [email protected].

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