{"id":1278,"date":"2007-02-06T14:17:00","date_gmt":"2007-02-06T19:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=1278"},"modified":"2007-02-06T14:17:00","modified_gmt":"2007-02-06T19:17:00","slug":"turner-turns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=1278","title":{"rendered":"Turner Turns"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve made it clear in the past that I certainly don’t have much time for Garth “It’s tough to live off a six figure salary” Turner<\/a>. I think Harper made the right choice to dump him from caucus, and I don’t think the Liberals are any better off with him.<\/p>\n

However, Garth’s extended walk across the isle does raise the question about floor crossing in our parliamentary system. Here’s how I feel about it:<\/p>\n

Everybody who makes up the government should be elected<\/a>. They should sit in Parliament as they were elected. If they decide to change parties, they should go and get re-elected<\/a>. To do otherwise is to place politicians above the people when, actually, it\u00c2\u0092s the other way around<\/a>. After stating many a time that Belinda Stronach should have sought a by-election after her defection, how could I not say the same obvious thing now?<\/a> End of story<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I think the problem is that Parliament is dominated by party machines who, during elections, pound each other to a pulp, telling Canadians they have totally different visions for the country. But once the voting is done, it\u00c2\u0092s all about power and position<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Feeling cynical? Man, you have cause<\/a>.<\/p>\n

UPDATES:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

1. Repo Creepo <\/a>had this story back in January.<\/p>\n

2. Garth polled his constituents <\/a>back in October on what he should do. The results?<\/p>\n

(1) Resign your seat – zero
(2) Negotiate back into caucus – 17
(3) Join the Liberals – zero
(4) Go Green – 17
(5) Stay independent – 31<\/p>\n

(h\/t Stephen Taylor<\/a>)<\/p>\n

3. Either Elizabeth May has the driest wit of any Canadian politician for she’s smoking something:<\/p>\n

“I think it’s a good choice for Garth. As an independent, he’s been making some good contributions to parliamentary discourse and debate and conducting himself in a way that I think is admirable,” Ms. May told CBC TV.<\/p>\n

“He had his time to think over what his constituents wanted him to do. This must be the message he got from his constituents.”<\/p>\n

But given Mr. Turner’s turbulent year, she hasn’t ruled him out of Green contention.<\/p>\n

“He remains welcome to join the Green Party of Canada should Mr. Dion throw him out of caucus,” Ms. May said. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I guess it’s refreshing to see honesty from politicians but I’m not sure if Ms. May should go around saying that:<\/p>\n

a) Picking the Liberals over the Greens is the right choice
b) They’ll take anyone <\/em>in their party<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve made it clear in the past that I certainly don’t have much time for Garth “It’s tough to live off a six figure salary” Turner. I think Harper made the right choice to dump him from caucus, and I don’t think the Liberals are any better off with him. However, Garth’s extended walk across […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1278\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}