From the Mouth of Babes: More Garth Turner Quotes

Before this also gets taken down from his site:

So, here is the new face of the Conservative Party of Canada. Wajid Khan, elected as the Liberal member of Parliament in Mississauga-Streetsville, just down the 401 from Halton, in 2004, and re-elected in 2006. Muslim, veteran of the Pakistani Air Force, a 22-year resident of Canada, former car dealer and now political defector.

Mr. Khan agreed last summer to be an advisor to PMSH on all things mid-eastern, at which time I fully expected him to be sucked into the Tory caucus. Prior to yesterday’s cabinet shuffle, I thought Khan, not Jason Kenney, would be the junior minister for multicult. More than 24 hours before the actual defection itself, the news was being broadcast over the Internet. So, all in all, today’s announcement was no surprise.

Once Khan accepted the PM’s offer, it was just a matter of time, since a lot of Liberals viewed him as a spy within caucus and since, clearly, the new leader wasn’t going to put up with one of his soldiers playing footsie with the enemy. Mr. Khan had to choose. He chose power.

Some will wonder if the defecting Liberal should now go back to the people of his riding and have his decision ratified. I would say yes, except we are probably within 16 weeks of a general election, and it’ll cost the taxpayers $2 million or so to have a single run-off in Mississauga-Streetsville. Don’t know about you, but I think that’s a stiff price to put on principle, when the folks there will be voting again within a couple of weeks. Mr. Harper has six months within which to call any by-election, so odds are he wouldn’t even bother. But I am sure the two of them discussed all this.

Another issue is whether Mr. Khan should have to stand for, and win, the Conservative nomination in the riding. The answer to that one, of course, is yes. If the Tories try to skate around that little democratic detail, well, shame on them.

Now, the key issue we all have to reflect on is the nature of representation in our system. When Canadians vote, they have only one ballot but four choices – the local candidate, the party, the leader and the specific platform. It’s a poor system, but the only one we have, and our choices are screwed up totally when the local MP then decides to change parties on us.

Some may say I am a fine one to talk, having been elected a Conservative and now sitting as an independent. And they’re right. I, too, have some explaining to do – which I’ve been trying to accomplish with seven Town Hall meetings since my ouster as a Tory, local newspaper columns, mailers, personal visits and every other tool I can find to communicate with people. So far, it appears I have been granted space within which to figure out what to do next. My choice to sit as an independent until it becomes clear how best I can serve my constituents has won respect. Not from everyone of course, but most.

Besides, my party left me. Twice, actually. First by turning out to be a hard-right, theo-con movement which was not the centrist, modern and mainstream group I’d told voters it would be, and, second, by physically giving me the boot after I talked with you about the first point.

With Mr. Khan, as David Emerson, well, not so much. I guess they came to feel they made the wrong choice by being Liberals when they really wanted to be Conservatives – in two elections. Emerson left two weeks after the voters put him in as a Grit, and Khan has left now just over 11 months after winning a 7,000-vote plurality as a Liberal.

All of this – these two defections and my ouster from the Conservatives for being a differing voice from within – have to give voters pause about the nature of our system. It’s 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’s all about power and position. Mr. Khan is useful for Tory inroads and votes in the GTA, and the Muslim community. Mr. Emerson was a pipeline into Vancouver and the lumber industry. Garth Turner had not drunk enough Stephen Harper Kool-Aid.

Feeling cynical? Man, you have cause.

Adding to what Greg posted earlier, I’m not going to try to misrepresent Garth on this: he did say twice as I noted above that there is some flexibility in his outrage over MPs switching parties. However, given that we likely won’t see an election till the fall now, maybe Garth would be more willing to stand by his words and a) seek the Liberal nomination in Halton in what I would presume would be a contested affair by now and b) run for re-election as a Liberal by resigning his seat within the scope of the month. Of course this won’t happen, because Garth’s only real principle is, well…Garth!