Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Stephen Harper jumps the shark, expels Garth Turner

Garth Turner has always been a rather odd character, but someone I have always held in very high regard as a person of convictions and not afraid to call it like it is. He was extremely critical of Harper poaching David Emerson from the Liberals, and pretty much let the cat out of the bag when he "predicted" with a great deal of accuracy the contents of Jim Flaherty's first budget (except for the income tax increase, Garth was predicting a cut). In spite of party opposition, he's kept a blog of his thoughts of the day and on current issues. Yesterday in his latest posting, he talked about what we can expect in the Harperites' so-called "Clean Air Act," which is really just either tinkering with existing regulations or proclaiming rules written during the Trudeau Administration 25 years ago but never enforced.

This was the last straw for Harper, and today the Conservative Caucus suspended (read: expelled) Turner, who will now sit as an independent.

With polls today suggesting "Steve" and the leaderless Liberals are running head to head, at 32 % each,this decision is either ill-timed or a huge temper tantrum on the part of the Prime Minister. The party that once championed free thought for MPs so they could represent their constituents and not their party policies except on money matters now considers it -- in the words of Dubya -- unacceptable to think. Now it's, they have the right to think so long as it agrees with what Harper thinks.

There could be hell to pay for this. Harper has made some rather unwise policy decisions as of late that have alienated French Canadians, but this is striking at the party's base. Like Fonzie jumping the shark, this could be the moment things start going downhill.

(Incidentally, guess where the four percentage point drop in support for the Cons went to? The Green Party, who are now up to 9 %.)

Vote for this article at Progressive Bloggers.

Comments:

Juner0
18/10/2006 2:15:02 PM

Oct. 18th - I can't get into any of Garth's sites! Who is blocking access? Anyone know?

Meaningful Meanderings
18/10/2006 4:01:33 PM
(http://howie51.spaces.live.com/)

Just traffic on the site Juner

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