Garth Turner leaves Conservatives
I have come to believe that, at my root, there is a conspiracy theorist. How else to explain my reaction to today’s Garth Turner ousting.
I heard Lorrie Goldstein and Charles Adler on this subject today, and they speculated the Tories are panicking because of today’s poll numbers.
Ha, says I.
Lets try turning that around a bit. If the poll numbers shocked them, and they have only a one vote majority in the commons, they wouldn’t jettison a member, they would try to gain members. But what if your own polling says something different? What if you want to force an election ASAP, but don’t want to look like you are manipulating the timing of an election? Kick out a contentious, pain in the ass member of caucus (who, it should be noted, hasn’t been too big of a pain in the ass of late).
The agreement is, he is welcome back in caucus after the election, the MP gets to be the hot shot he likes to be, and you get the election you want, without looking like you manipulated it.
It sounds crazy, it sounds like way too many ifs, but some days I swear this is how Stephen Harper thinks.
By the way, here’s Garth’s me-video from today:
Yes it is crazy.
It’s crazy.
But not the right type of crazy.
I think they fried Turner as a warning to the rest of the caucus to stay in line.
Things are tough, particularly for the old Reformers who were somebodies in opposition and, more or less nobodies on the government backbench.
These guys would go back to their ridings and bitch about how awful Ottawa is and how stupid the government was.
Now their the government and many of the things they used to complain about , like concentration of power in the PMO are, well, the same.
And Stephen Harper, it turns out, isn’t going to change it.
If you had made a career out of whinging about things like that, the irony would grate on your conscience.
Sacrificing a high profile MP, sends a message to caucus that nobody is safe.
Sacrificing a high profile MP as a warning to others and eliminating a potential political liability, as the government introduces it’s new environmental scheme, is a bonus.
Yes it is crazy.
I know it. However, talk to me in two months when the COnservatives have lost a one vote confidence motion, with their acclaimed candidate for Halton, Garth Turner, casting the deciding vote.