CHRIS WATTIE
On Jan. 23, 2006, Garth Turner returned to Parliament as a Conservative. Less than nine months later, he was expelled from the caucus, stripped of his party affiliation, thrown out of his office and forced to sit as an Independent.
The reason, he says, was his blog. He just couldn't stop writing about Ottawa - about a mean, mercurial prime minister, about his circle of humourless acolytes, about a regime of broken promises and false hopes.
Behold, then, Sheeple, Turner's tale of his short, sour season as a Conservative in the 39th Parliament. In this minor saga - with the emphasis on minor - the maverick in cowboy boots takes on the party establishment in jackboots. It doesn't turn out well for Turner.
- Sheeple: Caucus Confidential in Stephen Harper's Ottawa, by Garth Turner, Key Porter, 223 pages, $21.95
The catfight in this parliamentary popcorn popper goes on for about a year, ending with his excommunication. At the centre is Garth Turner, fearless reformer and digital democrat.
Fundamentally, Turner believes that a politician should remain connected to his constituents when he goes to Ottawa, using all instruments at his disposal. He also believes - naïf that he is - that he should serve them as an honest, responsive legislator.
He learns quickly that this is impossible in Stephen Harper's Ottawa, where secrecy and loyalty are the rule. Only days after his narrow election, he is in hot water with the Prime Minister's Office for questioning David Emerson's surprise appointment to the cabinet.
After all, Emerson had been elected as a Liberal. When the government changed, though, he did too, brazenly joining the Conservatives (who had savaged Belinda Stronach for switching parties in 2005).
Emerson's defection bothered Turner. It diminished Emerson, who was seen as bright and promising, and stirred such antagonism that Emerson did not dare run again in 2008.
But in Harper's Ottawa, it was Turner who was pilloried. He was summoned to Harper's office and directed to the woodshed. He describes a prime minister who was "condescending, belittling and menacing," and treated him as "a petulant, useless, idiot child."
Harper didn't like Turner's artless frankness. "You're a journalist, and we all know journalists make bad politicians," he said. "Politicians know they have to stick to a message. That's how they are successful. Journalists think they always have to tell the truth."
This little contretemps comes early in the book and everything thereafter seems anti-climactic, including Turner's short tenure as a Liberal MP. Turner's story, like his political career, goes downhill from there.
He feels he has to spill and it has consequences. Ian Brodie, Harper's chief of staff, warns Turner: "If you want to fuck with us, we will fuck with you. Do you want to sit as an Independent? Then we can arrange that. Count on it."
His exile becomes highly probable when Turner refuses Brodie's order to stop writing his blog and giving interviews, and to issue a news release praising Emerson's appointment. "Are you clear?" he asks.
So this is the world according to Garth. He hadn't signed up for this. After all, he had been a successful Progressive Conservative MP from 1988 to 1993, one who had (briefly) served in the cabinet and run for the party leadership. He had returned triumphantly to politics in 2006, beating an incumbent Liberal of 13 years.
Moreover, he had been a teacher of Shakespeare, a financial journalist, an author of several books and a successful entrepreneur. Passionate about the Internet, he had hoped to mobilize its power in his political reincarnation.
Yet this cuts no ice in Harper's Ottawa. After Emerson, Turner was accused of breaking ranks and leaking caucus secrets, of being out for himself rather than the team.
What is most revealing here is what he says about the government's modus operandi. Few Conservatives come out well in the book beyond the conscientious Michael Chong, who put principle before politics when he resigned from the cabinet over the parliamentary resolution declaring the Québécois "a nation."
One of the more hypocritical is Helena Guergis, who was ready to issue a news release supporting an anti-floor-crossing bill until Harper appointed Emerson to the cabinet and made her Emerson's parliamentary secretary. There was no press release. Now Guergis sits in the cabinet, nodding like a trained seal whenever the Prime Minister clears his throat.
Turner didn't play the game and paid for it. While he denies he broke caucus confidentiality, he was obviously chafing there. He says it was all about his blog, that there is little place for dissent among private members and that democracy is in trouble on Parliament Hill.
Sheeple, his neologism for sheep and people, is windy, redundant and gratuitously profane in places. It reproduces news stories and treats Turner's entries on his website as if they were ancient texts. Then again, this is written by a self-described "unusual renaissance man" of such implied import that you might mistake him for John Turner or Ted Turner.
The book needed an editor. It has no acknowledgments, suggesting that Turner didn't have one. He allows that he was so torn over writing Sheeple that early on he threw his manuscript into the lake before recovering it; sometimes you wonder why he bothered.
Still, Turner deserves our thanks. He went to Ottawa, he spoke his mind, he struck a blow for democracy. His mission is sometimes self-aggrandizing and its impact is sometimes overstated, but his motives were honourable and his independence was admirable. We need agents provocateurs like him.
No wonder Stephen Harper cheered last October when he heard that the troublesome Garth Turner had lost his seat.
Andrew Cohen is a professor of journalism and international affairs at Carleton University, a journalist and most recently author of the Extraordinary Canadians biography, Lester B. Pearson.