Amid the gnashing of Tory teeth over their own decision to turf Garth Turner has popped up the delicious idea that our former Finance Minister will now become Canada’s first member of Parliament for the Greens. Sure it came from brother Doug, usually not a hot national news source despite his location, but it is an attractive idea.
- First, Garth blogs (though as ST notes, he may well also edit.) Tories do not blog – Monty had to quit blogging when he got to sit at the big table. Reasonable policy for an unknown medium run by hobbyists as far as I see but Garth needed to express himself. You can’t fight for the little guy and hide your light under a bush, you know.
- Second, Garth may find the idea of protecting the environment through “intensity” standards a joke. That may not make him particularized enough to be a Green – as it seems to include most of Quebec again now – but I suspect all Greens fall into that larger category.
- Third, Garth is a showman. Love it or hate it, he loves the camera and the camera has certain feelings for him. He was a TV investment guru in the 1990s after he was Minister of Finance for, what, a month or so and he found a way to fill an hour before the reruns of Xena on the CHCH Hamilton mid-Saturday afternoon TV schedule.
So go Green, Garth. Become the new Deb Grey before leading your cause into a decade and an half of splintering schismismistic madness. Find a way to forge a sixth party in Parliament and lay the groundwork for the seventh. And maybe co-opt Elsie Wayne to join you. Nobody makes for a great schism as well as Elsie does.