The renegade

Federal Tory leader Erin O’Toole has his challenges. He’s too right for the middle. Too middle for the right. He let the vax issue get away from him. It’s still wild, making headlines. Now he’s trying to ride heard on caucus and this week gave out a bunch of ‘shadow cabinet’ appointments.

Meanwhile over in the Lib caucus room there is perfect discipline. If the Cons are all cats, the Grits are golden retrievers. No dissention, no rebellion, nothing to disturb the leader because everyone has agreed to think like him. Besides, he dispenses the treats – titles, cars & drivers, big offices, extra pay and power. So we have a huge cabinet, and everybody’s tummy is rubbed.

I was reminded of the way politics works today when reading this MSM column in O’Toole’s travails:

Stephen Harper had a reputation as a strict disciplinarian when it came to caucus management but, in fact, his MPs most often policed themselves, with discipline enforced by a sense of mutual respect and common purpose.

One former Conservative MP said caucus regulation was a collective effort. “We kept it under control ourselves. You always had the odd renegade like Garth Turner but overall it worked,” he said.

Yep. Renegade. That’s me. Sixteen years after punting my sorry butt out of the Harper caucus for the high crimes of direct democracy, blogging and hanging out with enemy MPs, my name still bubbles up. Needless to say, it was not a happy time. The PM’s staff goons orchestrated a blitzkrieg caucus vote one morning while most MPs were still looking for coffee creamer and, poof, I was out.

Now, this was not a bad thing in the sweep of history. Had I shut up, followed the script and been a good little MP, then this globally-significant canine-infused investment blog would not exist. No financial business. No Belfountain store, wee bank by the sea, books, old building rebuilds or all those financial lectures in a zillion hotel ballrooms and church basements. I’d just be another old codger former politician living in Ottawa with a gilded political pension. And what fun would that be, not fielding daily abuse from the ant-vax numbnuts, equity cowboys, commies and macroeconomists in the steerage section?

The point here is that dissention in Ottawa is good. People elected to go there should not all think the same. Leaders should lead through persuasion, compromise and the force of their arguments and passion, rather than a party whip. O’Toole has some quirky, prickly caucus members. Good. Trudeau has none. Not good.

The essence of the question is simple: when elected, should politicians represent the people to Ottawa? Or do they represent the party to the electors?

Most Canadians would pick the former. Every single leader and party official picks the latter. Also virtually every MP elected eventually falls into line. If not, then years later they can read a newspaper column saying there was the odd renegade, but he got gelded. And s/he’d pay a price similar to that extracted from me. Mr. Harper and his political operatives made darn sure I would never set foot in the House of Commons again after the next election. Such a thought terrifies others. Seeing my head on a pike outside Centre Block wasn’t pretty.

(By the way, I was accused of breaking caucus confidentiality by blogging about the political process, the machinery of government and matters coming up for votes in Parliament. I conducted online polls of my constituents – and others – then made sure all the MPs knew the results of this popular opinion when they took their seats to vote. I also established a video blog and broadcast the views of other party leaders and MPs from every region, regardless of their politics, to ty to encourage rational debate. Oh man, Harper hated that.)

So we just had an election in which the guy who became prime minister collected 32.6% of the vote. In fact the Liberals came second in terms of total votes cast and will now govern as with a majority. It’s a bad system. T2 promised to reform it back in 2015, before fully understanding proportional representation or preferential balloting would strip him of power.

Given the blunt inadequacy of the first-past-the-post system, then, it seems even more important that individual MPs try to give voice to their cities, towns and regions – at least within the caucus room and hopefully in the hallway media scrums. This makes it vastly harder for leaders, but it might go miles to breaking down though the wall of cynicism and distrust now separating electors from the elected. As voter participation falls and Reddit becomes more powerful than Parliamentary committees, we should worry.

Okay, so I was a bad politician. A renegade. Harper, 1. Garth. 0.

But I’m still not sorry.

About the picture: “Not sure how the flag drama is playing out on the east coast but I thought you would appreciate a picture of one perched on top of a mountain in Alberta,” writes Jason.  “It eventually gets ripped to shreds by the wind or stolen but a week later another one pops up! Patriotism is not dead, there are numerous mountains where citizens put up the Canadian flag, albeit not as big as this one, shown here with Xyla.”