Hers's a bandwagon I can jump on and start shouting about! Go Green Garth! Go Green Garth! Go Green Garth! Go Green Garth! Go Green Garth! Go Green Garth!

I am okay with Garth joining any party as he does not really seem to understand the notion that, in the federal legislature, politics is largely a team sport. He is the John Nunziata of this age.

Shortly after being elected new Green Party leader, Elizabeth May predicted that the Greens would have more influence/voice in Parliament very soon. Could this be, in fact, a very well-laid trap that the PMO has blundered in to? Hmmmmm.

Go Green Garth! Go Green Garth! Go Green Garth! Go Green Garth! Go Green Garth! Go Green Garth! Go Green Garth! Go Green Garth! Go Green Garth! Go Green Garth! Go Green Garth! Go Green Garth! Go Green Garth! Go Green Garth! Go Green Garth!

I should add that I think Garth was right to criticise the CPC over the Fortier appointment, just as Nunziata was right to criticise the Liberals for failing to repeal the GST as promised. Where they fall down is in the ability to effectively influence their peers; lacking any such capacity they are restricted to public tantrum-throwing and this is what generates disciplinary actions.

G<i>arth</i>.

E<i>arth</i>.

Just saying.

A meeting is being scheduled! http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2006/10/19/turner-reax.html

F<i>lea</i>.<p>Walter Brim<i>ley</i>.<p>Me say, too.

Gordo --

Thereby splitting the vote on the left <i>three</i> ways?!

Whose trap, whose stumble?

Bah. A trap laid by May for Harper. Turner's been publicly uncomfortable with the Tories for months. Who better for May to target for a seat?

I've said it for several years that the ONLY way for the Greens to garner influence in the house is have sitting MPs. That way the government can steal their poicies an dmake them their own.

Wilford Brimley is not to be trifled with.

Alan
Gowan

aha!

So does Al have "A Criminal Mind", or is he merely a "Strange Animal"...?

The Green Party is on the left? How so? Left of what? Centre? Ayn Rand?

Go Green Garth! Go Green Garth! Go Green Garth! Go Green Garth! Go Green Garth! Go Green Garth! Go Green Garth! Go Green Garth! Go Green Garth! Go Green Garth! Go Green Garth!

The personal ability to cite Gowan song titles in banter is an excellent thing.

The Greens are left in that the environment isn't a Conservative issue. Ever. Other than raping it. They're fiscally very conservative.

So the Conservatives could actually be left of the Greens on certain fiscal issues? Just like those leftists to not really know where they stand, which is to say, where conservatives want to pigeonhole them.

My favourite Garth post:

http://www.garth.ca/weblog/2006/02/12/the-meeting/#comments

It was typical media tactics and it made me think of a comment Brian Mulroney said one day. The Tories were about to bring in the GST. The country was in media haos. Protests were everywhere. The polls were a disaster.
Mulroney stood erect and impeccable at the podium in the caucus room. Outside, just beyond the double doors that sound-roofed the room, a phalanx of media waited, convinced some MPs would buckle under all the pressure, walk up to the forest of microphones, criticize their besieged leader and open the floodgates of party dissention. Just what any good reporter would want, of course. Blood.
And Mulroney said: “If you want to be a media hero, just walk out those doors right now, go down the hall and do it. I guarantee you’ll be on the front page of every newspaper tomorrow and the lead item on the CBC tonight. Go ahead. I’ll still be here. But if you want to be a hero for Canada, then you will stand by me.” He stared into the eyes of everyone in that room. Anyone who harboured the remotest thought of mutiny felt it evaporate under his gaze. Leadership.
Being a media hero is easy, fun and has instant rewards, I thought. Belinda Stronach. Carolyn Parrish. Scott Brison. Getting on the front page of the Globe and Mail and the National Post is a breeze. Just say what they want.
Of course, I told the reporter Harper is our leader. We have only one leader at a time. The leader leads – it’s his job. A candidate’s highest job is to get elected.

Garth - media hero.

I am witnessing a straw man. Garth does nothing in particular this week to cause himself getting the boot, someone somewhere pulls the trigger and boots him out of the party, the news turns to Garth (coincidentally on the day of the nutty science environment policy announcement) and all of a sudden that makes Garth a media whore. Garth uses his blog to communicate with his constituents as he always has, does nothing new and <i>he</i> somehow become the manipulator. Nutty. <p>By the way, has anyone asked where the good and honest Stephen Taylor (I mean that serious as he is one of the best political bloggers in Canada) got his original copy of the smoking gun? Has he (the good, above-average, single but lonely, struggling blogger) the personal resources to monitor Garth's site and pull hour by hour edits from five months ago for the GOTCHA moment? Or was this a party central resource that stuck this away for an opportune moment. Either way it is legitimate as it was in the public space but, as with the shadowy process that saw Mr. Turner removed from the party, we also are dealing with an unclear process as to how this "evil Garth" moment was arrived upon this week.

Garth spoke today.<p>By the way, I have a hard time calling him Mr. Turner as Mr. Turner in my mind is the past PM. Garth he is.

As an academic exercise I can hardly wait to see how many shots Mr. Turner (The Rt. Hon. Mr. Turner would be the former PM, natch) gets to take at Ms. Elizabeth May before the notional Green caucus votes him off the island.

If he does sit as the lone Green party member, who knows, he could have as much influence on the Canadian political scene as did Deborah Grey in'89. A fiscally responsible and rapidly growing Green party would definitely have an effect on the two traditional parties in the House. Could they end up being the tent that houses the majority of disenchanted moderate tories? I never thought so initially, but with Garth possibly joining them in the House, anything is possible.

Oooops. I see that all that was already covered by Alan et al. I guess like all blogging flunkies, I buy my keyboards by the barrel. ;-)

Go Green Garth! Go Green Garth! Go Green Garth! Go Green Garth!