Today I snuck out of work for an hour to attend the press conference for ousted MP Garth Turner. I consider myself lucky to be close to this historic event in Canadian politics, and wanted to experience it in person.
Today’s press conference was held in the local riding office on Main Street in Milton, about 3 minutes from my house, and it was about as much of a zoo as this little town has ever seen. When I arrived, satellite trucks lined the same street where every weekend farmers set up their booths to sell sweet corn and home-made pies. Inside the constituency office the air was damp as it tends to get when you cram too many people into a small space, add studio lighting, and turn up the stress levels to eleven.
The mix was one of reporters and political supporters, as for non-affiliated common folk I bet I was the only one of those in attendance. There was a surprisingly large turnout from the Green Party, including Milton’s Green candidate from the last election and several Green supporters sporting Green Party buttons. A few minutes into the press conference there was an older gentleman who couldn’t get in and started to make a fuss, he was escorted politely away from the door so that the conference could continue but I felt bad for him because he was obviously passionate about being there and might just have been the number two “average voter” to join me in my pilgrimage.
Garth’s statement was not unlike others that he made last night and today on his blog. The reporters in the room were desperately trying to bait him into saying something bad about the prime minister, and he barely took the bait. Lots of talk about options going forward like Green Party, Liberal (?), or independent. His stated feeling is that it is very hard to be effective as an independent so I expect that some sort of affiliation or alignment is coming. This lead to my question…
Being apparently the only voter in the room, I felt obliged to speak my mind somewhat especially given the allusion to alternative political alignment. When all the cameras snapped around into my face I became much less eloquent than I would have liked, but the paraphrase of the question was “I fully support your voters-first approach, but the voters of this riding elected you based on the conservative platform. Albeit we understand that there was a Garth spin on the platform, that is what we elected you on and what we expect. Will you hold true to that platform?”. His answer was that he is a conservative (note the small c that I’ve used in that description) and will remain true to those ideals. (If you see any of this on the news, I’m the tall guy in the back who could stand to lose a couple of pounds and wearing a brown leather jacket.)
Speaking as one consituent, I can say that for the most part Garth’s stances represent my own. I am fiscally conservative and excited about many of the fiscal policies that this government is bringing in and in applaud the push that Garth is making on income splitting for families. I am however socially liberal and Garth’s leaning supports that, most notably in his support for gay marriage. As far as representing me, he does it and while the deomgraohics of Halton are changing daily with all of this rapid growth I believe that he represents the majority in this riding as well.
I was just on a call with some of my US colleagues and explained to them what had happened and why I thought it was historically significant, it might be useful to explain my feelings here on the blog as well. The ousting of Garth Turner brings blogging as a political tool to the front page of every newspaper in the country. He has been very effective at communicating with his consituents via the blog (and for the older deomgraphic via town hall meetings) and I think that everyone will now take notice of its effects. The news story here is in my opinion the incredible grassroots support that Garth Turner has from his electorate, and that support comes directly from the transparency shown by blogging. People will take notice, and I think that it will change the face of politics in this country very quickly, definitely in time for the next federal election. That is sweeping change, at an incredibly fast pace, and I think that the events of the last 24 hours will be the catalyst for that change. It will signal a return of democracy to the people and will refocus politicians on the people that they represent. It is in my opinion truly historic, and I for one will be proud to tell my grandchildren that I was there when it happened.

Some more interesting commentary today:
http://www.deepjiveinterests.com/2006/10/19/garth-turner-blogging-hero-or-blogging-opportunist/

http://www.darcynorman.net/2006/10/19/garth-turner-for-prime-minister 

http://democraticspace.com/blog/2006/10/what-garth-turner-can-do-for-canadian-democracy/ 

http://flacklife.blogspot.com/2006/10/garth-turner-man-who-takes-blogs.html