Angry in the Great White North

Garth Turner
Image by ADMS.ca via Flickr

Where was Garth Turner?

The former Liberal MP was supposed to appear for a taping of The Michael Coren Show to be aired Tuesday night on CTS at 8pm.  He was a no-show.  He didn't cancel.  Garth Turner simply didn't show up:

TUESDAY, May 5 - One on one with former MP Garth Turner. CANCELLED AFTER TURNER FAILED TO SHOW UP, WITHOUT PRIOR WARNING. FIRST TIME THIS HAS HAPPENED IN TEN YEARS OF THE PROGRAMME.

What happened?

Well, I know some people here and there, and after asking around, I can give you some details about what transpired.  On Saturday, May 2, a column by Michael Coren was published taking issue with one of Garth Turner's recollections in Turner's recently published book, Sheeple:

[Garth Turner] is particularly angry in the book with Charles McVety, president of Canada Christian College and a leading campaigner for the religious right.

McVety is a highly likeable and generous man and someone with whom I have both agreed and disagreed. Yet even when we've argued, I've never known him tell a lie.

Which is interesting because Turner says the following about the man in the book. "On the set of the Michael Coren Show in the summer of 2006, during a break in an hour-long televised debate with him, Charles McVety bragged that he could 'pick up the phone and reach Stephen Harper in two minutes,' while it would take me 'a month' to do the same. I related that comment to the editors of The Canadian Press during an interview in November 2006, and it was subsequently published. McVety immediately issued a press release denying having said it.

"But he did. The comment at first struck me as extreme, but no longer.

Charles McVety today has his fingers on the pulse of national politics and, as I was to discover during the summer of 2006, is a force within the Conservative Party of Canada itself."

I heard no such thing nor anything even resembling it. Indeed McVety has long said that he is ignored and rejected by Harper and his inner circle precisely because he is a social conservative and Harper isn't and -- important this -- the prime minister is determined to show the electorate that he isn't.

McVety is mentioned on an extraordinary 34 pages of this 212-page book, more than almost anyone else apart from Harper himself. Thus McVety, and Turner's coverage of him, are central to the author's thesis.

Michael Coren talked to everyone who was present at the production of that program in 2006, and no one recalls Charles McVety making this extraordinary claim of access to Stephen Harper.

Michael Coren all but calls Garth Turner a liar.  No doubt this would have been a major topic of discussion on tonight's program.

It would seem that Garth Turner did not want to face Michael Coren if the discussion was going to be about anything other than how Garth Turner was ill-treated by Stephen Harper, and in particular if Garth Turner was going to be on the receiving end of criticism. 

But it gets better.

Michael Coren's people could not get in contact with Garth Turner despite numerous attempts.  Then, nearly an hour after taping was supposed to have started, an email arrived, and Garth Turner, in a single brusque sentence, stated that he had just read Michael Coren's weekend column and that he would not be appearing.

So we are to believe that Garth Turner had only just read the offending column?  That this was the reason behind a sudden decision not to appear?

Fortunately we don't have to believe this.  I have also learned that Michael Coren's people had had a discussion with a publicist at Key Porter Books while trying to track down Garth Turner.  Some time ago, Key Porter had sent a copy of Sheeple to Michael Coren, and this scheduled appearance on the The Michael Coren Show was part of a marketing campaign to promote book sales.  During the discussion regarding Garth Turner's whereabouts, the issue of the column came up.  Michael Coren's people were told that the publicist and Garth Turner had discussed the column on the weekend, and that Garth Turner had said to the publicist he would proceed with the hour-long appearance.

As far as everyone was concerned, it seemed, the topic of McVety's comments would make for good television.

So when Garth Turner sent his "just read the column" email, he was probably unaware that Michael Coren's people had already been told that Garth Turner not only had read the column days earlier, but had told his publisher that it would not be an issue.

So Michael Coren's people showed Garth Turner's email to the publicist at Key Porter.  Something didn't add up.  Needless to say, the representative at Key Porter Books was shocked at what Garth Turner wrote in his email.  Maybe even embarrassed.

Garth Turner's behaviour is baffling.  He seems to think people won't talk to each other and compare notes.  He seems to forget that there are people like me who can stitch it all together and highlight the embarrassing inconsistencies. 

But most importantly, he also seems to forget there are lots of people at CTS and at Key Porter Books whose livelihoods depend on people like Michael Coren and Garth Turner fulfilling their obligations. 

It's a shame that Garth Turner seems all too happy to ignore the consequences of his silly games.

Motivations: When I first wrote this piece, I wrote it as if Garth Turner was too afraid to appear with Michael Coren, too afraid to be confronted with the question of the McVety quote.  I removed all that when I realized that it just didn't track for me.  I thought about it overnight, and now I think that Garth Turner was having his revenge on Michael Coren.  As Michael Coren points out, Garth Turner has it in for social conservatives.  Charles McVety is a social conservative, and Michael Coren has the audacity to call McVety likeable.  That might be reason enough for Garth Turner.  Perhaps Garth Turner thought it would be great fun to have Michael Coren and the people at CTS think he would be appearing until it was too late.  I suppose you could call it a prank of sorts.  Like ringing the doorbell and then running away.  It's just a theory, nothing more.

Still, if this was a lame sort of prank, I doubt the people at Key Porter Books think it was very funny.