No surprise really, Harper is a control freak and has to be "in" on everything. Like religion he suppresses independent thought.Rank-and-file Conservative MPs have no say in fashioning the centrepiece policies of the Harper government, says a former Tory caucus member who was booted from party ranks last month.
Garth Turner also says that, while MPs are being muzzled, he believes there is a pipeline between Prime Minister Stephen Harper's office and some activists on the religious right - or as he calls them, "the righteous right."
The maverick Toronto-area MP, who now sits as an independent, says the Conservative environmental plan, the budget, tax cuts, the income trust decision and military policy in Afghanistan were all presented to the caucus as done deals, not as subjects for debate.
"Caucus has not been involved in substantive policy issues at all," Turner said in an interview. "That has been, I guess, one of my greatest surprises and greatest disappointments - that we have not, as members of the caucus, been allowed to discuss any substantive policy issues."
Turner isn't a newcomer to politics. He was a Conservative MP under Brian Mulroney from 1988 to 1993 and was revenue minister in Kim Campbell's short-lived government in 1993.
He says he's never seen MPs treated this way.
As well our "Very Small Minority PM" thinks he can run the government like he has a majority.
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