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John Turner, the man who was Prime Minister of Canada for eleven weeks, returned to Ottawa last week.

Mr. Turner returned to unveil a flattering portrait of him that will hang in a hallway in the House of Commons. After his successor - Jean Chretien, the current leader of the Liberal Party - said some equally-flattering things about Mr. Turner, the former Prime Minister gave voice to his own thoughts, too.

The national press interpreted what Mr. Turner had to say as a not-so-veiled criticism of Mr. Chretien. The National Post’s front-page item stated that Mr. Turner “lectured” Mr. Chretien at the event, and called his statement “aggressive.” The Globe and Mail reported similarly, declaring that Mr. Turner had directed “a few pointed barbs” at Mr. Chretien.

Only Mr. Turner, of course, can really know for certain whether his comments had an intended double meaning. So let us, instead, examine his actual words, and leave the other stuff to etymologists and psychoanalysts.

Mr. Turner, apparently, is preoccupied with the issue of Parliamentary reform - a topic that many others, admittedly, are lately preoccupied with as well. The desired reform, mostly, seems to be about letting Members of Parliament say whatever they wish, or vote however they like. Said Mr. Turner, in the direction of the Speaker of the House of Commons and the Prime Minister: “Give these members a voice, let them speak their minds, let them speak their consciences and let them represent the interests of their constituents.”

Continuing, he said: “I’m saying it’s time for the member of Parliament from all sides of the House to reclaim some independence, some dignity, get up, speak your mind, speak what your constituents are thinking and deal with the main issues of the day.”

I, for one, have always been labouring under the belief - apparently mistaken, if you subscribe to Mr. Turner’s point of view - that most Members of Parliament do attempt to speak their consciences, and that they do represent their constituents. Having toiled here and there on Parliament Hill, I can testify to the fact that the vast majority of them - in all parties - work very, very hard for their constituents, and with not a little “dignity,” too. They do not lose their “dignity” when they periodically disagree with the political party in which they hold membership.

In fact, if Mr. Turner’s longed-for “Parliamentary reform” means MPs should be permitted to do or say anything they wish, I am not for that, either. Having worked on a few general election campaigns, I know that the vast majority of voters indicate a preference based upon the performance of a party’s leader, and a party’s platform, and the party “brand name.” In general elections (not by-elections) most voters often do not even know the name of their chosen party’s candidate. How, then, can Mr. Turner and others argue that - having been elected under a party platform that means something to voters - Members of Parliament, once installed, should be encouraged to vote according to the tenets of their own, previously undisclosed, platform? Why even bother to run as a certain party’s candidate, if one plans to jettison that party’s principles after one is safely ensconced in the House of Commons for four years?

This is not an abstract question. For example, in the Spring of 1987 - when he was still leader of the Liberal Party - Mr. Turner dropped Montreal MP David Berger from his shadow cabinet because he, unlike Mr. Turner, did not favour the Meech Lake Accord. A year later, in 1988, Mr. Turner admitted to the Citizen’s Paul Gessell that those Liberal MPs who did not support his leadership were free to “[leave] the caucus.”

Here are two more-recent examples that better illustrate the point, perhaps. When Kitchener-Waterloo Liberal MP Andrew Telegdi likened Canada to the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler - something that is not, even remotely, Liberal Party policy - was he not simply “speaking his mind?” When Toronto-area MP Tom Wappel refused to assist a disabled, decorated war veteran because the veteran voted for the Canadian Alliance in last November’s election - something that, again, is not reflective of any Liberal government policy - was he not merely “speaking his conscience?”

The answer is as obvious as the shame and opprobrium that have been heaped - deservedly - on both Messrs. Telegdi and Wappel. The answer is no. Calls for Parliamentary reform should not become a licence for Members of Parliament to conduct themselves like fools.

But John Turner, I suspect, knows that already. Perhaps he did come to Ottawa for something other than the unveiling of a portrait, after all.

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