Studio 2 Program
TVO Director Chris Taylor
followed me around one day and finished
up on the day after the election. This is his show:
Hostess: Not many politicians would boast about a record
with 44
elections and no wins. Except John Turmel. He's run against
opponents
such as Brian Mulroney and Sheila Copps and though he's never
won a
seat, he's won a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records
for
contesting more elections than anyone else on the planet. But
he does
win... at the gambling tables... financing his campaigns with
Poker
and Blackjack winnings. This month, he was in the news again
running
for the Regional Chair of Ottawa Carleton. We've followed
Turmel for
his 44th kick at the electoral can.
JCT: The scene opens at one of my
retirement home accordion
concerts playing the Clarinet Polka. Then, with the music
toned down:
Don Francis (Manager): You're at the Thorncliffe Place
Retirement Home
which is in West end Ottawa. John has been a guest accordion
player
maybe a dozen times or more. As a personality, I've known him
for a
long time in that my father ran for politics, was a member of
Parliament locally and the first time I saw John was in the
early
1980s that he ran as a candidate in one of the campaigns. I
think he
likes to be center of attention. Running in the political
campaigns
gives him that to a certain degree in that he will have the
podium and
everybody's listening.
JCT: Then back to end of the
polka with a flourish. While he was
speaking, the showed a little old ladies in the audience and
one who
stood up and danced around her chair.
The next scene is at a candidate
debate with Bob Chiarelli and
Peter Clark.
Turmel: Wherever there was a federal election or
byelection, I was
there. I ran against Brian Mulroney in Nova Scotia way back
in 1983.
I've run down in Toronto, London, Kitchener, all over.
Wherever there
are byelections, I go. And in the Anthology of Great Canadian
Characters, I'm one of them and they quote a thing at the end
that
says: "There are four major powers in Canadian politics
present at all
elections. The Liberal, the Conservative, the NDP and John
Turmel. Now
sometimes you might get a Green, a Commie or a Marxist
Leninist but
you could always count on the Big Four and I was one of them.
JCT: They cut in a scene where I
was passing out literature
before the debate asking "do you want one. Explains how
the software
works."
Turmel: Now there's Peter Clark, Bob Chiarelli and myself
running for
Chairman of the Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton.
It's my 44th
race and I'm always pushing the same program: trying to
Abolish
Interest Rates. And I want to use the LETS software to do
that. LETS
stands for Local Employment Trading System, a System for
Trading
Employment Locally and it allows unemployed people to barter
their
time back and forth doing things for each other and they use
their own
personal currencies.
Bob Chiarelli: We have a long history together actually.
In 1979, I
was campaign manager in the federal election for Lloyd
Francis who
became speaker ultimately in Ottawa West. And that was John
Turmel's
first election campaign. And we got to know each other at
that point.
Back then his agenda was to legalize gambling and it was for
about
eight or ten elections then he gradually matured into other
issues
such his LETS program that he talks about. So he's been a
colorful
personality around Ottawa.
JCT: Now they use one of the
funnier lines from my evening's
speech:
Turmel speech: When the media have a debate and they don't
include me,
they end up saying: Gee, "there was nothing approaching
a compelling
verbal duel. I certainly doesn't make for great
television." Well if
you cut your most radical character off the debate, you
deserve a
boring show.
JCT: After the audience laughter died down, cut back to Bob:
Chiarelli: I think he enjoys it. I think he enjoys
entertaining and
most of the people who attend the all-candidates debates, for
example,
are quite entertained. I really think he believes in the
cause that
he's talking about. He's well-researched on it. He just puts
his cause
forward. He does it with humor and panache.
Turmel speech: I'll pay my tax for army and police to
handle strife;
I'll pay my tax for doctors, nurses who protect my life;
I'll pay my tax for all engaged repairing road and sewer;
I'll pay my tax for social servants helping out the poor;
I'll even pay my tax for bureaucrats with no regret;
But I object to paying tax for interest on debt.
Chiarelli: I think he's got a different agenda than a lot
of people
but he's a very credible individual, he's an upstanding
citizen, other
than some of his little gambling pursuits, I guess, but he's
well
respected and well-liked in the area.
JCT: Scene switches to the
Cyberccino Cafe where Tom Kennedy has
the LETS Assist software available for demonstrations:
Therese Turmel: My name is Theresa Turmel, John Turmel's
mother. I
could start by saying that he was never like everybody else
when he
was young. Okay? And it used to bother me a lot when I would
see him
playing cards and playing solitaire and it turns out he's
making his
living out of that. So what can I say. I can't say I don't
agree. And
who keeps mother going with cars and sending her south and..
so, it
was good that I didn't stop him from doing what he wanted to
do... He
wanted to go to Vegas and I just had a little house, was
making
payments, and everything, I was working though, working as
translator,
so anyway, I didn't have the money. He said "well, would
you go make a
loan?" Well, I'll go and try. So I got a three thousand
dollar loan
and he went to Vegas and he came back and he had sixteen
hundred
dollars more than when he left. So that was fine. I never
regretted
it. Why should I?
JCT: Interview at the Diamond
Casino playing at a Blackjack
table.
Turmel: So that was my first junket to Las Vegas back in
1974 and you
needed three thousand dollars up front in those days. I
didn't have
three thousand bucks and I knew I could beat Vegas because
I'd learned
how to count the cards. So I talked my mother into going to a
bank and
making a loan to send me to gamble in Vegas. And she did. How
many
mothers do you know would do that?
{JCT: Show some Blackjack playing at the table.
Turmel: I'm just banned from playing Blackjack in Vegas,
not Poker.
Poker, the house don't care if you win because they just take
a rake-
off out of your winnings. It's not like you're beating them.
If you
beat them at Blackjack, then they'll change their mind. They
don't
like that.
JCT: More blackjack play at the
table then switch to Pauline
sitting with mom at Cyberccino Cafe.
Pauline Morrissette: I'm Pauline Morrissette, John
Turmel's associate,
partner, ally, whatever, for 13 years.
I remember taking a course one time and I sat there and this
gentleman
sat beside me and said: "I can't imagine what life with
John Turmel
would be like." I said: "Well, it's very similar to
a roller-coaster.
The highs are high, the lows are low," and I said
"you kind of feel
nauseated all the time." [chuckle] Anyway, God forbid if
he ever won
an election.
JCT: Scene of Bob Chiarelli's
workers chanting on the night of
his victory. Then me watching the returns which say:
Announcer: Bob Chiarelli, former MPP, will be the new man
in charge of
Regional Government in Ottawa-Carleton.
JCT: Cut to me reading out of the morning newspaper:
Turmel: Regional Chair Peter Clark lost his job yesterday
to Bob
Chiarelli by a margin that was so small that the votes cast
for
perennial fringe candidate John Turmel would have covered the
spread.
Bob Chiarelli, 81,926. Peter Clark 79,128 and John Turmel,
4,126. Two
and a half percent. They only predicted in the poll that I'd
get one.
Well, I went over the Peter's party for a couple of hours.
Then Bob's
party for a couple of hours and I was looking around and with
Bob,
there were 8 different people in the room who had beaten me
before.
Three federal MPs, Mac Harb, Lloyd Francis from my first
election in
'79, Marlene Catterall. Two mayors who had beaten me, Jim
Durrell and
Ben Franklin, Ottawa and Nepean, and two provincial MPPs,
Richard
Patten and Alex Cullen, and now our new regional chair up
there. I
said: "Hey they could have a convention of guys who beat
Turmel."
JCT: Back at the Diamond Blackjack table,
Turmel: Well, I don't foresee any federal elections for 4
years,
provincials for 2 years, municipal for three. So it looks
like I've
got 2 years off except for byelections. And after forty four
elections, I could use a little bit of a break. I'm going to
take
off.. I'm going down to Atlantic City to play Poker for a
month or so.
Then off to Biloxi Mississippi to play Poker there for a
month or so.
Then probably off for a couple of months to Australia. So it
looks
like next year's going to be pretty busy on the international
front.
I figure I'll be more famous than Einstein. Do you think I
don't know
where I fit in the scheme of things? Let them laugh. John The
Engineer
knows where he's going to end up in the history books."
JCT: Scene ends with the ending of "Good night ladies" on my accordion.
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