JCT: Last debate of the 2008 Guelph byelection at Our Lady
of Lourdes Catholic High School. It was a huge group, 900
students. A kilted Highlander with bag-pipes led us in. It
was not quite a standard non-debate. Statements, questions
and answers. But they permitted each candidate to address a
question to another candidate. That goes against the boring
and grey Ted Rogers way. Fuhrer Philp's did not allow anyone
to stray from Big Brother's format of no exchange between
candidates.


Opening Statement:

Turmel: I'm John The Engineer. I'm in the Guinness Book of
Records for running in more elections than anyone else and
losing more elections than anyone else (exhibit Guinness
page).
"Super Loser Fails Again," (exhibit article) that's what
they say when I lose an election. But I happen to be the
world's best professional limit poker player, I'm in the
Anthology of Great Canadian Characters (exhibit book).
Google for Great Canadian Gambler and you get me. I wrote
the book on Poker (exhibit Play Holdem Poker like a Bookie).
I'm the TajProfessor of Poker Systems Engineering. They
always joke: Winner at the table, loser at the polls. How
come?
I first ran in politics to legalize gambling in 1979. And
they asked about inflation. And I said: how come my casino
chips (exhibit casino chips) don't inflate and lose their
value and the government's chips lose their value year after
year? (exhibit coins) What's going on? It's the same
hardware. Inflation must be a software problem. So I did an
engineering analysis, a simple one, google for bankmath, one
word, and it explains how this software works (point to LETS
diskette decal on lapel). LETS: Local Employment-Trading
System. You can open an account at the Bank of Canada, like
Paypal, borrow what you need interest-free like a student
loan, pay off all your debts, and then later on, you pay
back with all payments going against principal and even the
poorest guy someday gets out of debt.
So, the Our Father was, by Christ, the greatest bank-fighter
in history: "Give us today tomorrow's bread," which is
really better than today's bread, "and forgive us our debts
as we forgive our debtors." Jesus wasn't a sin-fighter, he
was a debt-fighter, that's why he took a whip to the bankers
in the temple.
Jesus said: if you have money, do not lend it out at
interest, Thomas 95, they just discovered it in the Nag
Hammadi scrolls. How come it's not in your Bible? Well,
Jesus beat up the bankers as an example. He said: Don't
loanshark your money. So guess what? All we have to do is
skip loanshark TD, Royal, Scotia banks, access the Bank of
Canada's computer, they've got no depositors! Everybody
borrows and they can pay it off with cash or with time.

Question #1: Vandalism (signs)

Turmel: Well, I've got no complaints about busted signs, I
don't have any signs. But I've got to complain about my
busted shoulder (I had taken off my jacket and rolled up my
sleeve to show a bruise on my arm) This is 11 days later. I
was at the debate at the Chamber of Commerce when a
moderator tried to keep me off the debate. I saw him grab my
stuff, tug of war over my bag, I had to flip him across the
stage, hurt my shoulder in the meantime, but my point was
this.
The Chamber had decided that only the Big Four candidates
would get to participate in the debate. I said: I got a
right, I paid my money, I'm staying until I'm removed. And
in a while, four police came in and took me away. Of course,
that was when Rogers and the Mercury turned off their
cameras. But the point is this, should I have been banned
from this debate too?

JCT: Big chorus of nos.

But all the newspapers have said that I acted objectionably
when I stood up there for my right to participate. And they
said that the majority of the voters wanted me banned, and
I've been asking every group since then: should I be banned
from this meeting? No one says yeah. So how come the fat
cats at the Chamber of Commerce supposedly voted a majority
to ban me from the debate?

Question #2: Poverty

The Liberals have a "30-50 plan" to reduce poverty by 50%
over the next 5 years, something they never accomplished the
14 years they were in power. The others all says things need
to be better and we have to have better.

Turmel: If you google for "world's richest pauper" or even
"king of the paupers" I come up. If you google for anti-
poverty software, my LETS system comes up. You basically get
all the poor people in the neighborhood to list their
skills, lend them all $1000 in Monopoly Dollars, and now
they can pay each other to do stuff when the day before they
were all broke.
That's how timebanks work. You work an hour expecting
someone else to work back an hour. It's time barter. So if
you're not looking for the anti-poverty system, and if you
google for "anti-poverty engineer" I come up too, well, if
you don't have an anti-poverty system, how can you possibly
say you're working to end poverty? I'm the only guy up here
with a software that qualifies as an anti-poverty software
and you've got to do your homework now and check it out.

Question #3: Marijuana

Turmel: Two years at the University of Saskatchewan
determined that marijuana regrows brain cells. Isn't that
neat? That's right. You drink alcohol, you destroy brain
cells, you get a hangover the next day. You do marijuana,
you regrow new brain cells, you feel good the next day.
Which explains why I'm so sharp and they're so dull.
Also, marijuana kills cancer. They buried that information.
They've known it for many years. You people who've had
friends die of cancer, you can blame the government for
suppressing that information. It never caused a death...

Gloria Kovach said she wasn't in favor of decriminalising
and got one solitary hesitant clap. You know what the youth
who know the truth think about the herbal delight.

Frank Valeriote said: The Liberal position is for the
decriminalization of marijuana. Even police officers prefer
to spend their time and resources fighting more serious
crime..

When he was through, I quipped: But you never got it done.

Question #4: Doing the right thing


Turmel: Well, Obama represents hope, newness, but... just
like the war in Afghanistan. I don't believe that two
planeloads of gasoline took down three buildings. Never
happened before, it was controlled demolition. NORAD got
called off, it wasn't some Arab in a cave who pulled that
off, it was the US Government. Then George Bush sicced us to
go chase the wrong guys in Afghanistan. This is the first
war where we're the black hats. We're the bad guys with the
invaders. And the White Hat Taliban, they're going to come
back and they're going to kick our asses. We've got to get
our boys out of there, we don't want to be invaders with the
US no more.

JCT: Good applause but I failed to finish my point that
Obama wants to pull out of Iraq to keep chasing the guys who
didn't do 911 in Afghanistan. He wants the US to take off
their black hats in Iraq and all go putting on their White
Hats in Afghanistan. He doesn't realize the Taliban didn't
do 911 nor did they harbor the guys who did. They're save in
the USA.

0:53:56
Turmel: Well, Guelph used to have a LETS 25 years ago. Try
to find out where they went and try to start it up again.
But here's the point:
I'll pay Your tax for army and police to handle strife;
I'll pay Your tax for doctors, nurses who protect my life;
I'll pay Your tax for all engaged repairing road and sewer,
I'll pay Your tax for social servants helping out the poor;
I'll even pay Your tax for bureaucrats with no regret;
But I'll object to paying tax for interest on debt.
0:54:30

Question #5: Athletic programs

Turmel: You have to understand that all of these parties
when they're in government, they're going to go to a bank,
they're going to borrow the principal, they're going to
spend it to set up their programs, and then they're going to
tax it back with interest. Mort-gage comes from the French
words "mort" meaning "death" and "gage" meaning "gamble." So
when 10 guys borrow 10, and 10 guys promise to pay back 11,
the death-gamble is just like musical chairs. At the end of
the game, 9 guys pay their debt off, the 10th guy goes
broke, and the bankers take his collateral. Then they say to
the winners: gee, how much money have you got? the original
100, now there's only 9 watches backing it up, your money
has inflated.

Question #6: Cutbacks to something

Turmel: Well they have to cut back because they owe the
banks the first slice of money in interest. They borrowed a
hundred, pumped it in, and tax out a hundred and ten. Or
try. So basically, government's function is so spread around
the shortage. And if you're complaining about your group
being short, he was complaining about his group being short,
you cannot believe how many people come up and say: our
group doesn't have enough money, what are you going to do
for us? 16 different questions in one meeting were: we don't
have enough money for our group, what are you going to do
for us? And these guys are all going to say: we're in favor
of better, we're against worse. And that seems to be enough.


Question #7: Question to another candidate

Turmel: Well, you know, every debate where my opponents
stood up for my right to participate, when Big Brother
wanted to hold a debate, I'm going to ask my question to
Gloria. At the debate two weeks ago, none of the candidates
stood up for my right to participate. I asked them to stand
up to Big Brother and get me on the show. Don't accept an
unfair advantage over me. Don't let them cheat me. They
didn't stand up for me. So, Gloria, next election, if Rogers
is going to cheat the little guys again, are you going to
accept that unfair advantage again?

Gloria Kovach criticized my behavior as not worthy of
participation. She said I came over the table at her, not
true but one advantage of the Rogers cameras not following
the action, when all I'd done was take her glass of water
and drink from it! Tories exaggerating to the point of
hysterics.

Turmel: I took a sip of water and she got scared...
Pretended to be scared... Took a dive. She wasn't scared
really.

JCT: She reminds me of a pit bull, minus the charm.

Closing Statement:

Turmel: Did you notice she didn't answer the question. Yes,
she's going to accept the unfair advantage the next time
when they exclude the little guys. That's why she couldn't
answer because she's going to let them cheat the little
guys. She accepts that. Sportsmanship. Unsportsmanlike
conduct, they don't understand that. I don't understand why
politicians are so much more crooked.
Anyway, you can do your homework, you can find out. Because
in 25 years, 90% of of you are going to be broke. 90% of you
kids are going to live in debt all your lives, living
paycheck to paycheck, no matter how good your job. 90% of
you are going to live poor. Of the other 10% who are going
to make it, 90% of them are the rich kids right now, with
rich parents. One in a hundred poor kids is going to make
it. So where you're in that 90% of people in misery and
distress, I'll want you to think back to the day you had the
opportunity to vote for The Engineer who is going to give
you interest-free credit cards.

JCT: So that's the end of the electioneering in my 67th
election campaign. I've always said that I hold two
records, most elections contested and most elections lost,
in case I ever win won. Well now I don't have to win one to
not lose one.

If Harper calls the general election before the byelection
and it gets cancelled, I'll have been nominated 67 times
but I won't have lost 67 times! Only 66 times.

Here's the Guelph Mercury report on the meeting:
http://news.guelphmercury.com/article/377297

Tories under fire at debate
Thana Dharmarajah, Mercury Staff

GUELPH

Conservative candidate Gloria Kovach found herself under
attack yesterday when politicians at an all-candidates
debate were allowed to ask questions of each other.

The newly-created portion of Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic
High School's all-candidates debate created a buzz among the
nearly 900 students gathered at the school's auditorium.

All candidates present directed their questions to Kovach.
Missing from the debate was Libertarian candidate Philip
Bender.

The Green party's Mike Nagy was the first one to throw a jab
at Kovach, asking how Prime Minister Stephen Harper can
justify breaking his fixed election date law by calling a
federal election tomorrow.

A loud "Ooooooh" came from the high schoolers, followed by
silence as they waited for Kovach to respond.

Kovach said the Canada Elections Act clearly gives the
Governor General the power to dissolve Parliament.

"We need to move forward," Kovach said, adding she found it
surprising Nagy wasn't encouraging more voter participation.
A general election usually brings out more voters than a
byelection, she said.

New Democratic Party candidate Tom King acknowledged it was
"pick on Gloria" day by criticizing Harper's "Turning the
Corner" environmental plan, calling it more of an oil and
gas program.

Kovach defended the plan, noting it targets large emitters
by asking them to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

The government is also committed to investment in public
transit and renewable fuels, she said.

Liberal party candidate Frank Valeriote pushed Kovach to
respond on why Harper tore down the goals set by the Liberal
"Project Green" plan to implement the Kyoto Protocol.

"We didn't talk about it or name our dog after it, we
actually got it done," Kovach fired back.

She used her question to ask King how the NDP believes it
would be more effective in opposition than the Liberals.

There isn't currently an official opposition, since the
Liberals haven't taken a strong stance against the
Conservatives on pieces of legislation, he said.

King added he expects the NDP to be in power and not sit as
opposition.

"You will see us voting with our principles and not hiding
in the parliamentary lounge when votes are taken," he said.

Just before the candidates questioned each other, several
high school students asked questions about issues that
matter to them.

Some of the students wanted to know how the candidates would
address poverty, environmental issues and whether they
support the decriminalization of marijuana.

Marijuana party candidate Kornelis Klevering was in his
element with the marijuana question.

The other candidates endorsed the decriminalization of
marijuana, apart from Kovach, who said the Conservatives
support only the medicinal use of marijuana.

Candidates were also polled on their take on the current
relationship with the United States and who they would vote
for in the American election.

Nagy, King and Valeriote supported Democratic Party nominee
Barack Obama, while Kovach said she'd leave it up to the
democratic process adding she'd like to see more female
leaders.

Klevering pointed out he'd support the spotlight-neglected
Independent candidate Ralph Nader.

tdharmarajah@...