The World According to Garth

From a recent interview with Garth Turner (read it in full). Here’s an excerpt:

Describe a typical caucus meeting when you were in government.
National caucus is not a place for debate. In fact, in my time during the national caucus I never saw a free-wheeling debate on policy. During the Israeli–Lebanon conflict we did not have a policy debate. An attempt was made to have one during the summer at a caucus meeting, but it was shut down.

You would think that caucus would be the one place where backbench MPs could speak freely behind closed doors.
That is the traditional definition of a caucus, and traditionally it should be open for debate, but the caucus that Mr. Harper runs is from the top down; it’s not from the bottom up. And it is for caucus to be instructed, not for the party administration to be told.

Have you ever seen a caucus treated like this before?
No, this is new to me. I’ve never seen a caucus this controlled or with such little debate or consultation.