This past week Canadian Member of Parliament Garth Turner was ejected from the Conservative Party Caucus. His expulsion was linked to his blogging. It was suggested that the Prime Minister and his fellow Conservatives were fed up with Turner’s penchant for stating his views on his blog, views which did not always adhere to the Conservative line on key issues.

Some have suggested that this illustrates that blogging is incompatible with government (differentiated from politics.)

I disagree.

I think that the Turner expulsion illustrates that, regardless of medium, people will adhere to rules of membership that they agree with, and that organizations are entitled to withdraw membership from those who fail to live by their group’s rules. In other words, this affair is about the specific approach to control of information adopted by the current Conservative government and the refusal of one independent minded MP to play by those rules.

This same story played out a few years back when the more aggressive supporters of then-Finance Minister Paul Martin would regularly BlackBerry messages to sympathetic reporters with details of secret caucus discussions from inside the room while those very discussions were underway.

In an earlier era (and still today), this story played out in leaks by “unidentified sources” who provided insider information with a large dollop of spin to carefully selected reporters in the hope that the exclusive coverage would tilt strongly to the leaker’s perspective.

What’s different here is that Garth Turner has used his blog to speak openly and forthrightly about his views. He has not used the anonymity of the unidentified leaker to state his positions.

For its part, the Conservative Caucus has responded with the ultimate sanction – banishment. That’s their right. But, unfortunately for them, they’ve tried to spin their move in the traditional command and control way. While Garth Turner appeared on national television facing the cameras straight on with a backdrop of the Canadian flag as he explained his belief that MPs should speak their views clearly and without fear, the most memorable picture of the Conservative Caucus was of a series of hunched backs fleeing the camera and refusing to talk about what had just occurred. From a communications perspective, it was a blow out. Turner wins. (The politicial story, of course, has yet to play out. Turner may ultimately pay a much greater price, perhaps even losing the next election. But that’s for another day…)

Blogging is here to stay. We should recognize that other incidents like this will occur and that the parties will be judged as much by how they react as the blogger will be for what he or she posted. And my money is always on the person who seizes the high ground of honesty, sincerity and transparency.

What do you think?