TURMEL: Hamilton CBC interview with Saira Peesker

JCT: Last week, Hamilton CBC Saira Peesker called for an
interview. The taped audio version is at
http://SmartestMan.Ca/cbc230510.m4a

Hamilton
'Vexatious litigant' John 'The Engineer' chugs along after
failing to win world record 106 elections

JCT: Number 107 is coming up in the federal byelection in
Oxford.

John Turmel, 72, holds the Guinness World Record for most
elections contested.

Saira Peesker 7 CBC News 7
Posted: May 17, 2023 7:54 AM EDT

SP: A person sits between a bunch of filing cabinets in an
office with clippings all over the wall.
John 'The Engineer' Turmel holds the Guinness World Record
for most attempts at office, with 106. He's never won.
(Anand Ram/CBC)

Not much changed for perennial election candidate John
Turmel after a recent recount in Brantford's mayoral
election. He ended up with 343 votes, and didn't win by a
long shot. But by now, he's used to it.

Turmel, 72, holds the Guinness World Record for most
elections contested - he earned it at 90 elections in 2016.

JCT: Actually, I was first in the 1997 Guinness Book of
Records at 41.

SP: As of the March by-election in Hamilton Centre, where he
earned 37 votes, he now sits at 106 campaigns, none of which
he has won.

The Brantford resident - who goes by John "The Engineer"
Turmel on the ballot, and is often seen in a white hard hat
- has campaigned against interest on credit, COVID-19
lockdowns and cannabis prohibition.

JCT: Yes, those are my 3 biggest problems I'd fix.

SP: He first started running for elections in Ottawa in the
late 1970s, making a name for himself by showing up at
debates where he hadn't been invited and claiming a spot on
stage.

JCT: Why shouldn't the voters get to see all their choices?
Why should media and moderators pre-select who speaks?

SP: "If it's open to the public, I go grab a chair and make
them call a cop," explained Turmel in a rambling Zoom interview in mid-May, during which he
repeatedly compared himself to Mr. Spock from Star Trek.

JCT: I like to mention that like Science Officer Spock who
knew the math to figure out the winningest way to go, my
degree is in systems engineering, applied science, and as
the Teaching Assistant of Canada's only Mathematics of
Gambling course at Carleton in Ottawa for 4 years, I to have
the math to figure out the winningest say to go. With the
same education as Mr. Spock, I took out the site,
SmartestManOnEarth.Ca in 2015, now http:SmartestMan.Ca for
short.

SP: "I take a stand and I make them remove me, and that's my
standard practice.

JCT: It takes a badge and a gun to cheat me.

SP: And a couple of times the audience shouted at the
moderators and said, 'let him stay,' and they did. Wow."

Turmel says he's motivated by the duty he swore to uphold
when he got his iron ring as an engineering graduate: using
his knowledge to try to fix the problems he sees all around.
It's a notion that has also propelled him into the courts,
launching so many legal cases - and helping others do so as
well - that Canada's Federal Court labelled him a "vexatious
litigant" last year, a charge that prevents him from
"instituting or continuing litigation" and "providing
assistance to other litigants."

JCT: It's currently on appeal. I didn't help keep demanding
courts get me equitable election debate time to be vexatious
but because I thought judges saying my getting nothing was
pretty stupid. Court didn't like that. Helping people fight
foreclosures because they never printed the interest,
fighting gambling charges to legalise the industry, fighting
to legalize marijuana, fight Covid lockdowns was not to be
vexatious at all. I'm proud of them all.

SP: Turmel owes thousands in unpaid court costs

SP: In addition to launching legal proceedings on his own behalf
related to several of his pet causes, Turmel has also helped
at least 800 others file proceedings with the court, through
templates he creates and shares online. The court's judgment
against him, issued in November, says he launched at least
67 legal proceedings since 1980: 20 at the Federal Court, 13
appeals to the Federal Court of Appeal, 18 applications and
appeals in the Ontario courts, and 17 applications for leave
to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.

JCT: Over 42 years.

SP: "The proceedings have concerned a wide range of legal
issues, and have been almost entirely unsuccessful," states
the decision by Justice Simon Fothergill. "Common reasons
for dismissal are that the claims failed to disclose
reasonable causes of action, were scandalous, frivolous,
vexatious or abuses of process, or were unsupported by
evidence."

JCT: Judges close their eyes to the facts then say they
don't see..

SP: The decision also notes that Turmel owes thousands of
dollars in unpaid court costs.

JCT: They examined me trying to collect but gave up when the
realize as a professional gambler, I had nothing they could
seize. What are they going to do? Wait for when I cash out
at the cashier cage at the local casino?

SP: "Mr. Turmel has paid just one of the many costs orders
issued against him, in the amount of $100," the court
judgment says. "The remaining accumulated sum of $18,453.04
remains unpaid. An additional 22 cost orders totalling
$16,362.82 awarded against his kit users remain unpaid.

In social media posts, Mr. Turmel has told kit users
that 'It's okay to skip out on costs' and remarked, 'I'd
forgotten about all the times I stiffed them on costs.'"

JCT: Imagine how good it feels to demand justice, not get
it, and they stiff the bad guys their lawyer fees.

SP: "The Crown said, 'Enough with these templates,'" Turmel
told CBC Hamilton, saying he plans to appeal the designation
and is currently waiting for an appeal date. "I'm going to
say, 'How dare you guys call me, who's a million times
sharper than you clowns, a vexatious litigant.

JCT: Lawyers were the sharp kids who were bad in math.

SP: "Well, excuse me, but I'm proud of every one of those moves
I put together I'm proud of them all being righteous, OK?"

Turmel's repeated candidacy has informed Brantford debate
format

Turmel says his election campaigns have a similar goal as
his court cases - to draw attention to his lifelong crusade
to eliminate interest and have the Bank of Canada offer
interest-free credit cards. He says his platform for
election in Brantford also included reprogramming the city
computers to allow barter as a form of currency, and a
proposal to get kids to shovel snow in exchange for bus
tickets.

"[I asked] 100 students, 'Would you work for bus tickets?'
Six bus tickets, that's $12 an hour. Yeah, they all would,
except one guy - an idiot."

JCT: And the Brantford suckers are still shoveling their own
snow when http://SmartestMan.Ca/kotp has my videos asking
and the kids agreeing to work for Bus Bucks.

SP: He says he doesn't canvas, but does show up to debates when
he can, whether that's picketing outside because he wasn't
invited or claiming a seat for himself. In Brantford's
recent election, he says he was happy to be invited to the
televised debate, even though he doesn't love the format.

"You get two minutes to talk about what you want to talk
about and the rest of the time you're answering questions
about what they want to talk about," he said.

A person stands on stage surrounded by empty white chairs
Caption: John Turmel delays a 2013 Toronto-Centre federal
by-election debate by taking to the stage at Jarvis
Collegiate in Toronto. (Steve Russell/Toronto Star/Getty
Images)

Turmel has a tendency to focus on his pet issues instead of
answering moderators' questions, says David Prang, chief
executive officer of the Chamber of Commerce of Brantford-
Brant, which helps mount the city's televised debates.

JCT: Bullshit. I always answer the question and since most
ask me how I would pay to solve them, my money reform
usually serves again and again. I remember one debate where
16 questions dealt with how I'd handle not enough money for
this, that, that, this, etc. I said I'd print up enough
chips each time.

SP: "The perception in the community is he takes up time and
distracts from issues that are of broader community
importance than the issues he's trying to advocate for, like
time-banking, and legalization of cannabis," Prang told CBC.
"We ask questions that, from a chamber perspective, are
business-oriented questions and we don't get back business
oriented results."

JCT: I can't help it if the slows can't keep up.
SP: Prang says Turmel's constant candidacy played a role in
shaping the organization's candidate policy for TV debates,
which no longer allows members of fringe parties to appear.

JCT: So debates are no longer democratic to stop me!

SP: "We want engaged debates that are not just entertaining
but also informative.

JCT: I'm just too entertaining and not informative enough.
Who expectts the less intelligent to follow what the more
intelligent are saying?

You can't have that when you have multiple candidates [that
are focused on single issues]."

JCT: And since they don't have any way to get the money to
fix the problem, they fill their time with useless drivel,
what they'd like to see but never how to do it. Which
explains why people don't watch non-entertaining debates.

Success!!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Saira Peesker is a reporter with CBC Hamilton, with
particular interests in climate, labour and local politics.
She has previously worked with the Hamilton Spectator and
CTV News, and is a regular contributor to the Globe and
Mail, covering business and personal finance. Saira can be
reached at saira.peesker@cbc.ca

JCT: Nothing nasty in her report and she did have to quote
the slows.

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