John Turmel, born on February 22, 1951, in Rouyn, Quebec, Canada, and resident of Brantford, Ontario is running as an independent candidate in the 2024 Bay of Quinte byelection.
Turmel is a perennial election candidate, holding the Guinness World Record for most elections contested and lost. He has run in 112 municipal, provincial and federal elections as of this byelection.
Turmel is often seen wearing his white hard hat reading “TURMEL THE ENGINEER” and goes by John “The Engineer” Turmel on the ballot. He has also styled himself as the “smartest man on earth”, “Great Canadian Gambler” “TajProfessor”, “Anti-poverty engineer”, “Bank-fighter Extraordinaire”, “Robin Hood”, “Atlas Shrugged Not”, “Spartacus at Babylon Turmel”.
He says he’s duty-bound as an engineer to keep working at his life’s project: fixing Canada’s banking system by outlawing interest
Education
I’m John “The Engineer” Turmel, “Smartest Man on Earth”, and how dare I say that.
Well, I have a Grade 17 in science, and 5 years as a teaching assistant of Canada’s only Mathematics of Gambling course – remember Star Trek, Mr. Spock, science and odds, I have the same degree. So, that’s why I can claim I’m a lot sharper than most people you know.
John Turmel on YouTube
In 1974, as an electrical engineering undergraduate student at Carleton University, I was star student and received an A+ in the
first and only course of its kind in Canada, Math 69:140: the Mathematics of Gambling, given by Mathematics Professor Walter
Schneider, Ph.d.In 1976, I received my degree in electrical engineering upon completion of a fourth year engineering project titled “An APL Computer
John Turmel
Analysis of Canadian Stud” which was presented to the Third Conference on Gambling at Ceasar’s Palace in Las Vegas.
Community involvement
Turmel has a long, well-documented history of exploits including activism, unsuccessful court cases, protesting, speaking before parliamentary committees, being arrested, and fighting against banks and interest.
Founded the Christian Credit Party of Canada (1982)
Attempted to take over the Ottawa branch of the Green Party of Canada (1984)
Founded the Abolitionist Party of Canada – 1993-1996
Platform of monetary reform, including the abolition of interest rates and the income tax; the use of the local employment trading system of banking; and introducing a form of Social Credit with monthly dividends being paid out to each Canadian.
Founded the Pauper Party of Ontario – 2011-2021 (website)
Platform was to legalize gambling, legalize marijuana and institute monetary reform and bartering in the form of the Local Exchange Trading System.
we want no cops in gambling, sex or drugs or rock and roll, we want no usury on loans, pay cash or time, no dole
Pauper Party slogan
Activities archived on Turmel’s website Election Q&A from Region of Waterloo
Career & business interests
Turmel is a “retired professional gambler” who has styled himself as John The “Great Canadian Gambler” and “TajProfessor” Turmel.
From 1975 to 1978, I became a professional gambler while Dr. Schneider’s Teaching Assistant in the Mathematics of Gambling course.
During those years, I went on over 50 4-day junkets to Las Vegas casinos with my team of 4-man team of Blackjack counters where I
was eventually barred from the Sands and the Hilton Casinos as a too-successful Blackjack card-counter. I was invited to join the celebrated Ken Uston card-counting team but preferred to gamble solo.I played poker professionally in the United States for 5 years in the 1990s and am remembered as the Professor at the Taj Mahal in Atlantic City for beating “the Donald” out of millions in rake-off with a petition demanding the poker room switch back to the $100 an hour session fees from the new $160 per hour rake-off thus saving every long runner in the room over $10,000 per year.
Gambling and operating illegal gaming houses
He has been involved in multiple legal issues primarily related to operating illegal gaming house, leading to several arrests and convictions:
- 1989 – Acquitted of operating an illegal gaming house
- 1991 – Convicted of operating an illegal gaming house in Hull and sentenced to 4 months in jail
- 1993 – Convicted of operating an illegal gaming house
- 1996 – Convicted of operating a common gaming house, receiving a suspended sentence and a three year term of probation
- 2002 – Found guilty of contempt of court by not respecting a publication ban
- 2003 – Convicted possession of marihuana for the purposes of trafficking
One of the casinos, owned by professional gambler John Turmel, has grossed $2 million in revenue since it opened in November. The law: Police have not laid charges at either Ottawa casino. Under the Criminal Code, it is illegal to operate a gaming or betting house, but the local owners structure their games carefully, to avoid breaking the law. Update The issue: Ontario will open its first casino in Windsor this year.
Turmel has run basement and storefront casinos for years, but never this big. He has 100 employees, up from 20, and he says he has a client list of more than 3,000 people. Many are hard-core regulars, but Turmel says he is also getting 50 to 100 newcomers every week as the heightened interest in casinos brings out the curious. Buses come from Montreal three nights a week. The Club Dynasty casino nearby on Belfast Road which opened in March hasnt been quite as successful, though it’s still drawing up to 40 people a night to its six blackjack and three poker tables.
Turmel, 42, who has been in court numerous times in the past 20 years battling gambling-related charges, says one of his regulars won $75,000 at blackjack two weeks ago. On other nights, this person has lost $20,000 or more. Thanks to a few high rollers and many novices, Turmel estimates he’s grossed $2 million before paying rent, salaries and taxes since opening nearly eight months ago. Turmel is getting so big he doesn’t have time to visit his club. He’s on the road, planning new casinos in Brockville, Niagara Falls and Toronto.
But house rules dictate only Turmel or one of his trained assistants can play this volunteer. Few visitors bother because Turmel and his colleagues are card-counting blackjack experts. According to the Criminal Code, the Ottawa casinos could be shut if they charge admission, charge for food or drinks or take a cut of the poker pots. They say they do none of these.
Yet an Ontario judge ruled in 1989 that Turmel’s casino in the Bayshore Hotel was legal because players had the opportunity to be the bank, just as they can at the existing casino. Toronto police threatened to close down a Turmel casino in Toronto in February, but Turmel chose to close voluntarily. And recently, Toronto police charged one of his competitors with operating a common gaming house. Still, Turmel has a package of letters from lawyers arguing his casinos are legal. “And nothing has changed to make it illegal,” Turmel says.
The Ottawa Citizen (1993)
Turmel has authored several books, including:
- The Adventures of John “The Engineer” Turmel featuring Turmel’s Poker Power Tools (1996)
- Play Holdem Power Like a Bookie (Jul 22, 2010)
- Beat the Computer Dealing Holdem
- Covid Mortality Hyped Hundredfold: Covid 3.4% CFR Apple compared to Flu 0.1% IFR Orange (August 22, 2021)
- WHO WAS SHISHAK THE GREAT, PLUNDERER OF SOLOMON’S TEMPLE? : If King Labaya in Amarna Letters is King Saul
2022 – Federal Court of Canada declares John Turmel a “vexatious litigant”, bans him from starting new cases
Turmel has instituted at least 67 court proceedings since 1980. This includes 20 claims and applications in this Court, 13 appeals to the Federal Court of Appeal [FCA], 18 applications and appeals in the Ontario courts, and 17 applications for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada [SCC]. The proceedings have concerned a wide range of legal issues, and have been almost entirely unsuccessful.
Canada (Attorney General) v. Turmel
Mr. Turmel has instituted numerous meritless and repetitive proceedings before this Court, the Federal Court of Appeal, the Ontario Courts, and the Supreme Court of Canada. He has brought proceedings for improper purposes, frequently sought to re-litigate matters decided previously, made scandalous allegations against members of the courts and other parties, refused to follow the Federal Courts Rules, SOR/98-106 [Rules], and failed to pay costs orders.
Despite having no qualifications or apparent ability to practise law, Mr. Turmel has developed litigation
Canada (Attorney General) v. Turmel“kits”comprising templates for court documents, and has recruited others to“flood the courts”with these documents.
Election history
Election results of John Turmel – Wikipedia
Turmel first ran in 1979 as an independent in Ottawa West after police busted the underground blackjack games he was running. His primary aim was to legalize gambling as the “champion of hookers gamblers and dope smokers”, receiving 193 votes.
The most votes he’s received was 4,563 in the 1994 Municipal/Regional Chair for the Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton. The least was 11 in the 2016 Provincial By-election in Whitby-Oshawa.
On getting the 100 signatures required to be a federal election candidate:
but I can do that anywhere at 20 an hour in a brand new town
I kept getting busted
So I ran for parliament in 1979 to legalise gambling and stop busting me.
I was called the champion of the gamblers, hookers and dope smokers.
The Guardian
He made a name for himself by showing up at debates where he hadn’t been invited, claiming a spot on stage and the police getting called.
If it’s open to the public, I go grab a chair and make them call a cop
I take a stand and I make them remove me, and that’s my standard practice. And a couple of times the audience shouted at the moderators and said, ‘let him stay,’ and they did. Wow.
John Turmel to CBC News
Inflation rates were around 9% at the time, and after being asked questions about it during the election campaign, and he says he “figured out that interest is what causes the trouble”, and added banning the interest rate to his platform.
I realised that I’m going to have to take advantage of every opportunity to explain how we could save ourselves from poverty, which is created by not enough money. We’ve got lots of wealth, lots of food, lots of clothes, we’ve just got not enough money to buy it.
John Turmel to The Guardian
2009 St. Paul’s by-election
upset at not being allowed to answer questions being directed to the four major party candidates.
He was asked several times to be quiet or leave, but refused, continuing to walk around the church hall where the debate was being held. An hour into the debate, a recess was called and a group of audience members confronted Mr. Turmel.
“You want to cheat me quietly, I won’t be quiet,” Mr. Turmel cried as he was surrounded. “Call the police. Assault! You can’t touch me, you can’t touch me.”
The police were called, according to the event’s moderator, but did not arrive for 45 minutes. They decided not to intervene at that point.
Police called to candidates’ debate – The Globe and Mail
2024 Bay of Quinte byelection
Issues & views
Turmel has described himself as a “Libertarian Socred“, or Social Credit.
- Banning interest on credit
- Legalize all forms of sex, drugs, gambling and prostitution
- Cannabis legalization (see his website)
- Protested against COVID-19 restrictions and lockdowns, authored the book Covid Mortality Hyped Hundredfold (archives on his website)
- Owes $18,453.04 in unpaid court costs “It’s okay to skip out on costs …. I’d forgotten about all the times I stiffed them on costs.”
- Called climate change a hoax “What kind of idiot can believe it’s warmer than 800 years ago when Greenland was green?”
- Against the steps Canada has taken to assist Ukraine during the Russian invasion
- In 2016, he described the US election as the knight in shining armor versus the Wicked Witch of the West, Trump is the peace candidate
- Fluoridated water causes lower IQ
- Drinking urine can heal your body
Elections are not there to be won or lost, but rather a low-cost means of disseminating ideas.
It’s my engineer’s duty to keep offering to fix what only I am specifically-trained to do.
John Turmel on Facebook
It’s my duty as an engineer.
When they gave me my iron ring, I had to promise I would fix things
John Turmel to Halton Hills Today
Eliminating interest on debt, replaced with interest-free barter arrangements and time-based currency
Turmel is an advocate for getting rid of interest in the financial system, referring to it as usury (the illegal practice of lending money at unreasonably high rates of interest).
He’d also implement what he calls his “time-based currency” system, which he says is based on an “equation” developed by Jesus to eliminate usury.
CTV News
In 1981, Mr. Turmel filed an unsuccessful application in this Court for an order that the Bank of Canada cease and desist the
Canada (Attorney General) v. Turmel“genocidal practice of interest”(T-896-81). Both the FCA (A-136-81) and the SCC (17314) dismissed Mr. Turmel’s attempts to appeal.
Using small denomination government bonds as currency
Let’s say someone walks in your store with a $25 Ontario Hydro gift certificate and he’s got nothing else. Would you sell something to him? Probably, because you’ve got to pay for power. Same with Ontario taxes, medical (expenses) and licences. If you could use this piece of paper to pay four major expenses and everybody else could too, well then it becomes good money.
Turmel’s Big Lie of Economics has significant gaps in logic and oversimplifies the complex relationship between interest rates, inflation, and economic dynamics. By focusing on a narrow interpretation of how money, debt, and interest work, the speaker disregards critical economic principles and evidence that contradict his thesis. As a result, his conclusions lack a strong foundation in established economic theory and empirical data.
Local Employment Trading System (LETS) Time Bank
Turmel is deeply fascinated with, and tirelessly promotes the concept of Time Banks, interest-free barter arrangements known as Local Exchange Trading System (LETS), which would let participants use their time and labour as equity, to trade for what they need through a system of barter, allowing for the abolition of interest rates. He refers to it as as “a gentle kind of capitalism“.
This system of was part of Green Party of Canada policy in 1988:
Green Economics
Promoting the development of community exchange system such as LETS (Local Exchange Trading System) and barter
Green Party of Canada – Policy adopted at the 2nd convention (1988)
And was the target of a potential feasibility study for Green Party of Canada policy in 1997:
A study of the feasibility of developing local alternative currencies would be encouraged.
Election 1997 Campaign Highlights – Green Party of Canada (1997)
Protested against COVID-19 restrictions and lockdowns
In January 2021, Mr. Turmel filed a claim in this Court alleging that Canada’s COVID-19 public health measures infringed the Charter (T-130-21). He asserted that COVID-19 was an
Canada (Attorney General) v. Turmel“imaginary plague”, and the resulting deaths were greatly exaggerated by an“evil cabal”that includes the World Health Organization. On July 21, 2021, Prothonotary Mandy Aylen (as she then was) struck Mr. Turmel’s claim without leave to amend. Subsequent appeals of this decision were dismissed by both this Court and the FCA (A-286-21).
Legalizing cannabis
Turmel was arrested in 2003 when he took three kilograms of marijuana to Parliament Hill and sentenced to three months probation, fined $1,000 and ordered to perform 100 hours of community service.
Appearing before the NYTimes Drug Policy Forum in 2001
I’ll start by posting my marijuana poem
ODE TO LAUGHING GRASS
Throughout all history, hemp’s been a plant of great repute,
Four months to grow a mini-tree of twenty foot from shoot,More oxygen converted from dioxide-carbon smogs,Four times more wood than forestry can chop trees into logs.A hardy plant, insecticides and fertilizers, not,It grows so tall the shade kills weeds for fertile garden plot.With petro-fuels with sulfur being burned into the air,A fuel of bio-mass would help environmental care.
REFRAIN:Hemp protects human environment,Hemp provents human defilement,Hemp promotes human achievement,God’s gift for certain life.
Hemp fuel, hemp paints, hemp varnishes, hemp fibers, cloth and rope,Hemp fertilizer, oil and plastics, medicines of hope.It’s source of protein primary for man and beast alike,The best plant used for finger in environmental dike.
While alcohol debases, vibes of negative grow strong,God’s laughing grass makes calm and jolly, wishing no one wrong.There’s never been recorded death from using hemp, they say,It’s sedative that fits receptors in our DNA.
REFRAINThe industry of dirty petro-chemicals may fear,It’s nature’s agri-chemicals we’ll substitute, it’s clear.For crops of untold uses which can soon be realized,Our greatest source of bio-mass must first be legalized.The chance that we may yet evade environmental doom,With planet’s fastest-growing vegetable, no need for gloom.The Abolitionists charge that “On lies are based these laws.”Abolishing hemp prohibition is our second cause.
John Turmel reciting poem to NYTimes Drug Policy Forum, November 2, 2001 (Video of John reciting a version of the poem)
REFRAIN
Equal speaking time for political candidates
Mr. Turmel has instituted 12 proceedings against the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission and several broadcasters concerning their allocation of free political broadcast time or his exclusion from broadcasted debates. Of these proceedings, 11 were dismissed (T-5329-80, T-2883-83, T-2884-83, T-1516-84, 300/84, T-798-85, T-799-85, T-1716-87, T-1717-87, A-451-07 and 09-A-19) and one was stayed for non-payment of court costs (1827/90). Mr. Turmel’s appeals to the FCA were dismissed or abandoned (A-912-80, A-13-84, A-955-84), and his applications for leave to appeal to the SCC were dismissed (19099 and 33319).
Canada (Attorney General) v. Turmel
Dragon’s Den appearance
On January 13, 2010, Turmel appeared on the CBC television show Dragons’ Den pitching his Local exchange trading system scheme, asking the panel of entrepreneurs to invest $100,000 in return for 10% of the company for a program which would use poker chips from a local casino as currency at local businesses in Brantford, Ontario.
The “dragons” said they didn’t understand Turmel’s presentation and mocked him. Kevin O’Leary told Turmel he should “burst into flames” and fellow dragon Jim Treliving told Turmel he was “blowing air up a dead horse’s ass”.
Turmel initiated a lawsuit against the CBC as a result of the program:
In 2010, Mr. Turmel brought two libel actions against the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice [OSCJ] (CV-10-48 and CV-699-2010) arising from his appearance on the television program Dragon’s Den. The actions, appeals to the ONCA (CFN 52849 and C53732), and an application for leave to appeal to the SCC (34882) were all dismissed.
In 2011, he filed a libel lawsuit against 2 cast members of the TV show “Dragon’s Den”.
His complaint was rejected by the Ontario Court of Appeal in July 2011. On December 8, 2011, the Supreme Court of Canada denied Turmel’s subsequent request for leave to appeal. He continues to maintain that the show was a “smear job“.
Personal life
Turmel is a prolific doer and archiver: gambler, illegal casino operator, political candidate, poet, musician (accordion), and YouTuber with over 450 videos, who closely tracks and records in detail on his website where he is mentioned online, in newspaper clippings and court cases.
He has been described as long-winded, eccentric, boisterous, compulsive, Dr. Gonzo of fringe politics, true gambler, petulant narcissist, unscientific, somewhat radical and a “vexatious litigant“.
Contact
Sources
- Man with Guinness record for ‘most elections contested’ seeks office in Milton – Halton Hills Today (2024)
- ‘Vexatious litigant’ John ‘The Engineer’ chugs along after failing to win world record 106 elections – CBC (2023)
- Meet the candidate: Independent John Turmel has run (and lost) in nearly 100 byelections – Bradford Today (2019)
- Meet John Turmel, Canada’s most-defeated election candidate – CTV News (2018)
- Turmel: The perennial candidate – The perennial candidate (1997)