Redefining Populism and The Canada West Foundation

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

"We have Rightwing protectionist Conservatives, championing free enterprise -with no interest in social reform. We have Leftwing socialism trying to build reform. There is a large intelligent mass at the centre that is demanding a more enlightened approach - Fiscal responsibility + social reform. Free to own, free to achieve, free to grow and to change but who want their government to take responsibility for stimulating growth ... Only thru liberalism can we have both a free society and a quality of life." Stan Roberts Founding Reform Party Member

The Canada West Foundation was founded in 1971 and was funded by individual memberships, corporate donations, as well as provincial and territorial grants. It's aim was to conduct research into the economic and social characteristics of the West and the North, and to make proposals regarding it's development.

It was not partisan and it's founding members included Duff Roblin, former Tory premier of Manitoba, and Liberal MP James Richardson. Other prominent people who filled their ranks, were the media king Izzy Asper, political columnist Gordon Gibson, former governor general of Canada, Edward Schreyer; and Jim Gray, vice-president of Canadian Hunter Exploration. The chairman was president of Burns Meats, Arthur Child. Child was a millionaire and, according to writer Peter Newman, a member of Calgary's 'nouveaux riches'.

But the most prominent member of the CEF was its president, Stan Roberts. a former Liberal MLA. In 1970 he wrote a note to himself, possibly intending it to be part of a speech, but this was how he felt about the federal political climate.

If NDP had been elected two years ago - inflation. If PCs had been elected two years ago - 2 countries. (1)

Roberts could probably best be described as a Social-Democrat. He was a fair and intelligent man, who would later help to create the Reform Party. In fact, he challenged Preston Manning for leadership of the Party, fearing that Manning was bringing in too many from the Right-Wing fringe, and he had the backing of the man who provided the seed money, Francis Winspear. He was right of course, but through crafty maneuvering, Manning won the day.

I think it would have been a much different party had Roberts headed it up, but he died soon after, so I guess we'll never know.

Roberts was part of the Task Force on National Unity headed by former Liberal cabinet minister Jean-Luc Pepin and former Ontario premier John Robarts, to address the Quebec Question after the election of René Lévesque .

By 1978, he had become convinced that western Canada had to become more involved in the constitutional process. In his own words: 'What has happened in Quebec may have precipitated the crisis, but it's not an Ontario-Quebec debate. It's a Canadian debate and we in the west have a part in it.' (1)

Canada West Foundation and the Quebec Question

In 1976, the CWF commissioned a report by M & M Systems Research Ltd. of Edmonton examining how a new balance of national and regional interests and aspirations could be achieved within Canada, 'while maintaining the unity and integrity of Canadian Confederation.""

And of course, M & M was owned and managed by Ernest and Preston Manning. It would later be renamed Manning Consultants Limited, in 1969, a year after the elder Manning's resignation as Alberta premier. The Mannings had never been too far from the political arena and had forged strong ties with big business.

Through their work with NPARF and the National Citizens' Coalition, they envisioned a New Canada, one run by the corporate sector. In 1970 they had drafted a paper that became a blue-print for neoconservatism in Canada.

In 1970, M & M produced its first paper, entitled Requests for Proposals and Social Contracts. Based on the system of contracting used by such American agencies as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and written in the now familiar language of systems theory, the paper advocated the provision of social programs by private industry and commerce." ... neo-conservative solutions to the increasing fiscal problems of the liberal welfare state. (1)

It all looked good on paper.

The Mannings' paper was used as the basis for discussions held at public meetings throughout western Canada, the Yukon, and the Northwest Territories during September and October 1977. Then, in December 1977, the foundation commissioned three reputable political scientists - David Elton and Peter McCormick, of the University of Lethbridge, and Fred Engelmann, of the University of Alberta - to study federal systems of government existing elsewhere in the world.

Their study, entitled Alternatives: Towards the Development of an Effective Federal System for Canada, came out in February 1978, and made several specific proposals, notably that the Senate be replaced by a House of Provinces consisting of delegates from the provincial governments. The intent of this proposal was to bring the regions into the federal decision-making process, while not fundamentally weakening or decentralizing federal authority. The study also made clear where the authors stood on the Parti Quebecois's proposal of sovereignty-association: 'There is no question but that French Canadians have legitimate grievances ... [However, the] fuzziness of political independence and economic association would generate feelings of exploitation of both sides of the new divide ... Quebec would [succeed] in creating in political reality that which until now has seldom existed outside her nightmares – a politically unified English Canada facing an isolated Quebec.

This study subsequently became a discussion paper at the CWF's Alternatives Conference held in Banff, Alberta, on 27-9 March 1978. Among the many funders of that conference was the Winspear Foundation, named after Francis Winspear, the disenchanted former Liberal. The conference attracted 300 delegates from across the country, including 50 from Quebec, and several high-profile speakers, including Flora MacDonald, the federal Tory critic for federal-provincial relations, Alberta premier Peter Lougheed, and Saskatchewan premier Allan Blakeney. In the end, Elton, Engelmann, and McCormick's proposals were generally endorsed by the delegates. Stan Roberts noted: 'with a clear consensus the delegates supported the concept of a strong central government . (1)

And it received a lot of praise from all quarters. But it never got off the ground. It came at a time of much political turmoil. Joe Clark won the election in 1979, only to lose another several months later. Quebec was holding a referendum and the battle lines appeared to have been drawn.

The CWF took on a more combative role, with their director Arthur Child, and the west was about to rise up again.

And within a decade Preston Manning found the time was right to start a new party, founded on Western grievances. But any organization or political party founded on anger is eventually going to be consumed by it. And when the Reform Party made their way to Ottawa, they came ready for a fight.

And under their new name, the Conservative Party of Canada, and new leader Stephen Harper, they are just as combative, and unwilling to compromise.

What Allan Gregg calls Negative Statesmanship.

Now, with the publication of Harperland: The Politics of Control, Globe and Mail columnist Lawrence Martin has entered this fray and one-upped past observers by claiming that Stephen Harper’s Conservative government has taken “the politics of control” to an entirely new level—and in this case, the intent is most emphatically personal. For Martin, this tendency is no mere response to a more fractured and frenzied media, but a studied, long-term strategy designed “to break the [Liberal] brand.” The result has become “a Soviet-style monitoring maze” and “a vetting operation unlike any ever seen in the capital” that demands all aspects of government pay unwavering obedience to the Prime Minister’s Office.

And Stan Roberts' notion that "only thru liberalism can we have both a free society and a quality of life", his vision of a new party that might be termed "capitalism with a human face" (1), has been lost in the ideology of 'only thru corporatism can we lose the notion of a free society and destroy our quality of life'.

Capitalism with the face of a monster.

Sources:

1. Of Passionate Intensity: Right-Wing Populism and the Reform Party of Canada. By Trevor Harrison Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995. ISBN: 0-8020-7204-6, pg. 65-69

2. Negative Statesmanship: Stephen Harper may end up being known for what he does not do more than for what he does, By Allan Gregg, Literary Review

A Just Society: Oil, Americans and Mythology

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

"In the course of the conflict between the Reagan administration and Ottawa, we Albertans are expected as loyal Canadians to cheer for the victory of Mr. Trudeau and his thug government. Some of us will find this very hard. We will wave the flag, of course. But deep in our hearts we will be hoping that the Americans whip the hell out of him." - Ted Byfield, founding Reform Party member (1)

Carl Olof Nickle (1914 - 1990) was an editor, publisher, oil baron, soldier and federal politician, representing a Calgary riding. He would retire from politics in 1957 and focus instead on the Alberta oil and gas industry.

As early as 1956 he had been discussing that industry and the Middle East. During one lecture he said:

I would like to comment on the outlook for expansion of markets for our Western Canadian crude oil a matter of particular importance to all Calgarians because of the effect it has had, and will have in the future on our growth as "Canada's Oil Capital". The recent and continuing crisis in the Middle East, where about two thirds of the world's presently proved oil reserves are located, has further emphasized the importance to Canada, this continent and to the Free World of the proved reserves plus the far vaster undiscovered reserves of the Western Hemisphere, including those of our Western Canada.

The longer term outlook is a confused one, in which the one fact most apparent is that the Middle East cannot be banked on as a secure supply of oil for Free World needs. The military might of Russia poses a constant threat. Even if there is no attempt by Russia to seize the Middle East by force which would almost certainly involve the Western World in a war for survival of its oilfed economy we face the prospect of interruptions to oil supply caused by the combination of Soviet propaganda and Arab nationalism. (2)

He speaks of the possible involvement of the Western World in a "war for survival of its oilfed economy". He also speaks of the threat of a "combination of Soviet propaganda and Arab nationalism."

This is not unlike the lecture given by American General Thomas Metz when he spoke to a group of senior Canadian military officers, soldiers, defence analysts and lobbyists in Toronto in 2006.

He ... shows a chart depicting the military challenges America faces, measured in terms of level of danger and level of likelihood. At the very apex—the most dangerous and the most likely—sits just one: radical Islamic terrorism. "Radical Islam wants to reestablish the Caliphate," says Metz. "Just as Hitler wrote Mein Kampf, you can read what they want to do." (3)

A Caliphate is a union of the Muslim world. It was the first political philosophy that adopted the notion of using their natural resources to look after their people. It wasn't communism, or socialism, it was just a belief in something bigger than they were. God or Allah, and they believed that this is what he wanted them to do. But nationalizing their natural resources (oil) runs contra to the West's goals of exploitation. Metz continues:

In his southern drawl, the general notes how much oil the U.S. consumes—roughly 25 per cent of the world's consumption, even though Americans make up only 5 per cent of the world's population—and how central this is to the country's high standard of living ... The connection between America's voracious oil consumption and the dangers of radical Islamic terrorism are never explicitly stated by Lt.-Gen. Metz; he simply notes that the Islamic world has a lot of oil and what happens there has an impact on energy markets. But an important element has clearly been added to the picture: the U.S. needs what lies under the ground in the Islamic world if Americans are to go on living the bounteous life that lies at the heart of the American dream—a life that has them devouring the lion's share of the world's energy. (3)

Not unlike 50 years ago when Carl Nickles raised the possibility of "the Western World in a war for survival of its oilfed economy."

So when Russia invaded Afghanistan, Reagan, the product of American corporatism, went into action, working with a group of "Terrorists" to secure the oil for American interests. And this is why Albertans, like Ted Byfield, hoped that Americans would whip the hell out of Pierre Trudeau, because he worked to secure our oil for the benefit of Canadians first. A home grown, non-religious caliphate.

I've written before about the National Energy Program that has taken on mystical proportions, through good PR. Even Westerners not born at the time, will raise it as an argument for their feelings of "alienation".

But the NEP did not destroy Alberta, nor was it an attempt to destroy Alberta. It was a battle between the Government of Canada and (mostly American) corporate interests. And it was not about oil so much as it was about taxes and regulations that hampered the Americans from getting richer at our expense.

The Red Flag Budget

When Joe Clark's government fell after only a few months in power, and Pierre Trudeau returned with a majority, the western provinces were concerned with the direction the government would now be going. Clark had attempted to reduce or reverse some of the programs and policies of the previous six years, including the elimination of Petro-Canada's role in national energy matters and, if possible, the privatization of the company. (4)

But he was gone, and Trudeau instead took an interventionist approach, deemed necessary to protect Canadians. As oil prices were rising, Alberta grew richer, and as this meant that equalization payments to the other provinces would increase, he would need extra revenue to ensure that the cheques didn't bounce.

Eventually Trudeau and Premier Peter Lougheed reached a suitable arrangement, and appeared on the front page of newspapers across the country, sipping champagne.

But this did nothing to appease the oil industry which was mostly American. You can see from the following chart that in 1980 only 26.1% of the Petroleum industry was Canadian owned and 18.7% Canadian controlled. And though Ontario had been forced for many years to pay higher than the market rate for their oil, to prop up the industry, the West now rose up in anger that they might have to start paying back.

And the most vocal among them was Carl Nickle:

The most outspoken of these critics was Carl Nickle, a prominent oilfield executive and former Tory MP, who publicly condemned the entire budget outright as discriminatory and repressive. "I believe short term political gain for central Canada will foster more alienation, possible [sic] even lead to splitting the nation apart." (1)

But what they were the most upset about was the new tax structure in finance minister Alan McEachern's budget, that would eliminate many deductions, the corporate sector had enjoyed.

When Allan MacEachen was appointed finance minister in 1980 big business requested that government examine the tax system with a view to making changes. But MacEachen's senior advisers soon focused his attention on how billions of dollars were being lost yearly to scores of dubious corporate tax breaks.
Finance officials put together a tax reform package designed, among other things, to eliminate 165 of the most costly and counter-productive tax expenditure measures and in the process increase revenue by close to $3 billion. When he introduced the legislation it caused a firestorm of protest from the corporate elite.

Neil Brooks, now professor of tax law at Osgoode Hall Law School, was working for the finance department on the tax reform package and has recalled the tactics of the large corporations. "It's almost a classic example of what's called a capital strike. I mean, business simply said to the government that if you go ahead with these measures we will stop investing in Canada." The development industry reacted instantly. "Literally the next day they were closing jobs down and . . . pulling cranes off construction jobs." (5)

This was because of taxes, not the NEP, but if the corporate world was going to create an AstroTurf, "grassroots" movement they couldn't very well say that they were upset that they would have to start paying their fair share. So instead they sold it as being an attack by Ottawa on the West, and with the help of Ted Byfield, an early Reform Party mentor, they shifted public sentiment from one of Canadian nationalism to Western regionalism, and it almost broke up the country, as several separatist movements exploded on the scene.

"In the months and years that followed, Byfield's Alberta Report continued to mythologize the intent and the impact of the NEP" (1) and it would culminate in the creation of a new party, with the help of Stephen Harper: the Reform Party of Canada, now calling itself the Conservative Party of Canada, headed up by the same Stephen Harper. It was Byfield who gave the party their original battle cry: "The West wants in".

And that same Stephen Harper is helping "the Western World in a war for survival of its oilfed economy" (not fighting radical Islam) by committing our soldiers to three more years of war. And he is continuing his program of tax reduction for our wealthiest citizens, meaning that the rest of us will have to absorb the costs of those three more years of war.

Forget 'Western alienation'. This is the alienation of Canadian citizens and we want in dammit.

Sources:

1. Of Passionate Intensity: Right-Wing Populism and the Reform Party of Canada, By Trevor Harrison, University of Toronto Press, 1995. ISBN: 0-8020-7204-6, Pg. 60-65

2. Nickle Forecasts Expanded Role For Canadian Oil Stimulated By Middle East Crisis, Oil Patch History, November 17, 1956

3. Holding the Bully's Coat, Canada and the U.S. Empire, By Linda McQuaig, Doubleday Canada, 2007, ISBN 978-0-385-66012-9, pg. 67-69

4. Towards a Just Society: The Trudeau Years, Edited by Thomas S. Axworthy and Pierre Elliot Trudeau, Viking Press, 1990, ISBN: 0-670-83015-1, Pg. 60

5. The Myth of the Good Corporate Citizen: Canada and Democracy in the Age of Globalization, By Murray Dobbin, James Lorimer & Company, 2003, ISBN: 1-55028-785-0, Pg. 168

Patriot Games and the Committee for an Independent Canada

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

Something strange, nameless, and profound moves in Canada today. It cannot be seen or labeled, but it can be heard and felt - a kind of whisper from
far away, a rustle as of wind in prairie poplars, a distant river's voice, or the shuffle of footsteps in a midnight street. It is less a sound than a sense
of motion.

Something moves as it has never moved before in this land, moves dumbly in the deepest runnels of a collective mind, yet by sure direction toward
a known goal. Sometimes by thought, more often by intuition, the Canadian people are making the final discovery. They are discovering themselves. - Bruce Hutchinson

When Pierre Trudeau called an election in 1972, the country was undergoing a lot of changes. The Baby Boomers were growing up and the voting age had been reduced to 18.

Unemployment was at 6.2%, considered high for the time, and despite generous changes to Unemployment Insurance, the youth were worried.

Also worried were many Canadians seeing a growing American influence, not only in our popular culture, but in the very real U.S. takeover of our natural resources.

One of these was Liberal MP Eric Kierans, who had left Trudeau's' Cabinet in April of 1971, and was an outspoken critic of finance minister John Turner's 1972 budget, believing that the party was moving to the right and was blind "to the sale of Canadian resources to foreigners" (English 2009).

Kierans prefaced a book financed by the NDP called Louder Voices: Corporate Welfare Bums. The phrase "corporate welfare bums" was in response to those who felt that the increase in UI premiums was creating a sub-culture of "welfare bums".

The phrase caught on and NDP leader David Lewis thundered it from the podium, regaling against corporate privilege. And many former Trudeau supporters, joined Lewis, including high profile figures like Walter Gordon with the Toronto Star, Peter C. Newman, Claude Ryan, prominent Alberta Liberal, Jack McClelland and publisher Mel Hurtig.

This group created The Committee for an Independent Canada, and over 170,000 concerned Canadians would join their ranks. As a result Trudeau's Liberal Party was reduced to a minority, with Lewis's NDP holding the balance of power.

But CIC did not only help to influence the election, but they would also steer the Liberal Party to the left, and though Trudeau had at one time been opposed to the nationalization of industry, he allowed the creation of Petro-Canada. His government also began to take on a more nationalistic tone. (1)

The right was enraged, while corporate and business donations for the Liberals decreased substantially.

Harper's Bible Sees it Differently

Peter Brimelow's The Patriot Game lays the blame squarely on the shoulders of Pierre Trudeau, for the country's dramatic shift to the left, though he is not without disdain for the Committee for an Independent Canada.

A case can also be made for 1970. In that year, at a lunch "which is now mythologized in some branches of the movement as The Beginning," according to an account written by Christina McCall-Newman in 1972, three men decided to found a pressure group for their version of Canadian Nationalism: the Committee for an Independent Canada. They were Walter Gordon, the former leader of the Liberal Party's left wing, who as Finance Minister under Lester Pearson had introduced a controversial nationalist budget in 1965; Peter C. Newman, then Editor-in-Chief of the nationalist Toronto Star; and Abraham Rotstein, an academic economist from the University of Toronto. Their creation was something of a nine-day-wonder in the small world of the English-Canadian intelligentsia.

It attracted much joining, signing of petitions, attending of meetings and declarations of support. The Committee itself quickly became moribund, but it symbolized emotions that were coming to dominate Anglophone public debate, and it conveniently marks the moment when the Canadian Liberal elite finally acknowledged that it had reversed fronts and trained its guns on free market economics and on the U.S.A.

The weaknesses of Canadian Nationalism were already present at The Beginning. All three lunchers were Anglophones, all Torontonians, all prosperous members of the bourgeoisie. All, perhaps not coincidentally, represented professions that stood to benefit disproportionately from protectionism: Gordon as a scion of the preeminent Clarkson, Gordon and Company accounting firm, whose relationships with Canadian corporate clients were vulnerable to disruption from takeovers by U.S. firms equipped with their own auditors; Newman and Rotstein as examples of those "producers of Canadian culture" who, in the deadpan summary of a recent academic survey, "are more determined than consumers" to "keep Canadian cultural life Canadian." (2)

And this Canadian Nationalism was viewed as "anti-Americanism" in Alberta, where the U.S. oil industry prospered, and was added to the list of western grievances. This became even more profound when it became about "Toronto" and "elites" and "intervention".

Early Nationalist campaigns were to aim at reserving Canadian university appointments for Canadians and promoting Canadian periodicals through punitive taxation of their American competitors. Two were members of Canada's small Jewish minority, a group normally cautious about nationalism, and one was not even a Canadian by birth but a central European refugee, anomalies which, although not without parallel in other nationalist movements, may help account for the peculiar artificiality of this Canadian variation. They were also all good political progressives and, at least in the case of Gordon and Rotstein, conscious advocates of government intervention in the economy. (2)

Canada was moving toward a just society and the corporate sector saw this as injustice to the almighty dollar.

And like Ted Byfield, Brimelow also held contempt for Pierre Berton. Byfield, because he threatened religious fundamentalism, and Brimelow because he threatened Anglo-Saxon hegemony.

A significant description of the brave new Canada that Canadian Nationalists hope and claim to have discerned has been conveniently provided by Pierre Berton in his book Why We Act Like Canadians: A Personal Account of Our National Character. This deeply revealing essay on the Canadian national character and its fundamental differences from the American norm was one of the best-sellers of the 1982-83 season and has influenced several subsequent journalistic commentaries ... the inevitable landscape rhapsodies in Why We Act Like Canadians were quite bearable.

And yet Pierre Berton is still a household name, while most Canadians outside of the Reform/Conservative movement, have never heard of Peter Brimelow.

Sources:

1. Just Watch me: The Life of Pierre Elliot Trudeau, By John English, Alfred A. Knopf, 2009, ISBN: 978-0-676-97523-9, Pg. 130

2. The Patriot Game: National Dreams and Political Realities, By Peter Brimelow, Key Porter Books, 1986, ISBN: 1-55013-001-3, Pg. 131 -133

The Fight to Restore Our Democracy Will Not be a Single Battle

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

I attended an all candidates meeting in Kingston last week, where several individuals are vying for the Liberal nomination, to replace Peter Milliken. When it came around to taking questions from the floor, I asked what each one would do to help restore democracy to Canada.

The first person answered simply "get rid of Stephen Harper". Of course everyone laughed but it was not really what I was looking for. In fairness, it was too big a question, when the contestants had no more than 30 seconds to give a response.

One of my favourite journalists, Murray Dobbin, posted an excellent piece on his blog this week, where he suggests that we are now in the fight of our lives.

Individuals and organizations in Canada who recognize that the most critical short term political goal we have is to rid the country of Stephen Harper’s government might want to engage in a kind of political and strategic triage: what are the three or four key issues that we need to focus on to expose Harper’s agenda and to exploit his weaknesses? (1)

While there is no argument that Harper must go, he is only a symptom of the disease that has been eating away at us for years.

It has been like a slow growing cancer, that while it left us weak, did not dramatically hinder our ability to function as a sovereign nation. Then along came Harper and the cancer spread so rapidly that our freedoms are now on life support, with only minimal brain function. And we are indeed in "the fight of our lives".

Stage One: The Erosion is Small and Contained

"A society only articulates itself as a nation through some common intention among its people." George P. Grant*, Lament For a Nation

Sir John A. MacDonald, Canada's first prime minister, was not only one of the people responsible for Confederation, but he also sought to create a unique Canadian identity, while fighting against the influence of the United States. This brought about the character of 'Johnny Canuck', who appeared in political cartoons for decades.

We were the little guy, youngest cousin of Uncle Sam and John Bull. A little naive perhaps, but strong and ready to stand up to the big boys. And this sentiment continued throughout the life of 'Johnny'.

But then Johnny Canuck caught a bug. Murray Dobbin believes that it was 38 years ago (1), when the Conservatives came to power in Alberta, but I believe it was earlier than that, and simply went undiagnosed for decades.

I think the bug that now threatens our existence, first appeared on February 13, 1947, in the oil that was discovered at Leduc in Alberta. Canada then caught the attention of Texas oilmen, and the premier of Alberta, Ernest Manning, became their new best friend. So much so, that Time Magazine began to refer to Alberta as Texas of the North. (2) Other discoveries in post-war Canada of iron ore, nickel, copper, uranium and titanium, also brought us to the attention of southern corporate interests.

Johnny Canuck developed a cough.

Stage Two: A tumour has developed But Has Not Spread Into the Surrounding Tissue

"The imperial power of corporations has destroyed indigenous cultures in every corner of the globe." George P. Grant*, Lament For a Nation

A series of trade agreements followed, based on the needs of the corporate sector, who, as George Grant claimed, "sought to master nature and reshape humanity." (3) Successive Canadian governments, began to work with the corporate sector to develop our natural resources, and in many ways it was a good thing.

But then prime minister St. Laurent introduced legislation to have the Canadian government lend $80 million to the U.S.-controlled Trans-Canada Pipe Lines Ltd., to build a pipeline from Alberta to Winnipeg in order to export natural gas to the United States. This gave the new conservative leader Diefenbaker ammunition:

He accused the government of "playing around with . . . these adventurers from Texas and New York, trading away Canada's national resources at the expense
of the Canadian people." The deal, Diefenbaker said, would make Canada "a virtual economic forty-ninth state." (4)

And he won the next election on a national unity issue. And though he too flirted with the American industrialists, he was seen as a friend to small business and Canadian interests, which made him a foe of the corporate world, that launched campaigns against him.

Johnny Canuck began to run a fever.

Stage Three: The Tumour is Larger and Has Begun to Spread

Can the disappearance of an unimportant nation be worthy of serious grief? For some ... it can. Our country is the only political entity to which we have been trained to pay allegiance." George P. Grant*, Lament For a Nation

Grant referred to Lester Pearson's administration as 'capitalist internationalism", and felt that he was too cozy with JFK. In fact, a young journalist by the name of Pierre Elliot Trudeau, also criticized Pearson, and when he came to power himself sought to restore our sovereignty, and move the country toward a just society. This didn't mean that he necessarily turned his back on the corporate world, but did fight against American interests.

It was during his administration that the National Citizens Coalition was created on the advice of Ernest Manning, and the right-wing media launched an assault on Trudeau, calling him a socialist and sometimes even a communist. Leading the charge was the Toronto Sun, under Peter Worthington, and one of his journalists, Lubor Zinc, was the one who coined the term 'Trudeaumania', though it was meant to have a negative connotation. Another Sun journalist, David Somerville, would eventually head up the NCC.

They earned little credibility, until they were able to place a man, plucked right from the corporate world, to lead the country. Brian Mulroney. He would fling open the doors and announce to the anyone who would listen, that Canada was for sale. His free trade deal devastated the Canadian economy, but paved the way for a corporate takeover.

Johnny Canuck was now bedridden.

Stage Four: The Cancer has Spread to Every Corner of the Country.

"To lament is to cry out at the death or at the dying of something loved. This lament mourns the end of Canada as a sovereign state." George P. Grant*, Lament For a Nation.

Brian Mulroney may have put Canada on life support, but Stephen Harper is the one who will pull the plug. He has been systematically selling us off to American and multinational corporate interests. When he was proroguing he signed the most aggressive trade deal in the history of our country. And the recent potential sell off of Canada's potash is only the latest in what money expert Stephen Jarislowsky, of Jarislowsky Fraser Ltd., calls the "suicide of the country".

We are increasingly becoming a corporate state. Murray Dobbin focuses on the oil industry and the "dirty" oil that is giving Canada the reputation as a corrupt petro-state, but we have to look at all industries.

Corporations have their place in a society. They can keep small businesses afloat, as they provide services to the larger companies. They also provide good union jobs, which provides buying power and keeps service industries afloat. But these corporations, despite enjoying massive tax cuts and exemptions, have allowed greed to dictate. They now often compete with the small business, driving them out, while they outsource jobs overseas.

There needs to be a new and defined relationship that promotes fairness for the good of the country and our citizens.

All fascist regimes answered to their industrialists. They created autocratic governments to keep the people in line, and increased both military and police presence as a deterrent to public dissent.

We are on the brink of becoming that fascist state. And it is being done by embracing the philosophies of the father of neoconservatism, Leo Strauss: Deception, Religious fervour and unbridled patriotism.

Before the 2006 Canadian election, Paul Weyrich, the Godfather of the American Religious Right, told his people not to speak to Canadian journalists for fear that it might spook the Canadian public if they knew how connected Stephen Harper was to his movement. (5)

And Weyrich knew something about political strategy. He had worked on Ronald Reagan's campaign, using divisive politics to weaken the democratic process.

"With Reagan's outspoken opposition to the Civil Rights Act in 1964, Republican strategists knew that they would have to write off the black vote. But although 90 per cent of black voters cast their ballots for the democrats, only 30 percent of eligible black Americans voted. Republican ... strategist Paul Weyrich stated "I don't want everyone to vote ... our leverage in the election quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down. We have no moral responsibility to turn out our opposition." (6)

And Weyrich also knew that Canada was ripe for the picking, because we had a system with a fragile structure, that promised democracy based on the expectation of fair play.

So when I asked my question about restoring democracy, it was not only about replacing Stephen Harper, which I already know is an absolute necessity. But it was also about how we are going to keep our corporations in check, and give the power back to the people, where it belongs.

But more importantly, how we are going to close up the loopholes in our system that allowed one man to gain so much control. Michael Ignatieff has suggested that senators should be appointed by a committee made up of a cross-section of Canadians. That's a good start. The same should be done with judges and the Governor General.

Murray Dobbin suggests that we need determined civil disobedience, fully justified by the assault on our country. He's right. But we also need to restore faith in politics and encourage citizens to vote. And to do that we need to cut through the crap. Harper's strength in is keeping us divided and ignorant, because like his pal, Weyrich, he feels no moral responsibility to encourage Canadians to take part in the democratic process.

We are the only ones who can save Johnny, or Janie, or Omar or Hans or Pierre ... Canuck. And I happen to believe that we are worth saving.

Footnotes:

*George Parkin Grant was a Canadian scholar. He had a sister Alison who married Canadian diplomat George Ignatieff. Alison and George had a son Michael, who is now leader of the Liberal Party. When Lament for a Nation was first published, the Grant/Ignatieff family was devastated. The senior Ignatieff had worked for both Diefenbaker and Pearson. But George Grant would later say it was reactionary to the defeat of Diefenbaker, but he did have some very valid concerns.

Sources:

1. The Fight of Our Lives, By Murray Dobbin, Murray Dobbin's Blog, September 13, 2010

2. Texas of the North, Time Magazine, September 24, 1951

3. Lament For a Nation: The Defeat of Canadian Nationalism, By George Parkin Grant, McClelland & Stewart, 1965

4. Kennedy & Diefenbaker: The Feud That Helped Topple a Government, By Knowlton Nash, McClelland & Stewart, 1991, ISBN: 0-7710-6711-9, Pg. 35-36

5. Harper's U.S. neocon booster changes his story, By Beth Gorham, Canadian Press, January 27, 2006

6. Hard Right Turn: The New Face of Neo-Conservatism in Canada, Brooke Jeffrey, Harper-Collins, 1999, ISBN: 0-00 255762-2, Pg. 22)

The Making of a Prime Minister From the Ground Up

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

George Munro Grant was born on December 22, 1835 in Stellarton, Pictou County, Nova Scotia; the son of James Grant and Mary Monro.

His parents had emigrated from Scotland in 1826 and like other Scottish settlers, tried his hand at farming. However, it was not his calling, so he earned his way teaching school and offering legal services. But then he tried his hand at investing, leaving the family in financial ruin.

At the age of nine, George lost all the fingers on his right hand in a battle with a threshing machine (1), which made a career in farming impossible, and with little money, seemingly few options.

But fortunately his mother, Mary Munro was a strong and determined woman who insisted that he receive a good education. After attending Pictou Academy he received a scholarship from the Presbyterian Church to study in Scotland, and on his return was given the Parish of St. Matthews in Halifax.

But he was determined not to lead his congregation with the old fire and brimstone, typical of his youth, but with an emphasis on the positive things that faith could achieve.

Grant was effective in implementing typically evangelical solutions to the social problems of Halifax. He was involved in the direction of the School for the Blind, the Halifax Institution for the Deaf and Dumb, the Children’s Home and Child Immigration Schemes, the Old Ladies’ Home, the Halifax Industrial School, the Halifax Visiting Dispensary, and the Young Men’s Christian Association, and helped raise money for them.

In addition, St Matthew’s Church supported a city missionary, James S. Potter, who provided relief to the poor and operated the Night Refuge for the Homeless. But Grant did not consider such works the means to salve the bad consciences of the rich. He preached frankly to his congregation of merchants and shipowners on the relationship of labour and capital and denounced men who made money by risking the lives of their crews in unseaworthy hulks or saw charity at home as a substitute for justice at sea. (2)

In other words, like Tommy Douglas, he ascribed to a social gospel.

On May 7, 1867, he married Jessie Lawson, daughter of one of the leading merchants in the city, but it is said that he himself "lived frugally and gave generously". (3)

The couple would have two children; William Lawson and George, who died at the age of 12.

George Munro earned a reputation, not only as a preacher, but a compelling speaker on political topics. In 1867, when Nova Scotia was adamantly opposed to Confederation, Grant championed the cause, and his verbal battles with journalist Joseph Howe were legendary.

It is said that had Grant not thrown his whole weight in favour of Canadian confederation, it may not have taken place when it did. As to Howe, there was no real animosity and Grant would later write a glowing biography if his adversary. Later, his son, William Lawson would also author The Tribune of Nova Scotia: A Chronicle of Joseph Howe, as part of the Chronicles of Canada.

But George Munro Grant was not finished impacting Canadian history. In 1872, he traveled across Canada:

.... from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean, with the engineers, including lifelong friend, Sir Sandford Fleming, who surveyed the route of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Grant's book Ocean to Ocean (1873) was one of the first things that opened the eyes of Canadians to the value of the immense heritage they enjoyed. He never lost an opportunity, whether in the pulpit or on the platform, of pressing on his listeners that the greatest future for Canada lay in unity with the rest of the British Empire; and his broad statesmanlike judgment made him an authority which politicians of all parties were glad to consult. (3)

And in 1877, as Principal of Queen's University, he also left his mark. According to the University's own literature:

Grant is the most important of all Queen's Principals. More famous in his day than any Queen's Principal before or since, Grant transformed the university in his 25 years of leadership (1877-1902) from a struggling denominational college into a dynamic national institution. (4)

George Munro Grant died in Kingston on May 10, 1902

Grant’s most lasting achievement is Queen’s, where, as noted by Hilda Marion Neatby, he “set his personal mark . . . so indelibly that its history in his time has almost to be written in personal terms.” By the end of his life, “Geordie Our King” had assumed legendary proportions.

...The Cambridge classicist Terrot Reaveley Glover, who began his career at Queen’s, wrote of Grant that “it was yet no small part of the education that Queen’s gave to associate with a man of such outlooks, such range and such political integrity. . . . Teacher, builder, driver – call Grant what you will; he saved the University from intellectual ruin as surely as he did from financial; and, with all his limitations, his presence, his word, his glance, were inspiration.” (2)

William Lawson Grant

William Lawson Grant was born on November 2, 1872 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the son of George Munro Grant and Jessie Lawson. He would become a professor at Queens University and Principal of Upper Canada College.

He married Maude Erskin Parkin on June 1, 1911, and they had four children: Margaret Monro, Charity Lawson, Jessie "Alison" and George Parkin.

William Lawson died on February 3, 1935.

The Other Side of the Equation:

Russia in the early 19th century was a place of much turmoil. Czar Nicholas II, though a good family man, was an incompetent leader, and when war broke out he went to play soldier instead of addressing matters at home.

And while Russia was at war, there was an internal war taking place on many fronts. The fraudulent Protocols of Zion, had resulted in pogroms, as the Jewish people were now thought to be behind a conspiracy to take over the world. A mass exodus took place, and for those who chose to stay, anti-Semitism was rampant and often violent.

Vladimir Lenin opposed the Imperialistic war, and instead was promoting a class war. While practising law, he worked on mostly land-ownership cases, where he gained insight to the Russian peasants' socio-economic condition. As a result he developed a political system he called Leninism, which was described as a pragmatic Marxism and often referred to as Lenin-Marxism.
Vladimir was in Switzerland at the time of the February Revolution that saw the Czar Nicholas II deposed, but with the help of the Germans, he was able to get safely back to Russia to join in the powder keg of revolt.

With the end of the Romanov dynasty an alliance between liberals and socialists formed a provisional government, committed to political reform, by creating a democratically-elected executive and assembly.

However, this new government failed, in part because they agreed to continue their participation in the Great War, and the riots continued, finally culminating in the October Revolution that saw the Bolshevik government under Lenin gain power, and the country was thrown into civil war.

On August 30, 1918 the head of the Petrograd secret police was assassinated, and a would be assassin tried and failed to take out Lenin. In retaliation many members of the royal family and those loyal to the White Army, a counter-revolutionary force, were rounded up and arrested.

On September 6, 1918, 25 armed men entered the home of Count Pavel Nikolayevich Ignatiev and his wife Princess Natalya Meshcherskaya. Pavel was arrested and held with counter-revolutionary prisoners, all slated for execution.

He had been the education minister at the Imperial Court, but was a Ukranian farmer of some means. Against the protests of her family and friends, Natalyan followed her husband demanding his release. But it wasn't until a geography teacher heard that Pavel had been arrested and was being held that his luck changed.

The teacher, remembering that Pavel had been instrumental in improving the educational system in the country, organized a student protest and as a result the ailing Pavel was allowed to return to his family.

However, they were constantly tormented. Their home was looted seventeen times, the final government sanctioned robbery netting what was left in their children's dresser drawers.

Finally forced to flee*, they eventually settled in Upper Melbourne, Quebec, where Pavel would return to his first love; farming. Pavel and Natalyan are better known as Paul and Natasia Ignatieff. She died in 1944 and the New York Times wrote of her death in an article entitled 'Princess Ignatieff'. Paul died in 1945.

One of Pavel's five sons, George; would grow up to become a long serving Canadian diplomat and personal assistant to the Canadian High Commissioner in London, Vincent Massey. He would marry Massey's niece, Alison Grant, who of course was the daughter of William Lawson Grant, mentioned above and granddaughter of George Munro Grant.

George Ignatieff was also the assistant under-secretary of state for external affairs, under John Diefenbaker, and helped to negotiate an arms agreement with President Kennedy.

He turned to George Ignatieff ... for advice on a rationale for his hesitation on acquiring nuclear warheads. "I tried to make him understand," Ignatieff said, "that by committing Canada to an integrated North American defence system, he had accepted a subordinate role in a strategy based almost entirely on the nuclear deterrent."

Diefenbaker told Ignatieff that he'd been misled by the military into believing the Bomarc-B anti-aircraft missile [that replaced the Avro Arrow] could use conventional weapons — a claim that flies in the face of all evidence. An earlier version of Bomarc, the Bomarc-A, was capable of using conventional warheads, but Diefenbaker had deliberately committed Canada to the nuclear-only Bomarc-B. "The day he approved NORAD," Ignatieff said, "he embarked on a course which led to the acceptance of nuclear weapons."

Ignatieff, although a diplomatic realist, was also an indefatigable champion of disarmament, and he sought to provide Diefenbaker with a formula that he could use with Kennedy in articulating the near-incomprehensibility of Canada's official position on warheads. The urbane diplomat proposed that the prime minister say he would accept warheads on two conditions: first, if there were joint control in their use — a joint control of Diefenbaker's particular definition; and second, only if an all-out effort at disarmament were launched first and if, at the end, it was determined that there could be no progress.

That formula would buy Diefenbaker some time and it might well wash politically in Canada, even if it wouldn't in Washington. "Making clear-cut decisions was not part of Diefenbaker's nature," Ignatieff later remarked. (6)

George Ignatieff, was the father of Michael Ignatieff, the next prime minister of Canada; making George Munro Grant his grandfather, through his mother Alison; the niece of the Governor General at the time, Vincent Massey.

Diefenbaker's feud with JFK is believed to be responsible, in part, for his downfall. Michael Ignatieff's uncle George Parkin Grant, was a devout Diefenbaker follower. Upon his demise he wrote a book : Lament For a Nation, believing that Canada would now be selling out to the U.S. The book became a Bible to Canada's left, despite the fact that George Parkin was a Conservative Christian. (7)

And it is this background that Michael Ignatieff will be taking with him as leader of this country. He is not "just visiting" as the Reformers suggest, but is to the very soul, a Canadian.

Forbes magazine recently named him one of the top 100 people to watch as an international star:

"Michael Ignatieff. After decades in Britain and the U.S., the professional intellectual returned to his native Canada and became head of the Liberal party. If a federal election is called in 2010, he could become the next prime minister, and the Canadian head of state with the biggest international profile since Pierre Trudeau."

The above picture appears in Pierre Trudeau's Memoirs. The caption reads: "Amid unusually comfortable surroundings at London School of Economics I chatted with Michael Ignatieff, son of distinguished Canadian diplomat George Ignatieff." (8) Michael not only taught at the London School of Economics, but also Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge and the University of Paris, among others.

It's not good enough to simply convince people that the Harper government must go, but we also have to give Canadians something and someone to believe in.

Footnotes:

* Two brothers Terentiy and Lukyanov also fled from the Ukraine during the Russian Revolution, settling in Chicago. Terentiy Lavrentievich's wife Anna and son Zinoviy, had fled with him, and eventually they made their way to Brantford Ontario, where four more children would be born: Fedor, Vasiliy, Ekaterina, and Olga.

About 1930 conditions in their homeland had improved and Anna wanted to return, but Terentiy preferred to stay in Canada, so the family separated. He would then marry a Polish girl, Mary of Pidhaytsi, Ukraine, and they would have a son named Walter who would eventually have a son named Wayne, who would grow up to be the greatest hockey player that ever lived.

Sources:

1. True Patriot Love: Four Generations in Search of Canada, by Michael Ignatieff, Penguin Books, 2009, ISBN: 978-0-670-06972-9, Pg. 33

2. GRANT, GEORGE MONRO, Dictionary of Canadian Biographies, 1901-1910 (Volume XIII)

3. George Munro Grant, Wikipedia

4. The Rev George Monro Grant (1835-1902), Queen's Encyclopedia

5. The Russian Album, By: Michael Ignatieff, Penguin Books, 1987, ISBN: 978-0-14-317165-2, Pg. 153-162

6. Kennedy & Diefenbaker:The Feud That Helped Topple a Government, By Knowlton Nash, McClelland & Stewart, 1991, ISBN: 0-7710-6711-9, Pg. 100-101

7. Patriot Love, Ignatieff, 2009, Pg. 144-145

8. Memoirs, By Pierre Elliot Trudeau, McClelland & Stewart, 1993, ISBN: 0-7710-8588-5, Pg. 41

Chapter Forty Continued: John Diefenbaker and the National Energy Board

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

As the Conservatives' foreign affairs critic, Diefenbaker began warning about the danger of American money flowing into Canada to dominate Canadian industry. Then in May of 1956, he had his chance to pick an issue that could define his political direction.

Prime Minister St. Laurent and his Liberals introduced legislation to have the Canadian government lend $80 million to the U.S.-controlled Trans-Canada Pipe Lines Ltd., to build a pipeline from Alberta to Winnipeg in order to export natural gas to the United States.

The loan was the key to a deal with high-flying Texas tycoons who for half a dozen years had been wheeling and dealing with the so-called "minister of everything," C.D. Howe, minister of defence production, minister of trade and commerce, and all-powerful in the St. Laurent government. The autocratic Howe demanded that the loan go through quickly so the pipeline could be finished before the next federal election, and he induced the government to impose closure to limit debate on the measure ... Diefenbaker, and other Tories seized on the arrogance of Howe and the Liberals to begin the most raucous episode in the House of Commons in this century, the infamous "Pipeline Debate." (1)

Dief was in high form:

John Diefenbaker shouted about the Liberals' "brutalitarian tactics" and "executive absolutism," but he had equally poisonous contempt for the buccaneering Texas tycoons – "those Texas millionaires; those pampered pets" – especially Clint Murchison, C.D. Howe's friend and the central Trans-Canada Pipe Lines financier, whom Diefenbaker called a "pirate" who was "financin' by finaglin'." He accused the government of "playing around with . . . these adventurers from Texas and New York, trading away Canada's national resources at the expense of the Canadian people." The deal, Diefenbaker said, would make Canada "a virtual economic forty-ninth state." (1)

The Liberals had a strong majority and the legislation was passed, but it would come back to bite them on the butt.

That August, then Tory leader George Drew fell ill and John Diefenbaker would win the leadership. And though considered a long shot, he built his campaign on the "Pipe-line debates"

With eyes flaming, arms flailing and shoulders and jowls aquiver, Diefenbaker travelled the nation, fervently drying out for "One Canada!" and exultantly proclaiming, "I have come here with a vision of our nation's destiny." It was a "Canada first" vision expounded with visceral nationalism. "I have but one love, Canada. One purpose, its "greatness," he would say. Canadians hadn't heard such a magnificent spellbinder since the heyday of Sir John A. Macdonald.

And he did what many people thought impossible, becoming prime minister in 1957. Soon after the election he commissioned Henry Borden, to help to establish an energy board, primarily to help the Alberta independent oil producers to find a market for their crude oil by building a pipeline from Edmonton to Montreal. Their opponents, the large, international oil companies, found it more profitable to use imported oil in their Montreal refineries.

The most influential individual at the hearings was Walter J. Levy, a New York oil consultant, who proposed that the pipeline not be built and that Alberta oil be exported to the US while Montreal continued to be supplied from abroad. In its reports the commission accepted this recommendation, and called it the National Oil Policy. (2)

Not everyone was happy with the arrangement.

The aim of the National Oil Policy was to promote the Alberta oil industry by securing for it a protected share of the domestic market. Under the policy, Canada was divided into two oil markets. The market east of the Ottawa Valley (the Borden Line) would use imported oil, while west of the Borden Line, consumers would use the more expensive Alberta supplies. For most of the 1961-73 period, consumers to the West paid between $1.00 and $1.50 per barrel above the world price, which, just before the 1973 OPEC oil embargo and price increase, stood at around $3.00. They also paid proportionately higher prices at the pump than Canadians east of the Borden line. (3)

This meant that Ontario paid the higher Alberta price and were restricted from shopping for a better deal, while foreign owned companies in Montreal, got to import cheaper product.

So while those who ascribe to old 'Western alienation theories', for 12 years Ontario paid 33-50% more for oil and gas, to ensure that Alberta had a ready market. And this decision was made by an oilman from New York. For our part, it enabled Canada to avoid the Mandatory Oil Import Quota Program, introduced by Eisenhower in 1959.

So Alberta oil also went to the U.S., and the Americans were able to buy Alberta oil cheaper than we could in Ontario.

When JFK came to power, the relationship with the United States deteriorated greatly, since he and Diefenbaker genuinely disliked each other. There was one small deal that Dief did secure "by finaglin'". The U.S. then had a trade embargo against Communist China, where Canada had been shipping wheat. Because Imperial Oil was a subsidy of an American company, they were not allowed, under U.S. trade law, to fuel the tankers delivering the wheat. Kennedy gave him this concession (5), but after that it was war.

Sources:

1. Kennedy & Diefenbaker:The Feud That Helped Topple a Government, By Knowlton Nash, McClelland & Stewart, 1991, ISBN: 0-7710-6711-9, Pg. 35-36

2. Royal Commission on Energy, By Ed Shaffer, The Canadian Encyclopedia

3. Towards a Just Society: The Trudeau Years, By Thomas S. Axworthy and Pierre Elliot Trudeau, Viking Press, 1990, ISBN: 0-670-83015-1. Pg. 51

4. Canadian foreign policy: defining the national interest, By Steven Kendall Holloway, UTP Higher Education, 2006, ISBN-13: 978-1551118161, Pg. 158

5. Nash, 1991, Pg. 92

Chapter Forty: Western Alienation and the Myth of the National Energy Program

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

"In high school, Harper had admired Pierre Trudeau, and had even signed up for a student Liberal club. But after moving to Alberta and seeing the devastation done to the province’s economy by Trudeau’s National Energy Program, he changed his allegiance." (1)

That's quite a statement.

Stephen Harper was either lying, as so many neocons will say "I liked Trudeau until ...."; or he was grossly misinformed. Maybe it was a little of both. But Canada's national energy strategies began with John Diefenbaker, and changed with the political climate, the price of oil, and who happened to be in the White House at the time.

The only ones who didn't like the NEP were the corporate sector, especially the Americans who had found such a compliant partner in Ernest Manning.

"... as an Albertan* he had double reason for hating the NEP. It was an attack on the petroleum industry in general, and it discriminated against petroleum companies that were foreign owned - like Imperial Oil. And now Harper witnessed the flight from Alberta of a caravan of oil rigs. Exploration slowed almost to a halt ... Idle cranes towered beside the skeletal frameworks of unfinished buildings as practically all activity died."(1)

This sounds more like an argument that would come from the National Citizens Coalition or the Fraser Institute, but the fact of the matter was that the reason those cranes were idle and buildings unfinished was because Brian Mulroney cancelled the program, under pressure from the West, leaving them no protection from OPEC.

Oscar Wilde wrote that there are only two tragedies: one is not getting what one wants; the other is getting it. In the fall of 1985, the latter tragedy befell Alberta's oil industry. The OPEC cartel failed to agree upon a world oil price. The result was a global free-for-all among producing nations. Canada's oil and gas producers were caught in the middle. Having recently gained freedom from the NEP, Canada's oil and gas industry was not protected as the price of oil dropped from US $27 per barrel ... to $8 per barrel by August 1986. ... Forty-five thousand oil workers lost their jobs." (2)

So Alberta's wounds were self inflicted. And yet many Westerners still suggest that they would never vote Liberal because of Trudeau and the NEP, when in fact it was Mulroney they should have been angry with. Revisionist history and good PR has turned this into a mythical bogey man.

I think it's time to tear down that myth, and hopefully this chapter will do that.

Continued: John Diefenbaker and the National Energy Board

Footnotes:

*Stephen Harper was actually born and raised in Toronto

Sources:

1. Stephen Harper and the Future of Canada, by William Johnson, McClelland & Stewart, 2005, ISBN 0-7710 4350-3, 2005, Pg. 19

2. Of Passionate Intensity: Right-Wing Populism and the Reform Party of Canada, By Trevor Harrison, University of Toronto Press, 1995, ISBN: 0-8020-7204-6 3, Pg. 97

Harper Suspends Democracy to Move us Toward an Unjust Society

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

"We fought for a fairer, more humane Canada, in which the power of government was a necessary instrument in the quest for a more just society." Lloyd Axworthy and Pierre Trudeau (1)

Just as FDR's New Deal in the United States remains a catalyst to many conservative groups south of the border, Pierre Trudeau is the red flag that can still ignite a passion in Canada's far right.

When Trudeau came to power in 1968, it was a time when society was demanding change, and throughout his sixteen years affecting policy, we went through a great many changes indeed.

Canadians witnessed a changing world balance of power, a transformation of the economic paradigm, an information explosion of global proportions, the emergence of a new definition of the role of women, the birth of environmentalism, the rise of multiculturalism, the sustained impact of the baby boom on education, jobs and housing, an intense outburst of nationalism in Quebec, a shift of power towards the provinces and a quantum leap in the desire and expectations of Canadians that government could simultaneously deliver more wealth and more equity. To say the least, it was a turbulent era in which to govern. (1)

The 1960's gave rise to a " New Left" and even initiated what was called the "Waffle Movement" within the NDP, to move the party even further left. (2) But they also created a surge in the far right, to oppose societal change and the country's new direction.

Love him or hate him, I think that Trudeau was the perfect prime minister for the time. He was young(er) and fresh and could relate to the Baby Boomer crowd. But he was also strong willed enough to get things done, and arrogant enough not to worry about those who opposed him.

The latter could also be said of Stephen Harper, but the difference is that Trudeau was taking the country in the direction demanded by the majority of Canadians at the time, while Harper is taking the country in the direction that the majority don't want to go.

Enter Brian Mulroney

The election of Brian Mulroney in 1984, changed everything. Mulroney was a corporate guy who was not only beholden to most of the country's business elites, but also to a new doctrine as presented in part by a group of young radicals from the University of Toronto, led by Tom Long and Anthony Panayi*.

The Mulroney government would steer Canada to the right, and all the gains made by advocacy groups who had been able to lobby government on behalf of the disadvantaged, started to crumble. "The election of Brian Mulroney's Conservatives marked the end of an era of experimentation in "participatory democracy" in Canada."(3)

And on the Horizon: Stephen Harper and the Reform Party

Though Brian Mulroney clearly steered Canada to the right, the Reformers did not feel that he had gone to the right enough. And their plan for Canada was laid out two decades ago. Stephen Harper was writing policy, and most of that policy came straight from the National Citizens Coalition handbook.

But what a lot of people don't know is that much of the National Citizens Coalition handbook (4), came right from Ernest and Preston Manning's Political Realignment.**

Brian Mulroney began the process of reversing two decades of greater democratic participation, and the Reform Party intends to continue this trend. Their policy formally calls for expenditure elimination" of "grants to interest groups for the purpose of political lobbying".

Judy Rebick, President of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women, an organization which was repeatedly attacked by Stan Waters and other Reformers, views with dismays the Reform Party's commitment to cut funding to advocate groups:

[The cuts] will be a serious threat to democracy as we know it in Canada. This will mean that only groups like the Business Council on National Issues will be able to make their voices heard on the national level. It pretends to be for the "little person" but in fact the Reform Party's policies favour the most powerful forces in society.

How would the Reform Party respond to the needs of those groups in society who are still marginalized within the political system? Without government funding, effective representation to government is extremely difficult for disadvantaged groups who have few resources, precisely because they are disadvantaged.

As Lise Corbeil, Executive Director of the National Anti-Poverty Organization, puts it:

If we live in a democracy, then all the groups have to have fair access to the system. The government has a responsibility to give them the means to have their voice heard and grants are part of that responsibility. Poor people don't have professional organizations —people aren't 'professionally' poor.

If groups speaking for poor people, for example, cannot raise the money themselves to keep an office open in Ottawa and hire staff to meet regularly with government, then their voices simply will not be heard. (5)

And that's exactly what's happening in Canada today. The disadvantaged have no voice, as we've seen with the recent prison farm issue. But we've also seen an erosion in the ability of NGOs to speak for stakeholders. If they challenge this government they risk losing their funding altogether.

We are becoming a corporate state. The prison farms were not closed as a means to accelerate punishment, though it certainly fits with the Harper government's far-right ideology. But what Harper saw was an opportunity to once again promote the corporate cause, by allowing them to provide services that were being handled very well by the public sector.

In fact, he already gave the contract to provide dairy products to the prisons, to an American firm. He had no intention of listening to anyone in this country.

And borrowing from American Republican strategists, like Frank Lutz and Karl Rove, he acted first and then will try to build a consensus, by playing "divide and conquer".

But in this case, it may be a little more difficult. Because the protesters at the Kingston prison farms did not fit into Harper's molds. Normally, he plays to his base and whitewashes the issue for the mainstream, while completely ignoring the experts and stakeholders.

But those in the crowd trying to prevent the cattle from being taken away, included farmers, teachers, doctors, ministers, Catholic nuns, RMC professors, mothers, grandmothers, great-grandmothers (including an 87 year-old-woman who was arrested), and even children. And they were united as Canadians. Not "special interest". Not "lefties". Many said they actually voted Conservative.

And I think what we may be seeing is a new trend. Because more and more, single-issue groups are becoming multiple issue groups, as they now face a common enemy. The census issue provides a perfect example:

You have to admire the political logic. If there is no data to research, there will be no facts to account for. How perfect the Tories' ditching of the mandatory long-form census data collection is for themselves -- and how dangerous for the rest of us. This crazily arcane little issue is just the latest example of how the government is craftily tearing down the foundational infrastructure of democratic accountability.

After four years of the same, we're close to a tipping point -- at least that is what an unprecedented number of NGO watchdogs (aka civil society orgs) are risking their necks to tell us right now. (6)

There is a rumbling. You can almost feel it. Harper may be enjoying his latest little surge in the polls, but the West is keeping his numbers up and he knows it. Because there is a very large and angry electorate ready to join forces to put an end to his Reformer dreams.

"The aim of life in society is the greatest happiness of everyone, and this happiness is attained only by being just toward each and every person." Pierre Trudeau

Footnotes:

*Now calling himself Tony Clement

**In 1975 Ernest Manning convinced Colin Brown to incorporate the NCC and set it up as a non-profit group. (4)

Sources:

1. Towards a Just Society: The Trudeau Years, By Thomas S. Axworthy and Pierre Elliot Trudeau, Viking Press, 1990, ISBN: 0-670-83015-1. Pg. 1-5

2. Canada's 1960s: The Ironies of Identity in a Rebellious Era, By Bryan D. Palmer, University of Toronto Press, 2009, ISBN: 13-9780802096593

3. Preston Manning and the Reform Party, By Murray Dobbin, Goodread Biographies/Formac Publishing, 1992, ISBN: 0-88780-161-7, pg. 202

4. Stephen Harper and the Future of Canada, by William Johnson, Douglas-Gibson, 2005, ISBN 0-7710 4350-3 6

5. Dobbin, 1992, Pg. 203-204

6. NGOs risk all in standoff with Harper over civil society crackdown, By Alice Klein, July 23, 2010

Chapter Thirty-Nine: The Reform Party and Francis Winspear

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

Despite the failure of his father to create a purely ideological political party, by uniting his Social Credit with the Conservatives, Preston never gave up the dream. He would just have to bide his time.

Preston Manning has always been clear about both his political agenda and his preferred political vehicle for achieving it: it is a radical free-market agenda and it would be brought to fruition on a wave of popular anger. Harnessing these two forces together - the mass power of broad-based discontent and the financial power of those supporting an unfettered free-market philosophy - was Preston Manning's party-building task. (1)

Like his father he built a network of corporate contacts who shared his vision of a corporate run government, from "... the powerful oil industry whose interests were almost exclusively tied up in a free-market economic policies. Preston Manning, who had worked on behalf of those interests for twenty years [through his consulting business], was the man who would bridge the gap. (1)

The Trudeau era left little possibility and the Mulroney sweep had westerners placated, but only temporarily. When the new Conservative big tent failed to allow room for many westerners, Manning found his opportunity:

By 1986, two additional developments gave Manning the impetus needed to begin a major push towards the establishment of his political alternative. The first was the increasing interest in alternative visions federalism expressed by Dr. Francis Winspear, a wealthy former Edmonton businessman who had once been a bagman for Lester Pearson. Winspear, now retired and living in Victoria, was exceeding unhappy with the nature of all government policies coming from Ottawa. While the eighty-four-year-old millionaire was busy funding number of private policy meetings to explore the federal alternatives - Western separatism, a radical right-wing journalist, Ted Byfield*, was busy writing about them in his magazine, The Alberta Report. Both had heard of Manning and become interested in the ideas he was expressing. On August 25, 1986, Byfield published a major article entitled "The West Needs Its Own Party." At roughly the same time, Frank - Winspear put up $50,000** and called on another former Liberal Stan Roberts, to organize an event supporting a federal alternative.

Stan Roberts was someone Winspear knew well. An economist, for—Manitoba Liberal MLA and head of the Canada West Foundation, president of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and vice-president Simon Fraser University, Roberts had strong credentials and experience in both the academic and business communities. He began to put together an organizing group, calling on the services of an old friend Calgary oil-patch lawyer Robert Muir, and a young consultant who just published an article entitled "A Western Reform Movement: Responsible Alternative to Western Separatism." The consultant was Preston Manning. (2)

Francis Winspear was a good man, and a strong supporter of the arts. It was said that he grew disillusioned with the Liberals under Trudeau and that was why he went to the Conservatives. I hear that a lot about Trudeau, but I think for some of these people, it was not really Pierre Trudeau they protested, but the changes that occurred under him. He was doing what society wanted at that time, but not all levels of society were happy with it.

Brian Mulroney promised to stop the liberal spending on social programs, and while he was definitely more business friendly than Trudeau, he kept few of his promises to the West.

Things were definitely coming to a head, but a catalyst was still needed to get Manning's reform project off the ground. With the Mulroney government's stunning decision to overrule their own bidding procedures and award the CF-18 maintenance contract to a Montreal firm, rather than Winnipeg-based Bristol Aerospace, the second defining event had arrived. As Frank Dabbs underlines in his account of these developments, "The angry response from the west was instant and intense ... Preston Manning and the nascent Reform movement had their cause celibre." (2)

He had his necessary wave of anger:

After two years of disappointing Conservative rule in Ottawa, Preston Manning had once again floated the idea of a new political party, promoting himself as the man to initiate it. What he did not know at the time was that there were other people, powerful people, talking about the same thing. According to Ian Pearson writing in 'Saturday Night', while Preston Manning was discussing this idea in Edmonton' ... in Calgary, a group of lawyers and oil men disenchanted with the Tories had decided that a new party was the only alternative. The moving forces were Bob Muir, Doug Hilliard and the late Marvin Dill, who had organized the Canada 1 and Canada 2 yachting challenge for the America's Cup, and now drew together some of the same backers to talk about a new political party.

"One of these was oil man Jack MacKenzie. Another was Cliff Fryers, who would become the Reform Party's chief fundraiser. 'We were talking about something and someone mentioned that there was this guy, Ernest Manning's son in Edmonton', ... they called him down to Calgary and after they met with him, they said 'yeah, we're impressed. We can start something.' (1)

Preston Manning himself describes what happened next:

Meanwhile, through my consulting contacts with various political and economic interests across the West, I too had been finding rapid disillusionment with the new Progressive Conservative government. But where was the evidence that this political unrest and willingness to look at new alternatives existed, not just among certain opinion leaders, but among ordinary "grassroots" westerners? Was a populist base emerging on which a political movement might be built? I did not have a great deal of confidence that these questions could be answered simply by looking at the opinion polls. My awareness that there was "a stirring among the grassroots" came to me through my contacts with municipal politicians in Alberta ... Of the three levels of politicians in this country—municipal, provincial, and federal—it is usually the municipal ones, especially in the rural areas, who are closest to ordinary citizens. By attending several conventions and seminars of the Alberta Association of Municipal Districts and Counties, and talking with the various municipal politicians who visited my consulting office, I began to get the message that political unrest and the willingness to search for alternatives were even more pronounced at the grassroots level than they were at the executive and
interest-group level.

Cliff Breitkreuz, a municipal councillor from Onoway, in Joe Clark's constituency, was particularly insistent that "the time was ripe" for a populist movement at the federal level and that I, because of my background, should help initiate it. He kept asking me, "When are you going to stop studying and talking about a western-based reform movement, and start doing something about it?" (3)

He had the idea, the mandate and the financial commitments, and was now a leader looking for a party.

Footnotes:

*Ted Byfield also helped a founding member of the Civitas Society where many of Stephen Harper's policies are written.

**Winspear would eventually contribute $100,000 in seed money to get the reform Party started.

Sources:

1. Preston Manning and the Reform Party, By Murray Dobbin, Goodread Biographies/Formac Publishing, 1992, ISBN: 0-88780-161-7, pg. 75-76

2. Hard Right Turn: The New Face of Neo-Conservatism in Canada, Brooke Jeffrey, Harper-Collins, 1999, ISBN: 0-00 255762-2 4, Pg. 292-293

3. The New Canada, By Preston Manning, 1992, MacMillan Canada, ISBN: 0-7715-9150-0, pg. 129