Political Theology, Neoconservatism and the Religious Right

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

To achieve a better understanding of how the neoconservative movement has been so successful, you have to go back to the start of it all, to make any sense of it all.

It is such a foreign concept, especially in Canada, that the media and pundits are often scrambling for an angle.

Stephen Harper is authoritative. Stephen Harper is secretive. Stephen Harper is a bully. Stephen Harper is dishonest.

But the essence of Stephen Harper can be summed up in a single word: Neoconservative. That political entity requires all of those things.

And the essence of neoconservatism can be summed up in two words: Political Theology. That was the theory of Carl Schmitt who had an intellectual relationship with Leo Strauss, the man deemed to be the father of the neoconservative movement.

Strauss had written to Schmitt, critiquing his Concept of the Political, and his suggestions were included in future publications of the book.

Just as the Concept of the Political has an exceptional position among the works of Carl Schmitt, so are the "Notes" of Leo Strauss exceptional among the texts about Schmitt ... The Concept of the Political is the only text that Schmitt issued in three different editions.' It is the only text in which the changes are not limited to polishing style, introducing minor shifts in emphasis, and making opportunistic corrections, but reveal conceptual interventions and important clarifications of content.' And it is the only text in which, by means of significant deletions, elaborations, and reformulations, Schmitt reacts to a critique.

Only in the case of the Concept of the Political does Schmitt engage in a dialogue, both open and hidden, with an interpreter, a dialogue that follows the path of a careful revision of Schmitt's own text. The partner in the dialogue is the author of the "Notes," Leo Strauss. He is the only one among Schmitt's critics whose interpretation Schmitt would include, decades later, in a publication under Schmitt's name,' and Strauss is the only one Schmitt would publicly call an "important philosopher."' (1)

This is quite compelling seeing as how Carl Schmitt was a Nazi and Leo Strauss a Jew. In fact Schmitt was responsible for removing Jewish content from university holdings, and yet he included "Jewish content" in the revisions to his book. He remarked to a friend after reading Strauss's notes: "He saw through me and X-rayed me as nobody else can."

And the notion of Political Theology is probably the best explanation of the resulting movement. It is more than mere ideology. It is a dogma. The infallible belief in what they are doing. They let nothing in, that contradicts their acceptance of corporatism.

In that way it was a natural marriage with the Religious Right. They were betrothed at birth.

Becasue who better to bring in to the fold, than a group already enormously successful at turning myths into truths. That's not an attack on any one's religion, but let's face it. The Religious Right does not represent mainstream beliefs. They have distorted religion for financial gain.

Most evangelicals do not share in the hatred and greed that has come to define them. They have embraced corporatism as the route to salvation, and as a result, are able to bestow greatness on a political leader. Another confliction with true evangelism.

A good example of this is the case of Bob Sirico, once a gay rights activist, and now a Catholic Priest. According to the Heartland Institute:

One often hears priests, preachers, and rabbis endorse an activist government able to solve social, economic, and perhaps even moral problems. Fr. Sirico offers a powerful challenge to this conventional wisdom. Religious principles, he says, require that men and women be free to practice virtue or vice, and freedom in turn requires a limited government and vibrant free-market economy. (2)

Have you ever heard anything so twisted? I attended Catholic school and not once do I remember the nuns catechizing a free-market economy.

So if we accept that neoconservatism is not so much a poltiical philosophy as a political theology, everything else falls into line. We are dealing with a religion that has a fundamental set of beliefs and practices.

Their followers are referred to as Straussians.

But perhaps the biggest victim of neoconservatism, is Leo Strauss himself. He would never have promoted Imperialism and would no doubt have scoffed at the fanaticism now represented in the Republican Party, the Tea Party and the Reform-Alliance (Conservative Party of Canada).

As journalist Michael Lind once wrote in the Washington Weekly: "Whatever one thinks of Strauss as a philosopher, he cannot be blamed for the opportunism of his followers."

Sources:

1. Carl Schmitt and Leo Strauss: The Hidden Dialogue, Translated by J. Harvey Lomax, University of Chicago Press, 1995, ISBN: 978-0-226-51888-6, Pg. 6-8

2. "Religion and Freedom", by Joseph Bast, Heartland Institute. January 1, 2007

Media Manipulation: Setting Agendas and Shielding Your Bum

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

"[The media] seem to be nothing in themselves, and often say that they merely report what goes on. In truth, they do nothing on their own; they act in the manner of a compassionate passerby who sees an accident in the street and rushes to see if someone else can be of any assistance. But the media greatly affect how we regard government." Harvey Mansfield Jr.

There is a lot of discussion today about the absence of independent media, and the way that the majority of journalists treat the news.

It has become a game where they set the rules.

And while the right claims that the media is against them, the exact opposite is true, as corporate media now controls the message, and corporations stand to gain the most from neoconservative/right-wing policies.

I prefer to read columnists who are neither right nor left, but honest. And I avoid those who have lowered themselves to the standard of partisan hacks.

Barry Cooper, a member of the Calgary School that helped bring Stephen Harper to power, co-wrote a book; Hidden Agendas: How Journalists Influence the News. In it, he correctly reveals how the media now manipulate the story, but his suggestion that it is always with a left-wing tilt, is wrong.

Case in point, though there are many examples, is the John Turner "bum pat".

In their book The Newsmongers: How the Media Distort the Political News, Mary Anne Comber and Robert S. Mayne discuss an incident during the 1984 federal election campaign.

After greeting Liberal president Iona Campagnolo: John Turner threw one arm around her shoulder, then slapped her backside and exclaimed, "Come on, Iona, let's circulate!" Iona's welcoming smile froze. She stepped behind Turner and whacked his backside. The pursuing reporters had their cameras rolling. The rest is history. The infamous "bum patting issue" was born.

It was offensive, dead wrong and definitely a political faux paus, but how important was the issue?

The way in which this story "broke" is interesting in itself. According to the Globe and Mail account, the film footage of John Turner patting Iona Campagnolo's bottom was first shown on the CTV news, July 20th, after a few days hesitation on the part of the network. The Globe and Mail claimed that, during the period between the event and the showing of the footage, pressure by reporters was mounting on CTV editorial staff to air the film clips. Finally, they gave in and aired the film. Could it be that CTV editors were asking themselves: "Is this fair coverage? Is this the kind of event we should draw to the public's attention?" We will never know. The footage was shown, and the extensive coverage that followed turned this one-minute event into the most-discussed issue of the 1984 federal election campaign.

The day after CTV aired the footage, the Globe and Mail printed two front-page articles on Turner and bum patting. In the days that followed, most Canadian newspapers carried editorials, cartoons and photos on Turner's gaffe. Bum patting was a bonanza! Everyone had an opinion on the matter, and the media establishment appeared to delight in just saying the phrase over and over again. (1)

John Turner didn't help matters, by refusing to apologize, and instead continuing the practice of not only patting the bums of women but men alike. Something he claimed he always did.

So it wasn't really a sexist issue, so much as an inappropriate one.

This might have been a perfect time to bring women's issues to the forefront, and as important as being seen as sexual objects was, there were other things that could have been discussed. Things like equal pay, a child care plan, discrimination. Maybe the fact that the president of the party was a woman, might have meant something.

The point of most interest about bum patting (besides all the wonderful opportunities it gave Canadians to make a wide variety of dreadful puns) is that it was an issue placed on the political agenda by the media. It wasn't that the party leaders had different policies on bum patting that needed to be publicly discussed or debated (although the imagination takes flight with the possibilities for slogans, placards, and Rhinoceros Party pamphlets.) No, the point is that the media placed bum patting on the agenda and then, by dint of constant attention, kept it there ... Turner's campaign aircraft was renamed "Derri Air" by reporters. (1)

We want our politicians to discuss issues of importance, but when we allow the trivial to dominate the agenda, we cannot expect intelligent political debate. Policy gets put on the back burner, when every one's looking for the "zinger" or the embarrassing image that can crush a hopeful. Like a prime minister mining old tapes of a political opponent during a time when the country wanted answers on the state of our economy.

And these incidences cross party lines. From Robert Stanfield fumbling the football, to Stephane Dion's difficulty with an intentionally convoluted question, to garner the expected response.

These images are "fair game", but how much is too much, especially when they overwhelm the important issues that our politicians should be addressing? And all too often those are the things that decide elections.

If we want to save our democracy, this is a good place to start. We won't get better from our media, unless we start demanding better. We are the ones who must set the agenda.

In 1863, Sir John A. Macdonald threw up during a campaign speech and his opponent tried to paint him as a drunk, suggesting that he was suffering from a hangover.

If that had been today, there would have been days of commentary, and the image of the puking Tory leader, played over and over. It would have been analyzed by experts, including a medical team who would reveal the contents of his stomach , and "Joe the boozer", who would provide an "expert" opinion on the stages of the "morning after".

Instead, MacDonald retorted: "I get sick ... not because of drink [but because] I am forced to listen to the ranting of my honourable opponent." – case closed.

Sources:

1. The Newsmongers: How the Media Distort the Political News, By Mary Anne Comber and Robert S. Mayne, John Deyell Printing, 1986, ISBN: 0-7710-2239-5, Pg. 44-45

RCMP: The Illegitimacy of Democracy and the Erosion of Public Trust

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

"Whenever justice is uncertain and police spying and terror are at work, human beings fall into isolation, which, of course, is the aim and purpose of the dictator state." Carl Jung

When William Elliot was named as new RCMP Commissioner in July of 2007, it raised more than a few eyebrows. (1)

And it was not simply for the fact that he was a career bureaucrat, with no police experience, but because he was a Conservative insider, an old crony from Brian Mulroney's days. In fact his brother Richard was married to Brian Mulroney's sister. It's hard to get anymore inside than that.

He was around during the days of the Giga Text scandal, that helped to bring down the Saskatchewan government, something I've written about before. Stevie Cameron, in her book On the Take: Crime, Corruption and Greed in the Mulroney Years, identifies Elliot's position and also reports on a real estate deal that she included as part of that scandal.

It was at this point that Montpetit and GigaText entered into an interesting real estate deal. Bill Elliott, the Regina lawyer, was a senior partner at McPherson Elliott and Tyreman, a leading law firm in the city. The firm's offices occupied a two-storey building in a suburb. The wealthy Hill family wanted to build an office tower in downtown Regina and went to Elliott for a large loan because he was chairman of the provincially run Saskatchewan Pension Funds. Elliott helped them win approval for the loan, and as soon as the tower was up, Elliott's law firm leased two floors. Sixty per cent of the building was rented to the provincial government for offices. Then the law firm sold its old two-storey building to the Hill family for $1.75 million, an excellent price for the firm. The Hill family needed tenants for the old building, too, and fortunately GigaText appeared just in time to fill the space. The lease arrangement made everyone happy. (2)

Nothing illegal, but the optics were damaging none the less, and lent itself to an overall distrust.

Stephen Harper appointed him "to clean up the RCMP", after the damaging tenure of Giuliano Zaccardelli, who not only tampered with the 2006 election, but was also named in pension fraud allegations. The Harper government went well beyond the limits of their powers, to protect Zaccardelli, the man who had handed them their election victory.

But it soon became clear that Elliot was not appointed to "clean up" anything. He was there to go after those who blew the whistle, and what he created was chaos. As James Travers reports:

Controversial when announced in 2007, Harper’s choice of a bureaucrat with no policing experience and a Tory background is now an embarrassment with implications stretching beyond Canada. Elliott’s dictatorial management style and the resulting mutiny are focusing unwanted domestic and international attention on the shaky leadership of this country’s security services. (3)

And what was also clear, was that Stephen Harper was politicizing the RCMP and bringing them under his control. A dangerous act in a democracy, as a letter by David Hutton of Ottawa suggests:

Only tinpot Third World countries — and Canada — have their national police force reporting directly to the government of the day. ... Most developed countries ensure that the police have an arms-length relationship with politicians, in order to uphold the law impartially, without political interference or favour. Yet our Mounties report to a minister and brief him regularly on what they are doing — just as if the RCMP were a government department. No doubt the Mounties also receive regular guidance on their priorities — just like a government department does. (4)

And the RCMP has become a political nightmare, as Elliot played the role of a partisan politician, and not as an officer of what should have remained an arms length agency.

There is a shakeup at the top of the RCMP as senior officers who complained about Commissioner William Elliott's style last summer are quitting or being forced out, CBC News has learned. Deputy commissioner Raf Souccar has been asked to leave the force, with trust cited as the reason. And deputy commissioner Tim Killam has given notice that he will retire in December.

Assistant commissioner Mike McDonell, who left the RCMP in August, wrote to Public Safety Minister Vic Toews last week, saying those who came forward last summer "have simply become sacrificial lambs." Senior RCMP officers complained about Elliott to some of the highest levels of the federal government on two occasions in July. They accused Elliott, who became the first civilian to head the Mounties in July 2007, of being verbally abusive, closed-minded, arrogant and insulting. (5)

Which brings us to why Elliot showed up at the G-20. Was it he who instructed the troops to make security a secondary consideration? Were they told that their primary job was to stifle dissent? To attack peaceful protesters?

After all, he works for Stephen Harper, and learned how to play the game as a Mulroney crony.

A senior Mountie commander told the federal government that RCMP Commissioner William Elliott “disrupted” the federal government’s billion-dollar security operation for the G8 and G20 summits – simply by showing up for the events. “Despite being advised not to attend the summit command centres on June 25, 2010, the commissioner chose to attend, and in doing so, completely disrupted operations,” Mike McDonell, then an RCMP assistant commissioner, wrote in a letter to Public Safety Minister Vic Toews. (6)

"There are only two choices: A police state in which all dissent is suppressed or rigidly controlled; or a society where law is responsive to human needs." William Orville Douglas

Sources:

1. New RCMP boss vows to rise above lack of police experience, CBC News, July 6, 2007

2. On the Take: Crime, Corruption and Greed in the Mulroney Years, By Stevie Cameron, Macfarlane Walter & Ross, 1994, ISBN: 0-921912-73-0, Pg. 254

3. Failed experiment dooms RCMP boss, By James Travers, Toronto Star, October 21, 2010

4. Politicized RCMP represents danger, Letters to the Editor, By David Hutton, Toronto Star, October 20, 2010

5. Top RCMP officers forced out or quitting: They complained about Commissioner Elliott's leadership style, CBC News, October 18, 2010

6. RCMP boss hurt G20 security efforts: letter from senior Mountie, By Colin Freeze and Daniel LeBlanc, Globe and Mail, October 19, 2010

Has John Turner's Premonition Come True? Are we Now an American Colony?

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

During the 1988 election debates, the topic of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) arose, prompting a heated exchange between Liberal leader John Turner and Brian Mulroney.

Clearly shaken, Mulroney defended his patriotism and roots, but his body language and color suggested that he knew that what he was doing was wrong. And Turner fought back.

“We built a country east and west and north. We built it on an infrastructure that deliberately resisted the continental pressure of the United States. For 120 years we’ve done it. With one signature of a pen, you’ve reversed that, thrown us into the north-south influence of the United States and will reduce us, I am sure, to a colony of the United States, because when the economic levers go the political independence is sure to follow.” (1)

But it was too late. Too many powerful people had contributed to Mulroney's success on the promise of a free trade agreement, including the National Citizens Coalition and their corporate sponsors, who spent an estimated 19 million dollars (2). Mulroney was given a second term and the Americans were given a golden key to our future.

Turner appreciated that FTA was not about achieving “Free Trade” with the U.S. that had pretty much already been accomplished. Turner, appreciated that FTA was really about transferring the control of Canadian institutions and resources into the United States political-military-industrial complex. (3)

And since then successive governments have been powerless to stop it.

Stephen Harper and a Peaceful Revolution

NAFTA has been devastating for Canadians and our country's sovereignty. It has stagnated the middle class, created a veritable crater between rich and poor, and has drastically reduced our standard of living.

Then along came Stephen Harper to finish us off. He would lead a revolution to overturn the results of the War of 1812, black out key elements of our Constitution and make any notion of Confederation null and void.

"Whether Canada ends up as one national government or two national governments or several national governments, or some other kind of arrangement is, quite frankly, secondary in my opinion… And whether Canada ends up with one national government or two governments or ten governments, the Canadian people will require less government no matter what the constitutional status or arrangement of any future country may be." - Stephen Harper (4)

The definition of sovereignty from Bouvier's Law dictionary:

The union and exercise of all human power possessed in a state; it is a combination of all power; it is the power to do everything in a state without accountability; to make laws, to execute and to apply them: to impose and collect taxes, and, levy, contributions; to make war or peace; to form treaties of alliance or of commerce with foreign nations, and the like. Abstractedly, sovereignty resides in the body of the nation and belongs to the people.

Canada has relinquished all of her sovereignty. Every last bit. We are an American colony in everything but name. And it took Stephen Harper less than five years to claim victory for the United States, in this bloodless revolution.

FBI Was Given Jurisdiction in Canada:

Battle: The American FBI has been given the right to enter Canada to arrest or interrogate Canadians. However, we didn't learn of any of this from our own government or media. We had to find it out from the FBI themselves.

Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day acknowledged Thursday that U.S. agents conduct investigations in Canada but said all are done according to
Canadian law.

Day was responding to a report regarding an internal FBI audit that shows U.S. agents are carrying out investigations without the approval of the Canadian government.It says the FBI has given agents in its Buffalo field office clearance to conduct "routine investigations" up to 50 miles into Canadian territory.When asked about the report during question period, Day said Canadian security forces work with Canada's allies, including the U.S, and have agreements in terms of information sharing."We have teams that are designated going back and forth across the border and sometimes it is farther than 50 miles or 50 kilometres," Day said. (5)

Casualties: Canadian civil liberties

Victory: Stephen Harper and the USA

Canadian Standards:

Our product standards were some of the toughest in the world. If a company wanted to sell here, they did it on our terms. Our safety came first.

Battle: In 2007, Stephen Harper met with then U.S. President George Bush and Mexican President Felipe Calderon in Montibello, Quebec; to discuss the product standards of the three nations, and how to limit them. And since Bush had reduced government regulations to the point where they could fit on the head of pin, this meant that Canada was forced to pretty much dismantle our own safety standards, to meet those of the U.S. President. Canadians protested prompting Harper to ask: “Is the sovereignty of Canada going to fall apart if we standardize the jelly bean?” What they adopted in it's place was something called "risk management."

"At the heart of both systems is a reliance on industry reporting and monitoring, rather than independent government testing, and an emphasis on cleaning up the mess (to the environment or human lives) caused by bad products after the fact. They call this “risk management,” an about-face from the “precautionary principle” of better safe than sorry." (6)

Casualties: 28 Canadian dead from H1N1, dubbed the Nafta Flu, and 20 from Listeriosis, when meat processing plants were allowed to inspect themselves.

Victory: Stephen Harper and the USA

Our Nuclear Energy:

In 2007 the Harper government entered into a controversial nuclear partnership with the United States and then resources minister, Gary Lunn boasted: "It is great news for Canada to be part of this partnership, the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) without public debate or a vote in the house of Commons."

Boasting that it was done "without public debate or a vote in the house of Commons" is worth repeating.

The partnership, first pitched early in 2006 by U.S. President George W. Bush, proposes expanding and promoting nuclear energy worldwide by developing a new and unproven breed of "fast reactors" that can burn nuclear waste ....

But the plan is highly controversial because it proposes re-using nuclear waste, a practice effectively banned in Canada and the United States since the 1970s for security reasons. Moreover, the original GNEP concept proposed that all used nuclear fuel be repatriated to the original uranium-exporting country for disposal. As the world's largest uranium exporter, Canada could be taking on a huge responsibility to deal with nuclear waste from around the world. (7)

Casualties: Our safety

Victory: Stephen Harper and the USA

Domestic Security:

In February of 2008, a secret agreement was signed with the United States in Texas, that allows them to send in their troops in the event of Canadian unrest, under the guise of National security.

Canada and the U.S. have signed an agreement that paves the way for the militaries from either nation to send troops across each other’s borders during an emergency, but some are questioning why the Harper government has kept silent on the deal Neither the Canadian Government nor the Canadian Forces announced the new agreement, which was signed Feb. 14 in Texas. The U.S. military’s Northern Command, however, publicized the agreement with a statement outlining how its top officer, Gen. Gene Renuart, and Canadian Lt.-Gen. Marc Dumais, head of Canada Command, signed the plan, which allows the military from one nation to support the armed forces of the other nation during a civil emergency.* (8)

And what was worse, was that the Canadian media painted it as a left/right issue, rather than what it really was. A direct attack on our sovereignty:

The new agreement has been greeted with suspicion by the left wing in Canada and the right wing in the U.S. The left-leaning Council of Canadians, which is campaigning against what it calls the increasing integration of the U.S. and Canadian militaries, is raising concerns about the deal.“It’s kind of a trend when it comes to issues of Canada-U.S. relations and contentious issues like military integration. We see that this government is reluctant to disclose information to Canadians that is readily available on American and Mexican websites,” said Stuart Trew, a researcher with the Council of Canadians. (8)

Casualties: All Canadian citizen's civil rights.

Victory: Stephen Harper and the USA

Civil Sovereignty:

Peter Van Loan engineered a deal with American Homeland Security that also gives their police forces jurisdiction in Canada. It was supposed to be only for the Olympics, but they have now made it permanent:

Canada and U.S. authorities are talking about extending cross-border security measures that were implemented for the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver and
were to end with the closing of the Winter Games. The RCMP and the U.S. Coast Guard have jointly patrolled the waters off Vancouver since the beginning of the month, boarding nearly 200 vessels and interviewing about 500 people in their efforts to maintain security, RCMP Sergeant Duncan Pound of the border integrity program said in an interview. (9)

I wonder how many of the goons at the G-20 were actually American.

Casualties: Canadian civil liberties

Victory: Stephen Harper and the USA

Our Natural Resources:

When fellow MP Gerry Ritz launched his one man comedy tour during the Listeriosis outbreak, our then health minister, Tony Clement, was nowhere to be found. Turns out he was in the United States protecting the 'proportionality' clause in the NAFTA agreement. This clause is good for the U.S. but could be devastating to Canada. According to the Parkland Institute:

This obscure-sounding clause essentially states that, when it comes to energy, no Canadian government can take any action which would reduce the proportion of our total energy supply which we make available to the United States from the average proportion over the last 36 months.

In other words, if over the last 36 months we have exported just under 50 per cent of our available oil (including domestic production and imports) to the United States—and we have—then no government in Canada can do anything which would result in us making less than two thirds of our total oil supply available to the US....this clause seriously jeopardizes our own energy security in this country, and severely hampers our government’s ability to set our own energy policies. ...

For example, if a natural disaster were to hit eastern Canada tomorrow, our government could not say that we will cut oil or gas exports to the US by 10 per cent in order to increase the oil and gas available for disaster relief in Canada. (10)

Military Sovereignty:

Battle: Rob Merrifield helped to draft a report for the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, entitled: From Correct to Inspired: A Blueprint for Canada U.S. Engagement that calls for annexation of Canada, with regard to the economy and our energy resources, but more importantly calls for military integration, called the "North American defense" strategy:

In a world of economic upheaval and continued insecurity, Canadians need to recognize the critical role of the United States and work with its leaders in an effective partnership that is focused not only on bilateral issues but also on global ones. To that end, US leaders need to be confident that Canada will be a reliable and effective partner in defence of its own interests ... The world’s problems, and the US role in addressing them, will prove easier to manage if the United States can count on the support of allies. As the US ambassadors confirmed, Canada can best advance its own agenda by being one of those allies. Revamping the military was a critical first step. (11)

Stephen Harper couldn't cancel the contracts for those fighter jets, even if he wanted to. The Americans won't allow it and they are calling the shots now. Gone is the notion of former prime minister Louis St. Laurent, who "believed that most Canadians wanted their country to contribute to world peace and better understanding among nations." We now have to go where the Americans tell us to go, and buy what the Americans tell us to buy.

Casualties: Canadian military sovereignty

Victory: Stephen Harper and the USA

What Do We Have left?

After surrendering everything that defines a sovereign nation, what do we have left? What now defines us? The fact that we are now an American colony is indisputable.

Harper's trade agreement when he took his 2 1/2 month vacation from democracy, has completely tied our hands at all levels of government: "In addition to ceaseless pageantry, Harper deliberately prorogued parliament a second time to enact a bill, more powerful than NAFTA to undercut our sovereignty, the Canada-European Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA). This far reaching bill will provide sub-national access to municipal services, and undermine the public sector even further, losing thousands of good, Canadian jobs to international outsourcing." (12)

We have lost control of almost all of our natural resources. The American Religious Right is dictating our morality. The American NRA is providing Harper with talking points on our gun control. An American Republican pollster drafted our environmental platform and turned Harper into a hockey puck.

So who in the hell are we now?

Columnist Andrew Marshall once said: "It’s a sad state of affairs when one loses their freedoms and rights, not through a valiant fight to keep them, but through secret agreements, quiet discussions, deceitful laws and worst of all, mass apathy on the part of the public. It’s time to speak up, speak loud, and take our countries back while we still have what remains of them, and most importantly, while we still have the freedom to speak." (13)

Touche!

Footnotes:

*Also read U.S. Northern Command, Canada Command establish new bilateral Civil Assistance Plan, February 14, 2008

Sources:

1. Election of 1988, by Stephen Azzi, Historica-Dominica

2. The National Citizens' Coalition loves you - ha! ha! ha! 35 years of fighting for fat cats while posing as ordinary citizens, NUPGE

3. Talking trade with John Turner: Canada’s eldest former Prime Minister sits down with Journal Features editors Kerri MacDonald and Michael Woods to discuss the economy, the Liberal Party and the future of Canadian democracy, The Queens Journal, October 28, 2008

4. Stephen Harper speech to the Colin Brown Memorial Dinner, National Citizens Coalition, 1994

5. U.S. investigations on Canadian soil done within the law, CBC News, October 5, 2006

6. The Jelly Bean Summit, Council of Canadians, Autumn 2007

7. Canada to join controversial nuclear partnership, Toronto Star, November 29, 2007

8. Canada, U.S. agree to use each other’s troops in civil emergencies: Canada and the U.S. have signed an agreement that paves the way for the militaries from either nation to send troops across each other’s borders during an emergency, but some are questioning why the Harper government has kept silent on the deal, By Ottawa Citizen, February 22, 2008

9. Joint RCMP-Homeland Security “Shiprider” pilot project to be made permanent, by Stuart Trew, Council of Canadians, March 20, 2008

10. Over a Barrel: Exiting from NAFTA's proportionality clause, By Gordon Laxer, John Dillon, July 16, 2008

11. From Correct to Inspired: A Blueprint for Canada-US Engagement, Canada-US Project, January 19, 2009

12. Stiffed with the bill: A private banquet at civil society's expense, By Elizabeth Littlejohn, Rabble News, September 22, 2010

13. Future of North America: Vancouver 2010, Coronation of the North American “Community”, by Andrew G. Marshall, Global Research, March 15, 2008

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)

Conrad Black Continued: Brian Mulroney

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

There is in this country a mistaken belief that the Liberals were the first to attempt to turn Canada into a Corpocracy.

And that notion has been ingrained into our psyche.

But it is wrong. In fact it was Brian Mulroney who first moved the corporate boardrooms into the Parliament Buildings, and gave Lobbyists more power than our elected officials. It was also Mulroney who created the infrastructure for the sponsorship scandal.

Another new development in that fall of 1984 was the emergence of powerful lobbyists. Until the Mulroney government came to office, lobbying
was a discreet profession in the city, practised by a few well-connected Ottawa hands ....

When Mulroney came to Ottawa, he was followed by a flock of cronies who were brazen in their determination to cash in on the friendship. They opened "consulting" or "government relations" offices, bragged openly about their access to the Boss, and devised billing systems based on retainers and — a new wrinkle — contingency fees, or percentages of the action should their efforts be successful. Some, the minnows in the Ottawa pond, opened modest one-man bucket shops in shabby office buildings; others, the barracudas, confident of raking in significant revenues, leased suites in the most expensive towers in Ottawa and filled them with teak tables, leather chairs, expensive art, and eager-beaver support staff. (1)

Mike Harris would adopt the same system with lobbyists like Guy Giorno, Tom Long and Leslie Noble. And of course, anything Mike Harris did, Stephen Harper does better.

Connie and Brian

Conrad Black and Brian Mulroney had been friends for a number of years. Mulroney was president of the Canadian Iron and Ore Company, when the Black family were major shareholders, and he was the one who first introduced Black to Power Corporation's Paul Desmarais. (2)

Mulroney once said of Black: "Conrad has a magnificent capacity for conceptualization. If I look out a window, I'll see a tree. He might see a paper mill. He can put together the pieces of any corporate puzzle." (3)

But when Mulroney was asked to mediate a deal with Hanna Mining, he warned Black that he was seen as a "paper purchaser, not a builder or job creator". (4)

Robert Anderson the president of Hanna Mining, who wanted to stop Black from taking over Hanna, was Mulroney's boss. Brian Mulroney was, by his own description, "the jam in the sandwich.' Mulroney's position was made even more delicate as the battle moved out of the boardrooms into the courts. (5)

Black rewarded Mulroney, by backing him during his failed 1976 leadership bid, and the Mulroneys remained members of Black's social circle. That circle also included Murray and Barbara Frum(6), parents of David Frum, who remains a Black supporter.

Peter White and Brian Mulroney

Peter White was a classmate of Brian Mulroney's at Laval (7), and in 1972, he was running a small newspaper in Quebec's Eastern Townships along with his partner, Conrad Black. White introduced Black to Mulroney soon after he began to get involved in politics. (8)

White worked on Mulroney's leadership campaign, drawing in an important element of support, the Tory Youth, especially a group of neoconservative youth from the University of Toronto, led by Anthony Panayi (Tony Clement):

The campus radicals were also instrumental in the defeat of federal Conservative leader Joe Clark by corporate lawyer Brian Mulroney. "In 1981 to '83 there was a guerrilla campaign against the leadership of Joe Clark orchestrated by Brian Mulroney and the people who backed Mulroney ... In Ontario, the PC campus and youth associations were all hotbeds of anti-Clark activity and we were all on the anti-Clark side." The success of the right young Tories in helping force a leadership convention and in electing Mulroney over Clark strengthened their confidence. (9)

And the Young Tories were smitten with Peter White:

Peter White had identified young Tories as strategically significant and concluded that Mulroney had to win them in order to succeed. While staying discreetly out of the campaign limelight, White started to forge relationships with youth leaders, who were impressed that someone of White's stature — a business associate of Conrad Black — was interested them. Clark, meanwhile, had nobody of comparable business lining up youth support. Nearly one-third of all delegates were youth, so the potential was enormous. (10)

White would leave Mulroney in disgust, and return to work with Conrad Black, and the relationship between Black and Mulroney would also turn sour. In 1982 when Black was under investigation in Cleveland for shady dealings, be blamed in part, his former friend:

Unlike in America, Black personally knew those involved in the investigations in Toronto, and understood the regulators' frailties. `I'll talk to the Attorney General,' he announced. Just hours after the dinner he was sitting in the office of Roy McMurtry, Ontario's Attorney General. The politician met Black without any officials, even those directing the investigation. In his quiet, mellifluous manner, Black cast blame on a range of people, including even the future Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, at that time a rising politician in Ottawa and a director of Hanna. 'The powder trail from this trumped-up charade of an investigation leads straight to Brian's door,' Black told the Attorney General. 'He was far enough along in the chain that generated the Norcen investigation that his fingerprints wouldn't be on the knife. (11)

And Mulroney would say of Black: "Conrad's problem, is that he's never had his arse sucked by a woman." (12)

Mulroney always did have a way with words.



Sources:

1. On the Take: Crime, Corruption and Greed in the Mulroney Years, By Stevie Cameron, Macfarlane Walter & Ross, 1994, ISBN: 0-921912-73-0, Pg. 21-22

2. The Establishment Man: A Portrait of Power, By Peter C. Newman, McClelland and Stewart, 1982, ISBN: 0-7710-6786-0, Pg. 224

3. Newman, 1982, Pg. 218

4. Newman, 1982, Pg. 250

5. Brian Mulroney: The Boy from Baie-Comeau, By Rae Murphy, Nick Auf der Maur, Robert Chodos, Goodread Biography, 1985, ISBN: 13-978-0887-801372, Pg. 129

6. Newman, 1982, Pg. 267

7. Cameron, 1994, Pg. 18

8. Mulroney: The Making of a Prime Minister, By L. Lan MacDonald, McClelland and Stewart, 1985, ISBN: 0-7710-5469, Pg. 82

9. Promised Land: Inside the Mike Harris Revolution, By John Ibbitson, 1997, ISBN: 0136738648, Pg. 33

10. Mulroney: The Politics of Ambition, By John Sawatsky, McFarlane, Walter & Ross, 1991, ISBN: 0-921912-06-4, Pg. 472

11. Conrad & Lady Black: Dancing on the Edge, By Tom Bower, Harper Press, 2006, ISBN: 10-000-723234-9, Pg. 66

12. Bower, 2006, Pg. 387

The Tamil Refugee Situation is Reform Party Deja Vu

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

"The Reform Party is anti-everything. There's a really deep, deep-seated racism there. I still don't know what to make of Reform. I know that for the moment it's growing, but these are one-trick ponies. They're not standing on a whole lot of solid ground - it's all negative." - Brian Mulroney (1)

The recent Tamil Refugee situation was another test for this government. Had they shed their racist views or were they the same old Reform Party?

Are we again going to hear that gays and "ethnics" could be fired or "moved to the back of the shop," if the employer thought that would help business. Or that "a larger number of blacks and Asians are entering Canada; for the first generation, their birth rate is higher and you don't have to be an expert to understand what could happen. Canada as we know it could disappear." (2)

Or maybe that Canada is likely to "regret" taking in large numbers of third world immigrants because they prove "harder to integrate." "Policies which maintain the traditional [European] composition of immigrants, on the other hand, avoid the risk of having to face the longer run costs." (2)

Stephen Harper himself called multiculturalism "a weak nation policy" (3).

On June 25, 2009, he designated Pier 21 as a National Museum of Immigration.

"No country in the world has benefited more than Canada from free and open immigration," Harper declared. "In every region and across all professions, new Canadians make major contributions to our culture, economy and way of life. It takes a special kind of person to uproot and move to a new country to ensure a better future for your family. Anybody who makes the decision to live, work and build a life in our country represents the very best of what it means to be Canadian." (4)

But then a year later, when his words were put to the test:

The harrowing voyage of the MV Sun Sea, in which 492 Tamil refugees endured months of squalor in dangerous waters to escape "mass murders, disappearances and extortion" following 25 years of brutal civil war in Sri Lanka, mirrors the experience of so many migrants who passed through Pier 21.

However, unlike Pier 21, there were no counsellors waiting to hear the Sri Lankan's stories; no team of volunteers eager to swiftly process and fairly evaluate the prospective new residents. Instead, the men, women and children aboard the MV Sun Sea arrived to allegations, leveled by the Harper government, of ties to terrorism and human trafficking; accused by Public Safety Minister Vic Toews of being a "test boat" for an apparent mass immigration conspiracy.

As for the Prime Minister, compare the above remarks made at Pier 21 just fourteen months ago, to this statement he gave following the arrival of the MV Sun Sea: "Canadians are pretty concerned when a whole boat of people comes - not through any normal application process, not through any normal arrival channel -- and just simply lands." (4)

This sounds like the National Citizens Coalition's "Boat People" campaign. Tap into a nation's fears and insecurities, so that we accept inhumane acts.

"This is how this man governs: let's find something to be frightened of," Ignatieff told an audience of several hundred people today (August 22) at the West Vancouver Community Centre. The federal Opposition leader cited the example of Tamil refugee claimants, who travelled in a rickety boat across the Pacific Ocean and arrived in B.C. earlier this month. Ignatieff claimed that federal Conservative politicians tried to make people "afraid of people you don't even know".

He added that officials with the Immigration and Refugee Board should have been left to do the proper screening without interference. "Politicians should shut up and let these people do their job," Ignatieff declared to loud applause. He pointed out that his own father was a refugee who fled Communism in Russia. "We must always be a haven in a heartless world," Ignatieff said. (5)

"We must always be a haven in a heartless world." I like that. It defines the kind of country Canada used to be.

Sources:

1. The Secret Mulroney Tapes: Unguarded Confessions of a Prime Minister, By Peter C. Newman, Clandebye Ltd., 2005, ISBN: 10-0-679-31351-6, Pg.244

2. Reform apple basket rotting, by Bradley Hughes, Simon Fraser University's Student Newspaper, September 9, 1996

3. Harper speech to the Institute for Research on Public Policy, May 2003

4. Canadian immigration, Conservative xenophobia, By Alheli Picazo, Rabble, August 25, 2010

5. In West Vancouver, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff says Stephen Harper promotes fear, By Charlie Smith, Straight.com, August 22, 2010

Brian Mulroney Continued: Marjory LeBreton and Entitlement to Taxpayers Purse

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

"They haven't changed since they hanged Riel" Marjory LeBreton on Manitoba after the 1993 election results (1)

According to her bio, the 70-year-old Marjory LeBreton has worked for four leaders of the now defunct, Progressive Conservative Party of Canada - John Diefenbaker, Robert Stanfield, Joe Clark and Brian Mulroney.

That's true, though she should mention that she never liked Joe Clark, and liked his wife even less (2), but I suppose that's water under the bridge.

She was appointed senator by Brian Mulroney in 1993, but before that she was responsible for many patronage appointments, especially to the senate. This job was formerly handled by Peter White, who went back to work for Conrad Black.

Marjory LeBreton took over the unofficial patronage portfolio after Peter White's departure:Leading up to the leadership, people used to say, in the party, "You know, Brian Mulroney would be a great leader, but boy, I am worried about his friends." You would hear that, and I used to say, "Don't be so silly, everybody has liabilities Joe Clark has got a fair sprinkling of them, I don't mind telling you.

LeBreton dealt with dozens of demands and requests, particularly when Senate seats became available. Seven prominent Tories explicitly asked for appointments: I had John Reynolds on the phone lobbying for a Senate seat for himself, and giving me this pitch that it should be someone that could go on the talk shows. I said, "Gee, John, I haven't noticed you being out there."

Gerry St. Germain wrote a letter to the prime minister talking about the sacrifices he's made. I actually felt sorry when I read it. It said something to the effect that he would want to serve in the Senate and then he ended the letter by saying, "If you decide to choose someone else, please know that you will have my absolute loyalty." Jim Doak, who was seventy-four, was actually going to sign a letter saying that he would only stay there for a year, just to be called a senator. Doak was originally the president of the party in Manitoba under Diefenbaker.

Duncan Jessiman was another of the old party bagmen stalwarts, but he had supported the prime minister financially when he ran for leadership. He was seventy years old, and he sent the Prime Minister a kind of "you owe me" letter, and you know the prime minister people have helped him out. He [didn't make him a senator but] put Dunc in the best appointment he could give at the time, which was on the board of Air Canada, and of course we privatized Air Canada and they didn't keep him on the board, but they gave him a lifetime pass.

We had Kate Schellenberg [later Kate Manvell] in BC. She was married to Ted Schellenberg, who was the MP from Nanaimo. She wrote a long letter to the prime minister just before Christmas. As the prime minister was reading it, he said, "There must be some reason she's writing." The last paragraph was, "I'd like to be named to that vacant Senate seat from BC." We made her a citizenship court judge. Pat Carney asked for the Senate seat too, but claims she didn't. (3)

LeBreton is now Leader of the Government in the Canadian Senate, an appointment given her by Stephen Harper as payment for help with his 2006 campaign. I wonder how many letters and requests she fielded for Harper's patronage senate appointments.

Corruption Knew no Bounds

Erik Nielsen*, shown to the right, was the first Deputy Prime Minister under Mulroney, who eventually quit because of the rampant corruption in the Party.

Not that he was immune to making patronage appointments, and in fact developed a system where all party faithfuls had a say:

The way Nielsen envisaged it, the first stream would fill the top jobs at Crown corporations such as Air Canada, Export Development Corporation, the Atomic Energy Control Board and the CBC, as well as slots in bodies like the Parole Board and the Immigration Appeal Board, which required members with genuine expertise.

The party faithful who had raised money and volunteers in campaigns across the country would constitute the second stream, a pool from which candidates would be drawn to fill positions in arts agencies, marketing boards, and citizenship courts. Nielsen expected Tories to be appointed to the major boards as well, but he believed the chairmanships and presidencies should be set aside for people who had more than political credentials. There was a distinction, he insisted, between what was pure patronage and what had to be a selection of highly qualified persons to run government enterprises. (4)

With 3,000 patronage appointments to fill, Nielson established provincial advisory committees, who would bring forward likely candidates for various jobs, and these recommendations then went to a national advisory committee. He had patronage down to a science, but it soon became clear that the final decisions were in the hands of only one person, who more often than not completely disregarded any suggestions by the provincial groups.

Loaded as they were with old Mulroney associates, the provincial committees were being ignored and their recommendation, bypassed within three months of their inauguration. The national committee? It was a joke, "a mere facade," snorts Nielsen ... So I stopped chairing. I just simply stopped going to the meetings. My presence there was totally ineffective and superfluous." The committee's executive committee faded away and the process was taken over by Marjory LeBreton. (4)

A Champagne Taste on a Beer Income

The Mulroneys led an extravagant lifestyle, mostly on what would appear to be tax dollars and influence pedaling:

"He always lived up to the hilt" said one of his oldest friends. Like Mila, Mulroney enjoyed living and working in luxurious surroundings decorated with fine furniture and good paintings ... And he too liked expensive clothes. In the mid-1980s he would buy several $2,000 suits at one time from Bijan in Manhattan, one of the most expensive stores in New York, and of course he has long indulged a weakness for Gucci loafers at about $500 a pair.

One individual who has known Mulroney well since his days at Iron Ore is Conrad Black. In his 1993 autobiography 'A Life in Progress', Black patronizingly described the Mulroney he knew in the 1970s. Even though Mulroney had become successful wrote Black with the confidence of someone to the manner born, "he still felt himself quite keenly to be the underprivileged lad from Baie-Comeau, son of the foreman in the Chicago Tribune's news print mill who identified more with the French than the English,and more with the lower economic echelons than than with the scions of wealthy Westmount . . . He had the attitude to money of someone who didn't have any himself but had seen other scatter lavishly - he appreciated it more in the spending than in the accumulation, the latter a process he tended to oversimplify. And politically he had the attitude to money of someone who came to maturity in last years of Duplessis when the tangible fruits of a long incumbency were being extravagantly dispersed. He had the heart of a working man but the tastes of the rich." (5)

What my mom would call having a champagne taste on a beer income.

Before leaving public office, Brian Mulroney had got himself into a financial mess and was indebted to the Progressive Conservative party to the tune of more than $ 200,000.00 Many of these expenditures had been approved by Marjory LeBreton.

To raise needed funds he tried to sell some of his personal furnishings that were then at 24 Sussex Drive, at inflated prices to the Government of Canada. However, the media got wind of it and the deal was off. So he instead he got himself involved with Karlheinz Schrieber.

And LeBreton has done very well for herself, without apparently no post-secondary education, but referred to as "one of the hard-ass operatives" (6), a left over of the Mulroney years.

Footnotes:

*Brother of actor Leslie Nielsen.

Sources:

1. The Secret Mulroney Tapes: Unguarded Confessions of a Prime Minister, By Peter C. Newman, Clandebye Ltd., 2005, ISBN: 10-0-679-31351-6, Pg. 418

2. Newman, 2005, Pg. 248

3. Newman, 2005, Pg. 89-90

4. On the Take: Crime, Corruption and Greed in the Mulroney Years, By Stevie Cameron, Macfarlane Walter & Ross, 1994, ISBN: 0-921912-73-0, Pg. 185-186

5. Cameron, 1994, Pg. 394-395

6. Newman, 2005, Pg. 168

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