The Politics of Conceit: "Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better"

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

In September of 2009, journalist and author, Murray Dobbin, wrote for the Tyee:

It seems irrefutable to me after 20 years of analyzing the career of Stephen Harper that he is incapable of providing democratic governance. Harper arguably shows some traits of what psychologists refer to as malignant narcissism, a dangerously heightened sense of self importance. Otto Kernberg, a leader in the study of personality disorders, describes malignant narcissism as "extreme self-absorption and insensitivity that often result in a trail of victims -- emotional wreckage left in the narcissist's wake." The victims Kernberg refers to are, of course, individuals, but in our case the principal victim is the Canadian nation -- its humanist accomplishments, its art and culture, the foundation of its science, its international standing and its democratic governance. (1)

At the time I agreed with his analysis, but only superficially. Harper's arrogance was revealed in everything he did, but I didn't really view it as a possible illness.

Then I came across a piece by Green Party leader Elizabeth May, that showed Harper's love of self in a different light. She had been acting as Speaker of the House for the Queens University Model Parliament, and had an opportunity to visit the Government Lobby.

The Government Lobby was a frequent work space when I was Senior Policy Advisor to the federal Minister of Environment back in the mid-1980s ... [but] it did not strike me until I walked into the Government Lobby to await my turn as Speaker that I had not been in there since Stephen Harper became Prime Minister. It used to have some paintings on the wall. Past prime ministers, certainly a formal portrait of the Queen. Landscapes. I know there was the occasional photo of current Prime Ministers, but when I walked in this time, I felt chilled to the bone.

Every available wall space had a large colour photo of Stephen Harper. Stephen Harper at Alert. Stephen Harper in fire fighter gear. Stephen Harper at his desk. Stephen Harper meeting the Dalai Lama. Even the photo of the Queen showed her in the company of Stephen Harper. None were great photos. None were more than enlarged snapshots in colour. They didn’t feel like art. The student with me said it was the same in Langevin Block, the Prime ministers Office. Photos of Stephen Harper everywhere. I will advance no theories as to what this means. ... The one thing I know is that it means something. (2)

This was later confirmed in the Ottawa Citizen. (3)

I bring this up often, because it kinda' freaks me out. I'm a fan of shows like CSI and Criminal Minds, and it reminds of a stalker's lair. Only he's stalking himself. Creepy.

I just finished chapter two of Lawrence Martin's new book, Harperland, and while he is doing a very good job at keeping balance, there are some revelations that help to unravel the complexities of Stephen Harper.

And what's interesting is that the most compelling statements come from insiders. People left in the "emotional wreckage [of] the narcissist's wake", but remain for the most part supportive.

Martin says that Stephen Harper has tried to emulate Pierre Trudeau, not politically, but by replicating the things he used to stay in power for so long. He fails to understand that we liked Trudeau in spite of those things, because he was moving us in the right direction. His legacy is the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

But even with those whose politics he agrees with, Stephen Harper has always been more concerned with how they achieved and held onto power. In William Johnson's book Stephen Harper and the Future of Canada, he speaks of Harper's fondness for Margaret Thatcher.

And yet the story was not "let's study her policies and adopt them". But instead he and his friend John Weissenberger, read all of her election speeches looking for the right phrases to "win". (4)

But there is something else that goes back to the notion of Stephen Harper being the clinical definition of a malignant narcissist.

His friends and colleagues when speaking to Lawrence Martin, used terms like "cold", "He doesn't have human warmth", "sunless", "an emotionless robot". A former classmate called him "aloof" and said that "If there was a social event going on, he'd be the guy in the corner; pen and paper in pocket, looking at us in a kind of condescending way." (5)

The Encyclopedia Britannica defines narcissism as a:

Mental disorder characterized by extreme self-absorption, an exaggerated sense of self-importance, and a need for attention and admiration from others ... narcissism is characterized by an unusual coolness and composure, which is shaken only when the narcissistic confidence is threatened, and by the tendency to take others for granted or to exploit them.

Stephen Harper is his happiest when he's at a photo-op. You can see it. He's not acting, so his robotic nature is gone. He's in his element. All of these people focused on "him". All dedicated to making "him" look good. All paying "attention" and filled with "admiration" for "him". His "unusual coolness and composure" are gone, even if only for that brief moment in time.

And we've seen him "shaken" when his confidence was threatened. Look at how he acted in the House of Commons during the coalition threat. Or when Michael Ignatieff was challenging him and he suggested that he had been pouring over old tapes. His confidence was gone and it was visible. What we witnessed was panic.

And there's no argument that he has a "tendency to take others for granted or to exploit them". A common complaint from insiders. Look at how easily he can exploit religion, or the immigrant population for political gain. A man who is not religious and has referred to multiculturalism as a "weak nation strategy", can turn himself into a supporter so easily. He's like a Chameleon, changing colours to suit the situation.

So while he learned the art of the attack ad from Arthur Finklestein, and was indoctrinated by the anti-liberalism, anti-communist crowd; his real passion is power. The ultimate aphrodisiac for the malignant narcissist.

And with that I've come to realize something else. While he does follow the neoconservative principles adhered to by people like Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and Roger Douglas, I also sense a bit of contempt.

While all three of those people did a great deal of damage, and widened the gap between rich and poor irrevocably, they also had something else in common. They all failed to finish the job they started.

I think that Stephen Harper believes in his condescending, narcissistic way, that he will win. That he will be the first to reach the ultimate goal. He will no longer be a "follower" of Thatcherism, Reaganomics or Rogernomics. Future neocons will follow him, and "Harperism" will be their battle cry.

He may be delusional, but no one has ever accused him of being sane.

And who knows. Maybe if he can hold onto power long enough ....

Previous:

The Politics of Contempt: The Nixon-Harper Ticket

The Politics of Hate: Where Will it Lead?

Sources:

1. Stephen Harper, Unfit to Govern: Few are thrilled to have another election, but we must put it to good use, By Murray Dobbin, The Tyee, September 10, 2009

2. Model Parliament, By Elizabeth May, Green Party, January 26, 2008

3. Harper gallery leaves MPs speechless: Citizens who really want a national portrait gallery in Ottawa can rest easy. The government already has one, By The Ottawa Citizen, January 29, 2008

4. Stephen Harper and the Future of Canada, by William Johnson, McClelland & Stewart, 2005, ISBN 0-7710 4350-3, Pg. 49

5. Harperland:The Politics of Control, By Lawrence Martin, Viking Press, 2010, ISBN: 978-0-670-06517-2, Pg. 8

Mike Harris and the American "Common Sense" Revolution

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

The popular lore surrounding the Common Sense Revolution of Mike Harris, was that someone on their "whiz kid" team suggested that their platform be based on "common sense", and eureka, the title was born.

Sounds lovely. Unfortunately it's a load of bunk.

It was actually borrowed from south of the border, and as with everything else related to Canada's neoconservative movement, came from a Republican strategist.

Tom Long and Mike Murphy

Between 1990 and their abysmal showing in the election, to 1995 when they were swept to victory, the young ideologues or "whiz kids" worked tirelessly to create a platform and persona for Mike Harris. The platform was easy, most of it borrowed from Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. But selling it was going to be the obstacle.

How do you tell an electorate that you are going to drastically cut funding for health care and education and make it palpable?

First off, you don't. Instead you follow the advise of Gerry Nicholls, then heading up Ontarians for Responsible Government, part of the National Citizens Coalition. You look for an enemy. And in this case the enemy was "taxes".

When Stephen Harper was trying to figure out how to sell his Reform Party's neoconservative platform, he had his friend John Weissenberger "dig up the Conservative Party manifestos under which Margaret Thatcher had fought her first elections as leader of the opposition." (1)

But the Harris team instead turned to Republican strategist Mike Murphy, who was a close personal friend of Tom Long's. Long had spent a great deal of time in the United States and had even worked on Ronald Reagan's campaign, so he knew how the game was played.

Just learning that Mike Murphy was part of the Harris team made the opposition nervous. (2) His reputation was and still is, well known as a details man. (3)

He had just come off a successful campaign for New Jersey governor, Christine Todd Whitman:

One of Tom Long's closest friends happened to be Mike Murphy, an American political consultant who later ran right-wing extremist Lamar Alexander's unsuccessful bid for the Republican presidential primary. In 1993, however, Murphy was advising another Republican, Christine Todd Whitman, in her successful campaign for the governorship of New Jersey. Whitman defeated a popular Democratic incumbent, Jim Florio, primarily on the basis of a Murphy-inspired campaign using a "common sense" slogan and pledging a 30 per cent tax cut. Since her victory, the activities of her government in implementing this plan had been carefully charted by Harris aide Bill King. In March 1994, Harris actually travelled to New Jersey to meet Whitman and discuss strategy. Two months later, the "Common Sense Revolution" with its 30 per cent tax cut was unveiled. (4)

When the Harris government's tax cuts were implemented, so too were user fees and the reduction of money going to municipalities, meaning no real savings. These were the same complaints heard by New Jersey residents under Whitman. She did follow through on the 30% tax cut, but was forced to raid the state pension fund to balance the budget. She also cut 4,000 jobs from the public service and reduced money going to municipalities, resulting in higher property taxes. So again, no one really gained. (5)

What's interesting is that Whitman's 1997 campaign was "Promises Made. Promises Kept" This became the rallying cry of the Harper government, so they too must have tapped into Murphy's messaging. Unfortunately it was just hot air after breaking his promise on Income Trusts.

" ... if you go to a Harper rally, you can’t hear yourself think for all the Tories chanting “promise made, promise kept” over and over again like a herd of demented Moonies. Some of them get so excited they smack themselves in the forehead over and over again while they chant it. During the last election Jason Kenney was forced to apply liberal amounts of pancake makeup above his eyebrows to hide the bruising.

Well thank God that’s over. Because the next time Stephen Harper or any of his minions chant “promise made, promise kept,” you might want to step back, because if there is a God, the forecast calls for lightning." (6)

Tony Clement Takes on the Reform Party

Sources:

1. Stephen Harper and the Future of Canada, by William Johnson, Douglas-Gibson, 2005, ISBN 0-7710 4350-3 6, Pg. 49

2. Right Turn: How the Tories Took Ontario, By Christina Blizzard, Dundern Press, 1995, ISBN 1550022547, Pg. 3

3. G.O.P. Attack Dog And Chief Hand-Holder; Lazio Adviser Has a History of Making Ads Snarl and Politicians Feel Confident, By Eisabeth Bumiller, New York Times, July 13, 2000

4. Hard Right Turn: The New Face of Neo-Conservatism in Canada, Brooke Jeffrey, Harper-Collins, 1999, ISBN: 0-00 255762-2 4, Pg. 166

5. Conservative hopes for off-year elections, by Bernadette Malone, Policy Review No 85, 1997

6. Promise Made Promise Kept, By Rick Mercer, November 6, 2006

Fate Brings Anthony Panayi to Canada With Fateful Consequences

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

Tony Panayi arrived with his parents to Canada when he was just four-years-old. Of Middle Eastern descent, his father a Greek Cypriot and his mother a Canadian. This was 1965 and by 1972, his parents had separated, and he would spend the rest of his childhood in a high-rise apartment in Toronto.

He cut his political teeth campaigning door to door with his mother for her boss, Ontario Tory MPP Bill Hodgson. However, he was never a Progressive Conservative at heart, and in fact his political beliefs were what is now called neoconservative.

"What I saw on the front of Time magazine, which I read religiously every week, was this failure of the American democratic impulse," he remembers. "Around us was the fall of Vietnam, the emasculation of American power, Watergate .... What I remember was the frontal assault on American power, and the encroachment by communism all over the world. And in Canada, there were the failed experiments of Pierre Trudeau. His economic experiments were a shambles, his anti-Americanism wasn't getting us anywhere, the increasing role of the state in all aspects of our lives was, in my view, creating more problems than it was solving. And then in 1978 you had this woman named Margaret Thatcher, who proved you could turn back some of the awful things done by socialism and set things right again. And then in 1980 you had this guy Ronald Reagan. They showed you could have conservative principles and still win." (1)

Unfortunately, Clement was misguided by his heroes. Margaret Thatcher was a train wreck:

When Margaret Thatcher was elected I started my first year at university. Very quickly in the face of her Reagan-inspired "hard economics" and austerity treatment I saw every possibility of employment at the end of my course evaporate. 3.3 million were unemployed with no hope of a job. The economy went into recession and the dole was being withdrawn unless you could "prove" you were actively searching for work. It ruined millions of people's lives and put millions more into unproductive boredom and hardship. It cost the country £40b in lost productivity and the only thing Margaret did was make it worse. (2)

And Ronald Reagan, while he preached small government, actually expanded the government and his horrible economics made the rich richer and created the most homeless people in the history of the United States. (3) He also increased the debt by two trillion dollars, while increasing federal spending and federal staff. (4)

Nonetheless, Panayi "... arrived at the University of Toronto in 1979 filled with missionary zeal to bring the faith of Thatcher and Reagan to the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario ..." (1)

But he also arrived with something else ... a new name. His mother had just married former MPP John Clement, and though already an adult more or less, Tony decided to take his stepfather's name, reinventing himself as Tony Clement.

The same year, 1979, another young man would enrol at the University of Toronto, but would only stay for two months, opting to move to Edmonton to take a job in the mail room at Imperial Oil, the company his father had worked for. This would be his only real job outside of politics. Also an avid fan of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, Stephen Harper would go on to help found the Reform Party, lead the Alliance Party and eventually become the movement's first prime minister. (5)

It's unlikely that Clement and Harper met at the school, but Tony did find willing accomplices in fellow students Alister Campbell, Tom Long and Mitch Patten, all sharing the same ideology.

"At a time when the rest of the country was enchanted with the charismatic prime minister [Trudeau] and his vision of Canada, simply being a Conservative was an unusual choice. To be committed to the neoconservative agenda of Thatcher and Reagan during this period was nothing short of suicidal, politically speaking." (6)

And yet this small group of young radicals were able to take over the campus Conservatives, increasing it's membership from being almost nothing to 500, with gimmicks (Clement once dressed in a penguin costume), and aggressive marketing. Did they change minds? It's difficult to know, but they presented a platform that was anything but the status quo:

They believed that governments needed to cut taxes in order stimulate spending and increase individual choice, that they needed to balance their budgets in order to escape the trap of escalating deficits, that they needed to get out of most economic regulation in order to let the market reward winners, punish losers, and generate wealth for everyone. Most important, governments needed to abolish most of their social programs, which took money from people who earned it and gave it to people who hadn't. Such a doctrine was anathema to moderate Conservatives, who felt, as former federal leader Robert Stanfield argued, that the market should not be trusted more than was necessary. (7)

And not content with simply drawing in the conservative minded they also sought to change the views of the left:

Eventually the young PCs at the University of Toronto also decided to take on their left-wing enemies on campus, launching a campaign against a proposal to double the compulsory fees levied against each student in support of the Ontario Federation of Students. The Tories accused the federation of wasting money on a bloated administration, and of worrying more about helping the Sandinistas than representing student interests. (Among other things, the Tories put up a sign in an Engineering building proclaiming "Three dollars will get you the Ontario Federation of Students or seven beers at the Brunswick House. Take your pick.") They won a referendum on the issue in a landslide. (7)

They quickly became a force to be reckoned with:

By the early 1980s, as Mike Harris was first finding his feet as a young MPP, the neo-conservative youth were an increasing power within the provincial Conservatives. Long—a bit older than most of the others, passionate and uncompromising—led the troops. "There were huge fights over who was going to control the campus wing of the party," Long remembers. "That got settled in the late seventies, and for about ten years or so my faction controlled the campus wing." In 1982, Long managed the campaign that secured control for the neo-cons of the executive of the Progressive Conservative Youth Association. Both the campus and youth wings of the party were now firmly led by ideologues of the far Right. These wings were important to the party, both for the influence they wielded at leadership conventions, and for the legions of indefatigable volunteers they supplied during campaigns. (7)

But they would soon move on to bigger challenges as they steered toward taking over not just a university campus, but an entire province.

Why Do Neoconservatives Hate Nelson Mandela?

Sources:

1. Promised Land: Inside the Mike Harris Revolution, By John Ibbitson, 1997, ISBN: 0136738648, Pg. 30

2. 1979: Looking back at the Thatcher era, By Mike Rumfitt, May 4, 2005

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

4. Tear Down This Myth: The Right-Wing Distortion of the Reagan Legacy, By Will Bunch, Free Press, ISBN: 978-1-4165-9762-9

5. Stephen Harper and the Future of Canada, by William Johnson, 2005, ISBN 0-7710 4350-3

6. Jeffrey, 1999, Pg. 164

7. Ibbitson, 1997, Pg. 31-32

Chapter Sixteen Continued: Armed Intellectuals

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

"Only the ruin of all made him ruler over all." Konrad Heiden

Adolf Hitler was an unlikely politician, and even less likely a world leader. And yet this very ordinary man became an extraordinary public figure, whose face is one of the most recognizable in the western world, even more than half a century after his death.

There have been many books written about his rise to power, using his childhood as an excuse for his later evil.

But I see something else. I see him as more of a protagonist. The central character in a literary plot. The leading actor cast by successful playwright and stage director Dietrich Eckart, who was with him almost constantly after discovering him in a beer hall in Munich.

He taught him how to speak and how to use his arms for dramatic effect. Characteristics that might have been seen as flaws by others, were exploited. Hitler's natural jerky movements, and gravelly voice as a result of mustard gas during the war, all played into the mystique.

His character: Vladimir Soloviev's Antichrist.

And when studying the creation of Adolf Hitler, it's not too difficult to recognize a familiar pattern. He is probably the best case study for the phenomenon of image politics. A chameleon who would become the perfect personification of the leader of many causes, while being the champion of none.

Because the only thing that Adolf Hitler really believed in, was his own greatness.

The Validity of a Movement

When members of the Thule Society came up with the idea of creating a party, it was the natural progression of an organization that was becoming increasingly political. They viewed the lawlessness of post-war Germany as a threat to their cause.

Rape, promiscuity and abortion was on the rise. The grand plan of creating a perfect Aryan race was becoming less attainable. There was a "Jewish conspiracy" to take over the world. They needed a miracle.

But that miracle did not arrive as the result of the efforts of the upper echelon of the Thule Society, who were holding seances to conjure one up; but from one of the lower members who creatively "conjured up" the long awaited saviour of the Teutonic races.

And while the resulting party would be one based purely on ideology - the ideology of a society that dabbled in the occult; the infrastructure for such a party was built through earthly endeavours.

Before assuming power they spent more than a decade creating a shadow government, shaping public opinion and selling the idea of a noble cause. To German citizens they were going to save Germany and to the moneyed people of the Thule Society, they were going to save the Aryan race.

But such lofty goals could not be achieved without a veritable army. An army of what Heiden would call "armed intellectuals".

... thousands of youthful, ex-Army officers were streaming back from defeat to poverty and unemployment in the Weimar Republic. They were "armed intellectuals," war-hardened products of Germany's prewar universities. They became an army of the armed bohemians, of heroes and murderers by conviction .

. . They had lost prestige, social position, ideals—"tossed this way and that way," wrote one of them, "just for the sake of our daily bread; gathering men about us and playing soldiers with them; brawling and drinking, roaring and smashing windows—destroying and shattering" . . . They drew to them the flotsam, the stragglers living on the fringe of their class . . . the unemployed . . . the declassed of all classes .... an upper layer that has lost its hold in society seeks the people and finds the rabble ...

... They found their leader in the lowest mass of their subordinates. The spirit of history, in its fantastic mockery, could not have drawn an apter figure. Raving Dervish ... the [formerly] homeless derelict from the Viennese melting pot ...this man who exhorted them with all the semi-education of his age, using miserable German, defective logic, tasteless humor and false pathos ... (1)

And they would soon draw more foot soldiers from all levels of society. Labourers, teachers, public servants et al; all saw in Adolf Hitler what they wanted to see. A man who represented them.

Gottfried Feder and Party Economics

Just as William Aberhart's Social Credit Party was intent on changing the way that Alberta handled it's finances, the Thule Society that was grooming Adolf Hitler, also had plans to change the way the Germany did business.

As part of his indoctrination Adolf was introduced to another Thule member, Gottfried Feder, and it is said that he finally agreed to join the German Worker's Party after listening to Feder speak. (2)

Feder's lecture was about "Jewish finance capitalism" and he showed an open hostility towards wealthy bankers and spoke of 'breaking the shackles of interest'. He believed that all German banks should be nationalized and he called for the abolishment of interest.

In February 1920, together with Adolf Hitler and Anton Drexler, Feder drafted a paper, called the "25 points" which became the party's platform. When the paper was announced on February 14, 1920, more than 2,000 people attended the rally.

And just as Social Credit clubs were springing up across Alberta, a momentum was building for a regime change in Germany. Finally there was a political movement with clear plans to rescue the country from sure ruin.

Chapter Sixteen Continued: The Beer Hall Putsch

Footnotes:

*He would later have to tone down the rhetoric, because of the heavy support to the party by wealthy industrialists and would only become the under-secretary to the minister of economics, when the future Nazi Party formed a government.

Sources:

1. Master of the Masses, Time Magazine, February 07, 1944

2. Hitler: Profiles in Power, by: Ian Kershaw, Longman House UK, 1991, ISBN: 0-582-08053-3, Pg. 21

The Fraser Institute: From Chickens to Iron Ladies

The Fraser Institute was founded in 1974 in British Columbia, to provide alternative policy to what some feared was an attempt to turn Canada into a socialist country.

In it's early days it supported the British Columbia Social Credit Party of William Bennet, and it's founder Michael Walker, even spoke to the Premier's cabinet.

Early influences were Milton Friedman, Ronald Reagan's economic advisor, and famed free marketeer, Friedrich Hayek.

Hayek, who became a Fraser Institute adviser, originated the idea of setting up fake scholarly organizations to supply authoritative studies demonstrating the superiority of markets over governments in solving all our problems. Why fake? Because a genuine academic organization would not start with a conclusion and then look for arguments and evidence to support it. (1)

When Walker was first establishing the Fraser, he also got direction from the British; Institute for Economic Affairs, where Margaret Thatcher would later snatch two of her advisers; Alan Waters and Ralph Harris. (2)

The IEA was founded by Antony Fisher, a man who made a fortune after introducing factory chicken farming to Britain. He had read a summary Hayek's The Road to Serfdom and became hooked on free market economy.

Thatcher was also greatly inspired by Hayek, and governed primarily from his theories. The think tank that Hayek suggested Fisher create, became a great propaganda vehicle for her policies.

The concept of these think tanks is brilliant. They register as a charity, entitling them to endowments, and tax free fundraising; yet they serve as a propaganda arm for party politics.

The late author, Pierre Berton, had denounced the institute as reflective of right-wing bias and Mel Hurtig said the Fraser Institute only published reports that espouse its right-wing view of the world. "I never have in the past, nor do I expect to in the future, ever pay serious attention to anything published by the Fraser Institute." (3)

And an article in The Province magazine, seems to support past ties to Social Credit:

The organizations which support the Fraser Institute ... appear to be dominating B.C. politics through their use of the institute as a propaganda and government lobby instrument, says a report released by the Solidarity Coalition.... "Virtually the entire range of big forestry based capital in B.C. has membership linkages of a direct or indirect type with the Fraser Institute.... For the large corporations, sponsorship of the Fraser Institute produces a variety of benefits, both immediate and longer-term. In many instances, there is a direct connection between the policies of the institute and the interests of corporations."

The report concludes that the provincial government "has leaned heavily on the Fraser Institute to provide an ideological rationalization" for its recent program-chopping legislation. (4)

When the Reform Party was being created, Stephen Harper paid a visit to the Fraser, and his relationship with them has been mutually beneficial.

Just a year after the Fraser's anniversary, Harper was prime minister and it was payback time. Buried in his first budget was a provision to exempt from capital gains tax donations of stock to charity. Adding this new exemption to the existing tax credit for donations to charities means that the donor pays only 40 percent of the dollars he donates. Taxpayers pick up the rest.

The Fraser Institute is a registered charity. Of course, not only the Fraser will benefit from this new exemption. There are many thousands of registered charities in Canada, but only a few are likely to see their funding increase. Expect large endowments to come the Fraser's way. The institute's annual budget is $6 million and climbing. Hundreds of newly minted Calgary paper multimillionaires own shares in oil companies that have skyrocketed in value over the past few years.

Their shares will continue to rise as long as the government doesn't apply the provisions of the Kyoto Accord. Now they can help the conservative cause at little cost to themselves. Critics of the Fraser Institute will have to grit their teeth, pay their taxes, and bemoan the fact that they are supporting its work. (1)

Sources:

1. Harperstein, Straight.com, By Donald Gutstein, July 6, 2006

2. Marketing the market, Vancouver Review, By: Jon Steeves, Summer 1992

3. Berton, Hurtig slam Fraser Institute.., Vancouver Sun, September 22, 1987:

4. Fraser Dominates Politics, The Province, October 27, 1983

--------------------------------------------------------------

Continuation:

* The Fraser Institute, Roger Douglas and Revisionist History

Brian Mulroney, Roger Douglas and a United Front

Brian Mulroney would come to power in Canada, the same year that David Lange became prime minister of New Zealand.

Lange's appointment of Roger Douglas as Minister of Finance, would have an impact on Canadian politics for years, and he would play heavily into the policies of our neoconservative government under Stephen Harper.

Brain Mulroney came from corporate Canada, so naturally the business elite looked to him to make the same "tough choices" as Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher; who were already well known gurus of the neoconservative movement.

Here, surely, is the most authentic Canadian equivalent to the New Zealand experiment. It was elected to office only two months after David Lange's Labour victory of 1984, winning the largest parliamentary majority in Canadian history. Mulroney himself was the first Prime Minister since the depression to emerge from the corporate class, and his government's first Economic and Fiscal Statement outlined a comprehensive neo-liberal [Libertarian] agenda. (1)

But Mulroney got off to a slow start, in the eyes of the corporate elite and "free marketeers", though the left didn't agree, dubbing him "Reagan on the Rideau".

He would, however, put an end to the National Energy Program, a demand of Western Canada, and a campaign promise. But they would soon wish he hadn't, though you'd be hard pressed to find any Westerner today agreeing with you.

"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)

Mulroney would try to push through a free trade agreement with the United States, but then Liberal leader John Turner was adamantly opposed. The New York Times reported:

CANADA'S opposition Liberal Party announced last month that its majority in the upper house [senate] of Parliament would block the legislation necessary to implement a free-trade agreement that Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, a Progressive Conservative, had negotiated with the United States.

In a counter move to try to salvage his treaty, Mr. Mulroney is considered virtually certain to call an early election, possibly for October, and the treaty is likely to be the dominant issue in the campaign.

The trade bill would eliminate all tariffs over a 10-year period and lower barriers to investment and other curbs on trade in agriculture, energy and services. Legislation is moving through the United States Congress, which is expected to pass it before it adjourns for the November elections. (3)

He did in fact call an election, where he would run on the issue of free trade. Spearheaded by the National Citizens Coalition; a group of corporations, spent an estimated $19-million during his campaign, in support of the free trade deal. John Turner didn't have a chance. (4)

The first legislative action of the new government was to abolish the foreign investment screening agency. This was followed by a series of privatizations and de-regulatory initiatives culminating in the two free trade agreements (FTA 1988 and NAFTA 1992). Much more than tariff reduction deals, the latter constituted a virtual economic constitution for the country, limiting or prohibiting sovereignty in areas as diverse as energy pricing, government procurement, delivery of regional and industrial incentive grants, dumping and countervail actions, national treatment for cross border investment, and free trade in service industries. (1)

The free trade deal, that Turner referred to as the "sale of Canada" was devastating for the country. Thousands of manufacturing jobs were lost and more than 11,000 companies became not only foreign owned, but foreign controlled.

But Stephen Harper's newest Buy America/Sell Canada is even more intrusive. Our water has now been privatized and he has sent out tenders to the European Union to privatize our public services at the municipal, provincial and federal levels.

Footnotes:

1. "The New Zealand Experiment: A Canadian Perspective", By Peter Clancy, Electronic Journal of Radical Organizational Theory, June 1996.

2. Right-Wing Populism and the Reform Party of Canada. Author: Trevor Harrison Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995. ISBN: 0-8020-7204-6, pg. 97

3. John N. Turner; Canada's Liberals Battle the Trade Pact , New York Times, By John F. Burns, August 7, 1988

4. The National Citizens' Coalition loves you - ha! ha! ha!, NUPGE, November 8, 2004.