John Carpay Challenges Jason's Kenney's Decision to Suspend the Rights of Students at York University

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

John Carpay is a long time Reform-Alliance-Conservative supporter, running himself unsuccessfully for the Reform Party in 1993, along with Rob Anders and Jason Kenney, who were all supported by the Fraser institute. Carpay was a member of Jason Kenney's Canadian Taxpayers Federation and now runs the Canadian Constitution Foundation, after it's founder John Weston, quit to run for Harper's party in 2005. (1)

Carpay is currently defending the rights of university students to speak openly and without restraint against Israeli Apartheid. He claims that freedom of expression is the lifeblood of democracy, and even if it offends, that right to offend is enshrined in section 2 of the charter of rights and freedoms.

What Jason Kenney has tried to do is silence students at York University, by not allowing them to put up posters advertising anti-Apartheid week. They have not displayed images of dead Palestinian children, nor have they emblazoned a swastika for all to see, and yet they are being forced to remain silent on an issue that is very important to them.

Opposing a country is not the same as opposing a people, and yet Mr. Kenney is trying to class their protests as being anti-Semitic.

Carpay will have none of this and plans to take it to the highest court of the land. Students pay tuition to go to York University, and it is their constitutional right to be able to express freely their dissent.

Of course this is not entirely true. Carpay is actually defending the rights of University of Calgary students to display images of aborted fetuses emblazoned with a swastika. Because you see Mr. Carpay does not really believe in freedom of expression, so much as he believes in the right to simply oppose abortion by using graphic images and a shock factor.

He would never defend the rights of Canadians to speak out against Israel. His corporate and Religious Right backers would have his head. Quite a double standard these people have.




While I am pro-choice, I have no problem with the posters, because if anything they shed light on the thinking of many pro-lifers. Going right to Hitler, they lose credibility, so I would not oppose the posters. Besides, the longer they are visible, the more they lose their shock factor, so they in fact may be hindering their anti-abortion sentiment.

I mean they pulled out all the stops with these. Dead babies and swastikas. What do they have left?

These so called constitutional challenges initiated by Carpay and Weston, are simply more neoconservative nonsense. Because if they really cared about the lives of children, they would be joining the Anti-Apartheid movement at York University, or protecting our rights to oppose the war without being called a 'Taliban dupe'.

Sources:

Canadian Constitution Foundation Challenge Against Single-Tier Medicare, Ontario Health Coalition, May 2007

John Carpay, John Weston and Their Attack on Canada: Shona Holmes

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

John Carpay is the co-founder of the Canadian Constitution Foundation, referred to by Equipping Christians for the Public Square Centre (ECP) as "Canada’s leading organization fighting the enemies of freedom in Canada’s courts." Up until recently, ECP's director was Timothy Bloedow, legislative assistant to Maurice Vellicott.

Carpay has been a long time Stockwell Day supporter, and is part of his Reconstructionism team. Though he once ran as a Reform Party candidate but lost, his partner and co-founder of CCF, John Weston, is now one of Harper's MPs, and like Harper, these men and CCF are committed to demolishing Canada's Health Care system. To do this they take on constitutional challenges, including that of Shona Holmes. (1)

The Mysterious Case of Shona Holmes

Americans for Prosperity (AFP) is one of the groups behind the organizing of the infamous and band of the ignorant, Tea Party rallies in the United States. Funded primarily through the Koch foundation, a conglomerate with holdings in oil and gas, chemicals, minerals, ranching, and securities, they have also launched campaigns against climate change, regulating the tobacco industry and the size of government.

Their Director is Art Pope, an ex-legislator who has been dubbed "The Knight of the Right". Pope has created several "organizations to sway public opinion, monitor the legislature, develop grass-roots political efforts and bring court challenges" and he has spent "millions of dollars on a network whose purpose is to move North Carolina to the political right." His goal was to purge the North Carolina state House of Representatives of Republican moderates. (2)

In mid-2009, Americans for Prosperity launched an advertising and advocacy campaign opposing U.S. health care reform: Patients United Now. According to talk show host Rachel Maddow:

They're experts at fake grassroots campaigns that promote corporate interests. Americans for Prosperity is the group that ginned up anti-stimulus rallies earlier this year. They also organized what they called the "Hot Air Tour" to campaign against the whole idea of global warming. They were the ones who sent Joe the Plumber around the country to rail against the Employee Free Choice Act, which is pro-labor legislation.

One other thing about Americans for Prosperity, their most visible spokesman, is a man named Tim Phillips. He is the President of the organization and we've asked him to come on the show to talk with us about the group. Tim Phillips got his start in fake grass roots with a firm called Century Strategies, run by Ralph Reed. Century Strategies is famous for having duped Christian groups into lobbying for energy deregulation. You know, like the Bible said.They were doing that at the behest of Century Strategies' client, Enron. Tim Phillips and Ralph Reed were later made even more famous in the Jack Abramoff scandal, for duping Christian groups into lobbying against gambling. But only in areas where these guys happened to have competing gambling interests as clients.These guys are the pros. (3)

And of course much of the funding comes from Koch Industries through a network of think tanks and non-profit groups.

John Carpay, who is also involved with the Fraser Institute and Preston Manning's the Manning Centre for Building Democracy, is a regular speaker at an affiliate of Koch, the Atlas Experience, where like Stephen Harper, he preaches to the American conservatives on the evils of the Canadian identity.

So who better to call on when they wanted to launch another "fake grassroots campaign", than their buddy John Carpay and his Canadian Constitution Foundation, and he knew just who would be up for the job. An Ontario woman named Shona Holmes, who claimed that had she not gone to the U.S. for surgery, she would have died. Did I mention that she "claimed" she needed this life surgery? (Holmes is second from right in the photo below, taken with Republican Party brass.)

Holmes was featured on a number of ads suggesting that Obama was looking to replicate the Canadian system, and just how damaging that would be. However, columnist David Lazarus of the Los Angeles Times wrote that "a single-payer Canadian style insurance system is not part of any leading reform proposal as the ad suggests". Media Matters for America called the ad "Strong on emotion and weak on facts.

So who is Shona Holmes and is her story true?

"What many Canadians don’t know is that Ms. Holmes has a lawsuit against the Ontario government, which has not been filed, to recoup 100 thousand dollars for her 2005 trips to the Mayo clinics to remove a Rathke’s Cleft cyst. The suit is also a challenge to single tier care and the Canadian health system. She is one of two plaintiffs, the handlers behind it are The Canadian Constitution Federation. After doing the commercial and a talk show circuit in the US Shona Holmes publicist told CBC News, she was now declining interviews." (4)

According to American journalist Ian Welsh, the entire thing was a hoax:

On the Mayo Clinic's website, Shona Holmes is a success story. But it's somewhat different story than all the headlines might have implied. Holmes' "brain tumour" was actually a Rathke's Cleft Cyst on her pituitary gland. To quote an American source, the John Wayne Cancer Center, "Rathke's Cleft Cysts are not true tumors or neoplasms; instead they are benign cysts."There's no doubt Holmes had a problem that needed treatment, and she was given appointments with the appropriate specialists in Ontario. She chose not to wait the few months to see them. But it's a far cry from the life-or-death picture portrayed by Holmes on the TV ads or by McConnell in his attacks. (5)

The following video represents one of Americans for Prosperity Tea Party chats, where they are trying to use fear mongering, even suggesting that Obama would engage in the genocide of senior citizens. But as one person suggests after the video: "It's really too bad there are so many uneducated people. End of life counseling is done all the time and in fact, check your private insurance policy, cuz it's in there. I worked for an attorney and we wrote living wills all the time - and guess what? We never killed anyone."

What this speaks to more than anything is the enormous ties between the Republican Reconstruction team and Canada's Religious Right. John Weston, the MP who helped to found the Canadian Constitution Foundation, also belongs to the Christian Legal Fellowship, that challenge our Constitution, taking on court cases based on religious freedom.

Sources:

1. New MP profile: West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea-to-Sky's John Weston. Vancouver Sun. October 18, 2008

2. "The knight of the right: Ex-legislator Art Pope has quietly built a political network to advance his conservative vision for North Carolina", By Rob Christensen, Raleigh News and Observer, January 29, 2006.

3. Rachel Maddow: Big Money Pulling the Strings of Protests, Heather/Video Cafe'; Rachel Maddow, August 6, 2009

4. Shona Holmes and The Canadian Constitution Federation, By: Bene Diction, August 2, 2009

5. Americans Lives vs. Insurance Company Profits: The Real Battle in Health Care Reform, By Ian Welsh, Huffington Post, July 21, 2009

Stockwell Day and the School of Tomorrow

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

Alberta's oil booms often meant massive increases in population, which resulted in a shortage of schools and qualified teachers.

Consequently, several private education facilities were established, most Bible or Christian, and because of the increased workload for the Alberta education ministry, they were allowed to teach what they wanted, and unless a complaint was launched, without interference.

One of these facilities was the Bentley Christian Training Centre, run by a charismatic pastor, Bill Lewis, a man of uncompromising beliefs. His assistant and the administrator of the education centre was a man by the name of Stockwell Burt Day.

Day was an unlikely choice as a school administrator, having only a high school education and a sporadic career, that included everything from deckhand to auctioneer. But none the less he all but ran the facility, directing the curriculum and overseeing the six teachers employed to instruct about 100 students. (1)

The school's teachings were based on modules obtained by the Accelerated Christian Education (ACE) program from the Texas based Schools of Tomorrow.

The School Of Tomorrow is a Christian Fundamentalist organization that operates a large number of community and parent controlled schools. Theirs is perhaps the largest home schooling program in Canada using the Accelerated Christian Education (ACE) modules. Because the ACE program is non-accredited, and used largely by community and family-run schools, organizations such as the School of Tomorrow have been allowed to proliferate without conforming to the educational standards of public schools. (2)

An example of this comes from an eight-year-old boy:

Then God came and attacked the circle and he came with his good and holy angels. The attack looked like lightning. When the lightning came and struck the circle it became swished and it got smaller and smaller. Then God dropped it into the sea of fire. As it dropped, Satan was going down into the fire and also all the Non-Christians, Muslims and Jews that he was holding onto. All of them came down with Satan because they couldn't get away." (2)

However, their anonymity would soon be put into question, when in 1982, a school teacher in the neighbouring town of Eckville, Jim Keegstra, was found teaching his students of a Jewish Conspiracy and that the Holocaust was a hoax. In the wake of this, the Alberta government took steps to rein in the independent schools.

Overnight, Day became a political activist, founding the Alberta Association of Independent Schools, a lobby group for fifteen of the independent schools.

Government officials of the time seem to have found him civil and pleasant, but also found Day intransigent in meeting repeated requests to comply with government regulations ... Day once stated: "God's law is clear. Standards of education are not set by government, but by God, the Bible, the home and the school. If we ask for (the education minister's) approval, we are recognizing his authority." (1)

The Alberta ministry of education, found the ACE program being used in many of these schools, including Bentley, were based on a strict interpretation of the Bible, stifling creativity and critical thinking. They were also determined to be insensitive to "blacks, Jews and natives."

Alberta Education had specific concerns with Day's own Training Centre. The department argued the Centre's six teachers were not qualified and that it was operating without government approval. The department also expressed concern the Centre was employing the ACE curriculum, though no racist materials were in evidence. Day denied the validity of any of these concerns, contending the staff were qualified, the Training Centre was properly registered, and that the teaching materials used in the school neither condoned nor encouraged racism or anti-Semitism. (1)

The Bentley Church Centre also became a catalyst for unrest in the small community of 900 residents, as his students were forbidden to interact with other children. Many referred to the school and it's church, as a cult bent on taking over the town. Indeed when Stockwell Day finally left the school to enter politics, the pastor who took over for him, said that it was the closest thing to a cult you'll ever get.

Rathjen arrived in 1986 to a disaster: a demoralized congregation had shrunk almost by half, allegations of fraud were afoot, and the church owed $12,000 to creditors. Factions were warring. It was a dark time in Bentley. "The church leaders had risen to unquestioned authority," explains Rathjen. "They had moved away from the congregational government with the assumption "You're here to serve and not ask questions." Rathjen reports that, before its collapse, the former Bentley Christian Centre was a renegade Pentecostal church that instituted a divine mandate to replace grassroots congregational representation.

Throughout this period, Stockwell Day was assistant pastor and school administrator. "They changed their by-laws so that the people would have no say - leaders to be appointed by other leader, as determined by scripture," explains Rathjen. "It was a haughty, arrogant, pride-filled success story that led to disaster." Fuelled by American-style revivalism, the church emphasized radical gospel practices - such as speaking-in-tongues - that whipped worshippers into a frenzy. "They have emotional experiences and then try to build a doctrine around it," explains Rathjen. The intensity of the church and constant stream of visiting American pastors gave Bentley an international profile within fundamentalist circles. But the church eventually succumbed to its own extremes.

"I would say that it was as close to a cult as you can get," says pastor Rathjen. "They were still holding on to the Christian teaching - but with manipulation and control. (3)

That uncompromising fundamentalism still defines Stockwell Day, and as head of the Treasury, we are seeing his disdain for education, represented in cuts to funding for any program not within his realm of beliefs.

Sources:

1. Requiem for a Lightweight: Stockwell Day and Image Politics, By Trevor Harrison, Black Rose Books, 2002, ISBN: 1-55164-206-9, Pg. 8-9

2. School Of Tomorrow, by David Kostinchuk, March 1, 2001

3. Bentley, Alberta: Hellfire, Neo-Nazis and Stockwell Day: A two-part look inside the little town that nurtured a would-be prime minister - and some of the most notorious hate-mongers in Canada, By Gordon Laird, NOW Magazine, 2000

Health, Wealth and Stealth Continued: Faith Healing

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

James Lunney is the Conservative MP who has been leading the charge against Health Canada for meddling in the snake oil business.

Since first joining Stockwell Day and his Alliance Party as health critic, he has launched an ongoing battle as an advocate for alternative medicines, believing that they will cut down on wait times at hospitals.

Homeopathy and herbal medicines are fields where there is a lot of potential, and I fully support research money being given to study their effectiveness.

But that is not what Lunney wants. What he wants is for alternative medicines to be reclassified as food so that they don't require the rigorous testing that drugs would.

And these products are being sold as "miracle cures", at exorbitant prices, to unsuspecting customers, while they could have devastating side effects. There is also concern that they might interfere with other medication being taken, and the dispensers of these "cures" are not properly trained or educated in the health sciences.

But what I've found that most do have in common, is radical religious fundamentalism. Even the fascist sites that David Lethbridge found were selling this stuff, still use 'Jesus', when dispensing hate.

I am so frustrated, because I know this is not what religion is supposed to be. Why aren't more of the mainstream churches or the Evangelical Fellowship not stepping in here? If anything turns people off Christianity faster, it will be these crazies who have taken over our government.

It's been suggested that there needs to be a lot more research into Stockwell Day and his troop, and I couldn't agree more, but it's hard, because everywhere you turn it just gets crazier. And I have to be honest, whether I'm following the links to the neo-Nazi sites or the Christian extremist sites, they are no different. They both leave me feeling ill. The horrible things they say about other human beings, is unbelievable.

Have the hate groups just gone underground and now latched onto the Religious Right?

To catch up, these are the previous posts if you didn't see them and thank you to David Lethbridge who led me down this path:

The Health, Wealth and Stealth of Right-Wing Coalitions

The Health, Wealth and Stealth Continued: Health Coalitions

The Health, Wealth and Stealth Continued: Roots of Change

Health, Wealth and Stealth Continued: Religion vs Knowledge

Health, Wealth and Stealth Continued: James Lunney and Quackery

When Lethbridge suggested in his article Prescription for Fascism (1), looking into this, I had no idea. Absolutely no idea. I had mentioned in Health Coalitions a groups called the Consumer Health Organization of Canada, who hold annual 'Total Health' fests, though their list of guest speakers reads more like Ripley's Believe it or Not. In 2000, Dr. (?) Len Horowitz delivered a lecture on 'Why I should be locked up'. That's not what he called it, but what he should have called it. After going on about how it was the U.S. military who actually started the Aids virus and lauding his friend Dr. Icke. (Icke is the man who believes that a group of extraterrestrial reptiles, who can take on life forms, are plotting to take over the world.)

The good Dr. Horowitz, was at this health convention to flog his new book Healing Codes for the Biological Apocalypse:

"In this next book, what you are going to realize is that I was divinely guided ... [and] was praying to have the Achilles heel of the Illuminati .... Ultimately, I was praying for the Achilles heel because there has got to be a place, a soft spot, that we can knock the oligarchy off and if you've heard me lecture in the past I've always said, I don't know what it is going to be, but in the very last days there will be something happen whereby Satan and his boys will have the carpet pulled from under them and we win in the end.

"Ultimately, why I went on a 40 day fast is because through this new totally exciting, uplifting, new revelations, new codes, that involve creation, destruction, miracles, healing, miraculous healings, including not only personal, but world. I was then so moved because we had our first what is called a healing celebration event, now if you don't have a healing celebrations flyer because first of all I want to acknowledge John and Libby Gardon for putting this whole event together. These are the directors of the Canadian Consumer Health Organization, who put this together every year and if you know them personally they are extremely loving human beings who are only in this because they understand what the illuminati have been doing to suppress true health care and self care, that is preventative medicine, and that they are totally dedicated as David Icke, as myself, as anyone else is on the front lines." (2)

And the good John and Libby Gardon are two of the people Lunney invited to the committee studying his bill on dropping the requirement to have these 'miracle cures' tested before use. The same John and Libby Gardon who invited the late Eustace Mullins, the man who called Jews "furry insects who drink children's blood", to one of their so-called 'Total Health' shindigs.

I'm feeling a little sick, how about you? Not to worry though, because Lunney has the answer: Pig Pills!

James Lunney and Pig Pills

When Health Canada raided offices of Trucorp in 2003, for dispensing illegal drugs, James Lunney went ballistic. Using his Parliamentary office he fired off a press release waging war on Health Canada, suggesting that people now may die if they can't get their hands on the pig pills.

I shouldn't really joke, because there is a chance that the stuff they are selling might have some merit. However, they flog is as a cure for all mental illness, and that's a dangerous thing. I should mention though that recently, the creators of this stuff also made the claim:

"...this product can grow back brain cells, and because the Creator is a lot smarter than scientists, 90% of poor health would disappear ... Will it help everyone? YES IT WILL....”It's a God given answer!” (3)

The trade name for it is EmPowerplus and it has helped hyperactivity and less serious mental disorders, but the problem that Health Canada had was that it had not been properly tested, and they had sent the company warning letters in the past, but they continued to distribute the mixture.

Brad Evenson, the medical advisor for the National Post wrote a lengthy article on the product and it's founders, who came up with the idea after using vitamins and minerals to cure pigs from "ear-and-tail-biting syndrome". Having had experience with mental illness in their families:

The company is now known as Truehope Nutritional Support Ltd. Devout Mormons who wanted to help other families like theirs, the two men vowed to set up so-called Synergy Houses to feed and care for people with bipolar disease, schizophrenia and other mental illness. (4)

Along with the success stories, there are also some tragic ones, and selling a medication as a miracle cure can not only provide false hope, but also create devastating results when people go off their medications as prescribed by medical doctors. Neither man behind the company have any medical training. And none of the people who sell the product from the call centre, are medical professionals.

And along with the treatment, which can run into thousands of dollars, they also offer 'spiritual guidance'. Not for free mind you. One young man spent $ 600.00 in a single month for this support.

It would appear that this is a version of faith healing with a twist, and while there is potential here, they have to go through the normal channels. Do we really want medications on the market without proper trials and labelling?

I'd like to say that James Lunney is the most dangerous member of Harper's caucus. I'd really like to say that, but unfortunately, I can't. And this is not about persecuting Christians or not allowing people to hold personal beliefs, but when they are in government, they have to at least be rational. I can't believe that this is happening, but they were given four years of free rein because nobody wanted to question their religion. And now look at the mess we're in.

Marci McDonald's book The Armageddon Factor*, brought up so many important issues, but I think she could immediately start working on a second edition. Stephen Harper not only allowed this to happen, but encouraged it for power, and now I don't think he knows what to with them. I certainly know what to do with him. Send him to see Dr. Icke.

Footnotes:

*The Armageddon Factor: The Rise of Christian Nationalism in Canada, By: Marci McDonald, Rndom House Canada, 2010, ISBN: 978-0-307-35646-8 3.

Sources:

1. Prescription For Fascism: Alternative Medicine and Right-Wing Politics, By David Lethbridge, April 2001

2. Total Health 2000 - March 2000 - Toronto Convention Center, Healing Codes for the Biological Apocalypse, Guest Speaker Len Horowitz

3. Truehope Conference in Shiloh, Ohio, Founders David Hardy and Anthony Stephan presentation, September 16, 2009.

4. Pigs Will Fly, Every good product needs a good legend. By Brad Evenson, MD Review, February 2004

Health, Wealth and Stealth Continued: James Lunney and Quackery

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

Dr. Stephen Barrett is a retired American psychiatrist, author, co-founder of the National Council Against Health Fraud (NCAHF), and the webmaster of Quackwatch. He runs a number of websites dealing with quackery and health fraud, focusing on consumer protection, medical ethics, and scientific skepticism. (Wikipedia)

He publishes a list of 'Questionable Organizations' and the Consumer Health Organization of Canada made his list of one of those he would treat with considerable distrust.

I posted on them earlier as one of the groups that David Lethbridge cornered, as a possible front for fascist activities, given the people they bring to their "health" fests.

The founders of the group Libby and John Gardon, have defended their choice of guests, suggesting that the controversy is good for business. At the time they were speaking in particular, of the late Eustace Mullins, one of the most controversial anti-Semites in the United States. He referred to Jews as furry insects who drink the blood the children.

What was telling was the fact that Libby Gardon called Mullins a friend. She said she has known him for 15 years and described him as gentle and caring. Eventually the Jewish community banded together and Mullins speech was cancelled.

David Lethbridge had suggested that the connection between some of these so called 'Health' experts with their miracle cures, and neo-Nazi fascist organizations, needed further research, especially since some of the names also link to our current government.

So I did a bit of googling to see if there was any merit to that, and indeed there appeared to be. One of the names that cropped up on a regular basis was that of James Lunney. Lunney was a friend of Stockwell Days, who was encouraged to run in 2000, with Day's new Alliance Party (formerly Reform Party). He was given the health critic post while in opposition, but instead of making health his focus, he instead became an advocate for the snake oil vendors, many of whom have been exposed by Dr. Barrett.

Lunney introduced Bill C-420 which has been tossed around for a bit, an attempt to move these "miracle" cures from the restrictions of what he refers to as the "regulatory regime" and move them to food, claiming they are mostly just vitamins and food products. (His favourite EmPowerplus sells for $74.95 a bottle)

The Standing Committee on Health, dealing with the issues surrounding Bill C-420, called in some experts, and one of these experts was Libby Gardon. Another was Trueman Tuck, a purveyor of some of this stuff, whose mission statement is:

“God created Sovereign Spiritual / Human Beings as children of God. God's children cannot and should not claim to have sovereign supremacy with their creator. The Sovereign Children of God created artificial entities, which are all sole or aggregate corporations including rulers, governments, parliaments, senates, judges, etc. THEY do not posess [sic] any sovereign supremacy and cannot and should not claim to be equal or greater than their creators.”

Trueman of the Tuck clan (aka Trueman Tuck), is a son of God and a Sovereign Spiritual / Human Being that is purpose driven to educate, assist and defend the unalienable rights, freedoms and liberties of other sons and daughters of God.

Did I mention that Trueman Tuck was a bit of a nut? But more importantly he dispenses 'herbal' medicines but has no medical degree or training, and even offers legal advice to other 'herbal' medicine businesses, calling himself an "Attorney-In-Fact", when in fact, he is not an attorney at all. He is a salesman. A salesman providing 'expert' testimony to the Standing Committee on Health. That's how low we've sunk.

Wrapped up in all of this is such a maze of organizations, you'll be needing some "herbal magic" just to keep your head from exploding. Most have 'Freedom' and 'Health' somewhere in their titles and are run by people like Gardon and Tuck. This is not to say that Health food stores, etc. don't have a purpose. They clearly do and homeopathy is definitely something that needs to be researched extensively as an alternative to chemical therapy. However, I believe that anything with 'cure' or include the suggestion of a 'cure', need to be regulated by Health Canada. Lunney and his pals do not.

Quackwatch has exposed another dubious character who has been making the rounds, when they discovered that his books and products were being sold on a Neo-Nazi website.

Dr. Cassim Igram, aka Dr. Oregano, Cass Ingram, is a frequent guest .. in Canada. On November 20, 2003 he appeared again on the Michael Coren TV show on Canada's foremost Faith-based family TV cable network CTS-TV. We told Michael that Ingram's products were being sold by at least one neo-nazi web site, but he ignored us completely. In fact, he mentioned at the beginning of the show that people had e-mailed him to basically complain about the show before it aired.

Three days later, Cass Ingram appeared at a rally at the OISE in Toronto to raise money to help pass Bill C-420. On that panel was Trueman Tuck, Helke Ferrie, and MP James Lunney. It seems that the "freedom" to sell nutraceuticals is heavily entwined with right-wing politics around the world. Some of these agendas are anti-gay, anti-semitic, anti-tax, etc. A few years ago the Consumer Health Organization's Total Health Expo, where Cass Ingram regularly appears, was in the spotlight because Eustace Mullins, a self-proclaimed rabid anti-Semite was cancelled after numerous complaints were filed.

... Ingram still wanders around North America proclaiming that he has the answer to SARS, toxigenic E. coli, and other ills despite all of this? Hmmm.........Could it be it improves his bottom line? ... Now Trueman Tuck has hooked up with Nick Jerch in another attempt to support nutraceutical misadventures.

I checked out the website they mentioned; Free American, and it is extremely racial. They have a video touting Hitler as a hero and promote a book claiming that "2000 years ago the bible told us of the coming of the New World Order as the English Beast, the mark of the beast and warned us about the Jews who would say they are Jews but are not. Jesus told us they were liars and of their father Satan." This is quite a racket.

Now I don't believe that Lunney or Tuck are involved with any of that, and as David Lethbridge reminds us: "Wherever we find tendencies to irrationalism and conspiracy-mongering, there we find fertile ground in which fascism can grow, or a movement which fascism can exploit. These tendencies are rife within the ever-expanding and overlapping alternative medicine, New Age, and tax refusal* circles." (2)

But there is another element that binds these groups together: "faith healing". That's up next.

Footnotes:

*Trueman Tuck also runs a site TaxTyranny.ca

Sources:

1. Cass Ingram's oregano oil products and books sold by neo-nazi web site, Quackery Watch Canada

2. Prescription For Fascism: Alternative Medicine and Right-Wing Politics, By David Lethbridge, April 2001

Health, Wealth and Stealth Continued: Religion vs Knowledge

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

When the scientific community discovered that our science minister Gary Goodyear did not believe in evolution, they were in shock, as were most Canadians. How could a man who did not believe in science, be our science minister? It boggled the mind.

And then to add insult to injury, another Harper MP stood up in the House of Commons to deliver the knockout punch.

Armed with the knowledge that exists today, Charles Darwin may not have written the theory of evolution, Nanaimo-Alberni MP James Lunney told the House of Commons this week. "Any scientist who declares that the theory of evolution is a fact has already abandoned the foundations of science," Lunney said in the House on Thursday. Given what is known today, he added: "Darwin would be willing to re-examine his assumptions." (1)

Any scientist who accepts fact as fact, is not a scientist? What just happened here?

An American scientist picked up the story and posted a reply: "Not so smug now, are you Canada."

I confess, we residents of the USA sometimes have a bit of an inferiority complex when we compare our citizenry to those of other nations of the world — we look like such a collection of idiots next to places like Iceland and Australia and New Zealand and Germany and England and Canada ... Of course, none of those other countries are entirely exempt from having dumbasses pontificating on science, so we can still occasionally take a cheap, desperate shot at some furrin' loon.

... Mr Lunney's choices of objections, reveal that he has read the erroneous creationist literature, but has never examined the scientific debunkings of his claims. I have heard this claim that creationists use the same evidence to argue for creation. It is not true. They select a narrow subset of the evidence that superficially supports their claims, and then ignore the broader array of evidence that completely undermines them. (2)

I know I'm not so smug now. We were a laughing stock. But this brings up the question, if someone believes something, do you have to respect that belief, even when it is proven to be untrue? Even when it's absolutely ludicrous?

Lunney went from a virtually unknown backbencher to a media sensation overnight, but not in a positive way. He is a member of our government and he had just stood up to go on record as claiming to believe in a myth. He's allowed to believe in that myth. I have no problem with that. But he is not allowed to publicly announce that myth as fact when he is representing a country whose residents don't share in his myth. It simply makes us look bad, but more importantly, alarms everyone in the scientific field, from researchers to science teachers.

However, what I have since discovered about Lunney, is that his belief in creationism over science, is only a tip of the iceberg. This man is also heavily involved in the quackery industry. And no not because he's a chiropractor. Chiropractors are not quacks. But this one is.


The Case of Lana Dale Lewis

In 1996, Lana Dale Lewis went to see a chiropractor about migraines and had a neck alignment. Two weeks later she died of a stroke and the coroner determined that the cause of her death was a tear in the artery at the back of her neck. (3)

After the decision, the lawyer for the family, Amani Oakley, was asked to appear on the Michael Coren show to discuss the findings. The show's producers also invited an expert to join her. That expert was chiropractor James Lunney, Conservative member of Parliament for Nanaimo - Alberni.

After attacking the deceased, and suggesting that she caused her own stroke because of her lifestyle, he made a shocking claim. Her death could have been prevented if it were not for Health Canada, and it's attack on herbal medicines, and that all strokes could be prevented with the use of folic acid.

After the interview, CTS, a faith-based studio that airs the Coren show, refused to release any videos or transcripts of the interview, since it would clearly have been the end of the good doctor's career.

But it turns out that Dr. Lunney's attack on Health Canada in favour of quack medicine was nothing new. He represents the worst of the herbal medicine industry, making outrageous claims about miracle cures for everything from blindness to hair loss. To put it bluntly, the man is a nut.

"I Can Make the Blind See"

In 2001, James Lunney, then Alliance party Health Critic, stated that "a 'parallel' system of private health care services should be available to take pressure off the public system and reduce waiting lists." (4)

By parallel he clearly meant the quackery industry; an industry to which he is a card carrying member. This is not to say that all herbal medicines are bad, but what Lunney promotes is nonsense, mixed with just enough religious fervour, to make believers of innocent victims.

... this product can grow back brain cells, and because the Creator is a lot smarter than scientists, 90% of poor health would disappear ... Will it help everyone? YES IT WILL....”It's a God given answer!” (5)

In 2003, Health Canada raided the offices of Truecorp, a company selling supplements without government approval:

RCMP officers and Health Canada investigators raided the offices of a Raymond-based health product company, alleging it has been selling a nutritional supplement to the mentally ill without government approval.

About a dozen armed officers surprised employees of Truehope Nutritional Support Ltd. at 10:15 a.m. Tuesday when they swept in and demanded everyone in the call centre stop working and back away from their computers. Mounties from Calgary, Ottawa and Montreal then began downloading information from hard drives and rifling through filing cabinets. Officers also backed up vans to the building's doors and prepared to take stacks of documents away. (6)

The news here is not the supplement's claims, which many in the medical profession debunk, but the fact that the company was breaking the law. The stuff being sold as a miracle cure had not undergone adequate testing and was not approved by Health Canada.

So what did James Lunney do about these law breakers? He attacked Health Canada. On letterhead from his Parliamentary office:

War on Natural Health Products Escalates, "What’s next from Health Canada’s Keystone Cops?"
　
NANAIMO—Dr. James Lunney, MP for Nanaimo-Alberni, reacted with outrage to Tuesdays RCMP/ Health Canada raid on a Natural Health Products company in Raymond, Alberta.
　
"Health Canada’s latest attack on the freedom of Canadians to make their own health choices is intolerable. They have resorted to extreme, unwarranted measures to prevent promising, low risk products from reaching Canadians who require them. This bureaucratic interference is out of control; it is contrary to science and to the public interest."

The public interest would be to make sure that a drug is safe to use before it is sold. Lunney instead backed up the industry that was breaking the law. But the story of Lunney and quackery is very complex, so I'm covering it in a separate post.

Coming up Next.

Sources:

1. Darwin would think again, Lunney tells House of Commons: MP says theorist might draw different conclusions if he had today's information, By Darrell Bellaart, The Daily News, April 04, 2009

2. Not so smug now, are you, Canada? By P.Z. Myers, April 3, 2009

3. Chiropractic patient died 'by accident': jury, By CTV.ca News Staff, January 17, 2004

4. "That should be a no-brainer, shouldn't it?", Vancouver Sun, February 21, 2001.

5. Truehope Conference in Shiloh, Ohio, Founders David Hardy and Anthony Stephan presentation, September 16, 2009.

6. RCMP shuts down supplement firm, By David Heyman, Calgary Herald, July 16, 2003

The Health, Wealth and Stealth Continued: Roots of Change

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

Craig Chandler, a long time Reform-Alliance-Conservative supporter and organizer, used his Progressive Group for Independent Business (PGIB), to help the unite the right, with the motto "Unite the Right to Unite the Country."

His group has contributed to the success of Mike Harris, Stockwell Day and Stephen Harper, to name a few. He's kind of an "energy bunny", who's often been controversial, and while I would never agree with his ideology, I kind of like him simply because he's honest. He may exaggerate his importance, but there's no denying his influence.

I also appreciate that on his Concerned Christian Coalition website, he clearly states that it is FOR profit. It's a business, not a non-profit organization. In this way he doesn't have to hide his political stripes, as so many of them do, though usually not well.

In David Lethbridge's 2001 article: Prescription for Fascism (1), where he writes about the "quackery" movement and ties many of the groups with the extreme-right, he lists among them Citizens' Voice for Health Rights . The head of CVHR is Debbie Anderson who was part of the National Executive, and BC chair of Chandler's PTIB. She was also involved with the "Roots of Change" Conferences. (I should mention though that Canadian Wholesale Direct, a relatively well respected health-food distributor, lists Anderson's CVHR first under its heading "Health Freedom" (1)).

Tom Walkom in the Toronto Star, wrote of Chandler's initiatives, reminding his readers that they were independent of the "Winds of Change", run by David Frum and Ezra Levant.

When influential conservatives held a conference to unite the right two years ago, Craig Chandler couldn’t even wangle an invitation. “I called to get in but (organizer and journalist) David Frum wouldn’t let me,” the 27-year-old former Reform party candidate recalled this week. “He said they were full. It was a kind of cliquey, elitist sort of thing.”

So Chandler got his own back. Yesterday, he kicked off his own two-day, unite-the-right conference in Toronto. And David Frum wasn’t there. Instead, Chandler’s Roots of Change conference is attracting the kinds of blood-and-guts rightists who sparked the Reform party, but who – as Reform attempts to become more respectable – find themselves relegated to the sidelines. (2)

They may have been sidelined but they continue to support and influence the party, with their various grassroots movements. Chandler recently had an audience with Stockwell Day, so they are obviously still on speaking terms. I'd be happy if someone from this government just answered my emails.

I should also point out that if they were in fact on the "sidelines", or part of the "fringe" their speakers included not only Stockwell Day, but Link Byfield, Mark Montini from the Leadership Institute, Steve Jalsevic from the anti-abortion Campaign Life Coalition* and Michael Coren of the Financial Post, to name a few.

Lethbridge, mentions not only Debbie Anderson speaking on behalf of Citizens' Voice for Health Rights, but several others including:

Mark Mix of the National Right to Work Committee: a union busting organization from Springfield, Virginia. You can listen to Mix's interview on Fox News here. A director of the NRWC is none other than Morton Blackwell, and need I remind you, that besides the Leadership Institute, that Preston Manning designed his own institute after, he is also one of the founders of the Council for National Policy, the vanguard of both the Religious Right and the Republican Party in the U.S.

I already mentioned Mark Montini from the Leadership Institute above. He is one of the most influential speakers and Republican pollsters in the U.S. I love his motto: "If Mark doesn’t light your fire, your wood is wet". (LMAO) I've visited his site and I guess my wood must be soaked.

He is a vocal opponent of same-sex marriage and was sued by a gay couple for stealing a picture of them and then using it in one of his campaigns.

Ron Leitch of the Preservation of English in Canada (APEC) - was a long time associate of Ron Gostick and an early Reform Party supporter.

Jocelyn Dumais of the Quebec-based ADAT - another union busting group.

Robert Metz of the Freedom Party of Ontario - Their platform is the usual laundry list of neocons everywhere: tax reductions, and opposition to welfare programs, the Human Rights Commission, affirmative action programs, multiculturalism and official bilingualism, yada, yada, yada.

John Thompson, executive director of the MacKenzie Institute, a right-wing think tank based in Ottawa, with a pro-war agenda (fear mongering) - The Western World's scarcely recognized war with the Islamic Jihad stumbles on; handicapped by the unwillingness of most Muslims to engage in the war (so far, anyway) and by our own common inability to correctly name or identify the enemy. As we get lost in the minutia of homegrown Jihadists, airport security and fighting in Afghanistan, we are losing sight of the forest on account of the trees. Maybe if they can't see the forest for the trees, their wood is just wet.

They don't all sound like "fringe" and in fact many are quite legitimate, showing that Chandler is better connected than his opponents suggest.

I'm going to continue with a few more "Health"/Right-wing connections, so stay tuned, because as Lethbridge concludes:

" Wherever we find tendencies to irrationalism and conspiracy-mongering, there we find fertile ground in which fascism can grow, or a movement which fascism can exploit. These tendencies are rife within the ever-expanding and overlapping alternative medicine, New Age, and tax refusal circles. While the class basis for these tendencies is essentially petit-bourgeois, it is by no means restricted to this class; certainly, sectors of the working class are being strongly influenced by these same forces. It would be foolish to dismiss fascism's entry into these areas which are often considered purely marginal or simply bizarre. On the contrary, much political and agitational work needs to be done on this front, as on so many others, where fascism has found a new foothold." (1)

Next: Religion vs Knowledge

Sources:

1. Prescription For Fascism: Alternative Medicine and Right-Wing Politics, By David Lethbridge, April 2001

2. Chandler’s Roots of Change Conference attracts fringe elements: Unite-the-right’s downmarket element. Meeting attracts those relegated to sidelines, By Thomas Walkom, Toronto Star, March 21, 1998