The Canadian Manifesto 6: To Every Action There is a Reaction. Cough, Cough!

Isaac Newton may not have had neoconservatism in mind when he wrote his laws of motion, but it seems fitting when discussing the multitude of think tanks and AstroTurf groups that back up the movement.

Most were created in reaction to an action that went against their ideology, or to bolster a policy being implemented by a neocon government. They are also important to industry lobbyists, since all are financed by large corporations hoping to dictate public policy.

If you want to follow the money I suggest you read Donald Gutstein's Not a Conspiracy Theory: How Business Propaganda Hijacks Democracy. Well researched and informative.

Beginning in the 1980s and throughout the 1990s, many books and papers were published detailing Canada's neoconservative movement, courtesy of the Chicago School and Uncle Sam.

This was back in the day when we were allowed to call Stephen Harper and his entourage neocons, without having to face a verbal firing squad.

I've began rereading several of my books from that time, now that we've had a federal neocon government for five years, and in Ontario Tim Hudak's neoconservatives have a good chance of retaking Ontario. (Mike Harris was the first to advance the interests of the American Neoconservatives)

The authors, journalists and pundits who were sounding the alarm back then, may take little comfort in knowing how right they were, but their words can still be used to educate Canadians today, especially the media.

The late Dalton Camp, former president of the now defunct federal Progressive Conservative Party (folded in 2003), wrote many columns on Preston Manning's* cozy relationship with the American neocons, including Mr Manning Goes to Washington ((did his then lieutenant, Stephen Harper, carry the luggage?), that was reprinted in his book, Whose Country is This Anyway?

However, another column he wrote, helps to reveal how these think tanks/AstroTurf groups work: Luntz of Luch With Newt (first appeared on March 17, 1995).

In it he discusses Manning's appearance with Newt Gingrich on National Empowerment Television in the U.S.. The Newt was rewarding Manning for helping him to storm Washington in 1994.

As a bit of background (I have a lot more on this which will appear in another element of the Canadian Manifesto), NET was the brainchild of Paul Weyrich, the man who helped Stephen Harper in 2006, by demanding that his flock stay silent on Harper's involvement with the American Neoconservative/Religious Right.

The late Weyrich was also a key strategist for the paleoconservative movement (white nationalism), that includes early Reform Party inspiration and Harper's favourite author, Peter Brimelow; and founder of The Christian Coalition**,  Pat Robertson.

That's Why he Makes the Big Bucks

According to Camp:

Most of the questions addressed to the Reform leader came from Newt's co-host on the show, Heather Higgins ***, a woman with a ful­some, incandescent smile sufficient to melt the polar ice cap. Also present as interlocutor, and lending a little verisimilitude, was Frank Luntz, president of Luntz Research, who, according to Higgins, was "very much involved" in helping the Reform Party in its recent Canadian electoral success in 1993. Luntz is something of an over­achiever in the polling and consulting business; his clients have included not only Gingrich and Manning, but also Ross Perot and Pat Buchanan.

A little cross border back scratching.

It was Frank Luntz who advised Stephen Harper to talk about hockey every chance he got, tapping into a national symbol.

"If there is some way to link hockey to what you all do, I would try to do it."

Luntz also inspired several of Harper's counterparts, like William Kristol, son of the late Irving Kristol. Back to Camp's column:

As made clear in a recent magazine piece, Luntz is a neo-conserv­ative of Gingrichian proportions. He favours the immediate elimina­tion of public funding for the arts, the humanities, and the Public Broadcasting Service. Before eliminating farm subsidies, Luntz would prefer them to be included in a wider range of cuts. "If every­one is giving up something at the same time, it's okay," he is quoted saying. "But if we make the farmers go first, we're going to get killed in the farm community. We've all got to go together."

This sort of pragmatic counselling excites Luntz's colleagues, such as William Kristol, who explains, "That's why Frank gets the big bucks."

If you can make a fortune with that drivel, perhaps we could all be rich.

Instead of stealing one woman's purse, steal the purses of all women. Instead of kicking one man in the shin, kick the shins of all those around him. How can anyone demand sympathy, when so many are squealing with the same pain or loss?

Yet that is why "he gets the big bucks"? Frightening.

Now to My Point.  Cough, Cough!

The above may seem irrelevant, but in fact it is enlightening, for other reasons than a simple blast from the past, since it helps to explain how organizations like Canada's Fraser Institute function.  When Stephen Harper was  helping to create the Reform Party, he visited the Fraser, to see what they could do to help.  When named prime minister,  he rewarded them with new beneficial tax polices.

To give some idea of how the Fraser works, we can compare them to the group who sponsored the Manning/Luntz comedy hour on Weyrich's National Empowerment Television.  Back to Dalton Camp:

I had been witness to a television production involving the second most powerful politician in America and the leader of the third most populous party in the Canadian Parliament and ... ? Well, it was a little hard to say—until the last words appeared on the tube, inviting viewers with questions or comments to write "The Progress and Freedom Foundation."

Every totalitarian or authoritarian movement in history co-opts the language of democracy in order to conceal its purpose. The Soviet commissars could scarcely draw a breath without invoking peace or liberty or freedom**** or progress. Even as the gulags were filling up with their victims, the regime celebrated its legitimacy by claiming itself to be the one true instrument of all the people.

The true instrument of the people wielded by big business.  From the New York Times, February 11, 1995:

"One source of financing of Mr. Gingrich's college video courses is the Progress and Freedom Foundation, a conservative advocacy group in Washington. Among the foundation's donors are half a dozen companies that do business with the agency, including two for which Mr. Gingrich has personally written letters urging approval of their products, [FDA] documents show."

The list of supporters in 1998, included tobacco giants Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds.  In a letter to PFF from then VP of Public Affairs for  Philip Morris:  "…Philip Morris is pleased with the exciting work you have done, especially in the area of deregulation, and are glad to continue working with you."

The Fraser Institute, which was established in reaction to the election of  NDP  Dave Barrett  as premier of B.C., also receives a great deal of funding from the American tobacco industry.

In fact, when they were establishing their Social Affairs Centre, according to Fraser Institute sources, money could not initially be found to start it, "so the staff went to New York and secured funding from Philip Morris."

As reward, the institute then released papers, suggesting that second hand smoke was not harmful, using crack medical teams from local bars opposing anti-smoking legislation.

I don't know if they copied their work from the American think tanks, but if you peruse them, you'll find many that challenge anti-smoking laws by again suggesting that second hand smoke is not harmful, including Paul Weyrich's Heritage Foundation.  (he was a busy man)

With NET now defunct, they used Fox News to sell it.  However, all of this was in reaction to the action of anti-smoking laws, that ban lighting up in public places.  (You should hear them huff and puff over the new ads on cigarette packages).

A Perfect Example

All of these right-wing think tanks and AstroTurf groups have several things in common, not limited to their funding.  One of them, is the easy movement of staff from their offices to the government offices, and vise versa.

The directors of The Progress and Freedom Foundation, included not only heavyweights like Kenneth Starr, the man who worked to impeach Bill Clinton, but also people like Jeffrey Eisenach, who worked as a senior policy advisor for the Federal Trade Commission under Reagan and Bush, senior and junior.  Kenneth Ferree, who spent time with the Federal Communications Commission under G.W. and several others who worked directly for Dick Cheney.

One of the best tests for Newton's Theory in Canada, relates to Ridley Terminals in B.C.

The first action was to clean up the books of the federally owned terminals, and determine whether or not they could be made profitable.  The first reaction was the hiring of Dan Veniez, to do a bit of house cleaning.

The next action was Veniez' s recommendation that they sell the terminals, since they would always be a cash cow.  The reaction was John Baird's, who immediately flapped his way to Vancouver, to fire the highly competent Veniez.  This was in response to the American Coal industry, who needed those terminals to remain subsidized.

When Veniez went public with the reasons why taxpayers were being bilked, the AstroTurf groups started kicking up divots.  Said Terrance Corcoran in the Financial Post:

In the great scheme of Canada’s economy, Ridley Terminals Inc. is no big deal. With annual revenue of just under $25-million, the Crown corporation operates a bulk-commodity handling facility off Ridley Island in Prince Rupert, B.C., 1,000 kilometres north of Vancouver. FP Comment’s editorial team has never been to Ridley Terminals, and wouldn’t know a bulk handling facility from the Coney Island Cyclone Ride. What we do know, when we see it, is big time corporate subsidy seeking, backroom politics, scheming lobbyists and cabinet ministers throwing their weight around to satisfy the big time corporate interests.

He nailed it. 

One of the AstroTurf groups working for corporate interests, was the Ridley Terminals Users Group, funded by Houston based  Global Public Affairs, lobbying reactionaries, who have worked with  George W. Bush.

With slight of hand, Stephen Harper removed Erin Wall as administrative assistant to his MP Brian Jean, then Parliamentary Secretary for the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities (aka John Baird) and sent her to work for Global Public Affairs as a registered lobbyist for their affiliate, International Commodity Export Corporation, the largest beneficiary of government subsidies to the Ridley terminals.

On the same day, June 19, 2009, just before the firing of Dan Veniez, ICEC underwent a name change  to give it the appearance of a Canadian company.  You'll notice that they altered the date of this name change in June of 2011, but I believe I still have a screen shot of the original in my files.

Regardless, you get an idea of how this works, resulting in the Canadian taxpayers subsidizing the American coal industry.

And that is not the only example.  There are many, including Josh McJannet who was the contact person for the AstroTurf group The Canadians For Afghanistan.  McJannet was a former staffer of both Conservative Jay Hill and Rahim Jaffer, who registered as a lobbyist for Summa Strategies, an Ottawa government-relations firm that counts some defence contractors, including U.S. aircraft manufacturer Boeing, among its clients.

For every action there is a reaction, with the motion being the flow of our tax dollars to corporate interests, on both sides of the border.

And you wonder why Paul Weyrich wanted to protect Stephen Harper.  He is pure gold to the American neoconservatives.

Footnotes:

* Manning was the first leader of the Reform Party which became the Alliance Party, which became the Conservative party of Canada

**The same year that Manning went to Washington, Jason Kenney and others from Canada's Cristian Right attended a conference there, importing Robertson's 'Coaltiion', thus creating the Canadian Christian Coalition.

*** Higgins would also write for the godfather of the Neoconservatism, Irving Kristol's The Public Interest, and become involved in the Independent Women's Forum, and anti-feminist organization that dispute the notion of a gender gap. Similar to our REAL Women of Canada.

**** The National Citizens Coalition, that Harper once headed up, hand out a Medal of Freedom every year.  Both Stephen Harper and Preston Manning are past recipients of this prestigious (?) honour.

Neoconservatism has a Destructive god and is a Religion of Greed

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

"We must not undervalue our God-given blessings as a nation to such an extent that we let them be taken from us as we sleep." Maj. Gen. Lewis MacKenzie

I've written a fair bit on Leo Strauss, the father of Neoconservatism, whose doctrine has given Canada politicians like Grant Devine in Saskatchewan, Ralph Klein in Alberta, Mike Harris in Ontario and of course our current federal government under Stephen Harper.

However, the neoconservatism defined by Strauss, was not really an economic theory. It was a blueprint for achieving and holding onto power.

Rick Salutin, just before being fired by the Globe, wrote a column: Stephen Harper – the last Straussian? In it he outlines the key ingredients to Strauss's Neocon stew: Secretiveness, Religion, Nationalism, Populism and Contempt.

But what of the economic theories of neoconservatism?

Their conventional wisdom is that if corporations are allowed free rein, with no obligations to workers or community, everyone will win. And even before George Bush proved this to be nonsense, after destroying both the economy and the soul of America, other neoconservative experiments had failed miserably. Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and Roger Douglas, neocons all, were train wrecks for the countries they governed. And yet Stephen Harper follows their theories like a religion.

Canadian journalist Madeliene Drohan suggested that neoconservatism "allowed the select few to enrich themselves at the expense of many." (1) Very astute.

Dalton Camp, former president of the federal progressive Conservatives, sounded the alarm a decade and a half ago. When answering the question of what neoconservativism looked like, he said "it looked like Hell, " and he meant that literally. A little piece of Hades here on earth, with the greedy wielding the pitchforks.

It has become clear that multinational corporatism and new patterns of cartelization have forever altered the longstanding relationships between business and society, between employer and employee, and between the nation state and the outside world. The result has been what we see around us: structural employment, falling incomes, a vanishing middle class, all in a climate of fear, anger, and disillusion. (2)

And Scott Reid sees a dramatic decrease in the fortunes of the middle class, that have been accelerated with our own federal neoconservative* experiment.

According to research from the Gandalf Group, 50 per cent of Canadians say their financial situation has deteriorated in the past year and one in five Canadians believe it will worsen further. Just this week, Angus Reid reported that household debt ranks as the primary anxiety on the minds of most middle-class Canadians. Fully 43 per cent of the country says their personal finances are in either poor or very poor shape. Unfortunately, people’s impressions are justified. Economists tell us that household debt in Canada has never stood at higher levels. Not in the recession of the early 1990s or the early 1980s. Not even during the Great Depression. Overdrawn lines of credit.

Maxed out charge cards. Borrowing against declining home equity. These are the financial facts of life for most working families. In short, middle-class Canada is struggling to keep its head above water. And it sees waves headed its way. (3)

And part of this problem was Harper and Flaherty mistakenly suggesting that Canada would not feel the pains of other countries because of their great handling of the economy. It was all smoke and mirrors, so now not only have Canadians maxed themselves out buying homes they couldn't afford and spending money they didn't have, but we are still stuck with the rotten paper bought up on our behalf.

The writing was on the wall for Canada when the Reform Party first reared it's ugly head, and though Stephen Harper has been credited with writing their policy, then president of the National Citizens Coalition, claimed that 2/3 of it was cribbed from the NCC handbook. (4)

Plagiarized from the playbook for the revolt of the rich.

Nietzsche put it perfectly, in The Will to Power: "The great majority of men have no right to existence, but are a misfortune to higher men." This is a codicil for the comfortable, the affluent, and the obscenely rich in our time, as it was the inspiration for fascism earlier in our century.

The new order is not without its coterie of apologists and intellectual dandies. Indeed, it even has a political party of its own, called—irony of ironies—the "Reform" Party. Their models and values, as their political heroes, are American—the latter including such established mountebanks as Newt Gingrich, Al D'Amato, and Jesse Helms, and the ubiquitous pair of shabby parsons on the Christian right.

Among these trend-setting followers of the new conservatism, American style, are rising hosts of Canadian imitators and cross-breeders, fervently devoted to the reduction of government and the elevation of the oligarchy.

It seems to me a mistake to call neo-conservatism anything other than the enemy of the society those of my generation built over the years since the war. The differences are irreconcilable; there is no common ground. As a Tory Canadian, neo-conservatism is as alien to me as is Marxism or fascism or dadaism. It rejects the idea of Canada and the ideals that have, for so long, been the inspiration for the kind of society that has become a political wonder of the world.

Peter Lougheed, for many years the all-conservative quarterback in our nation's politics, has warned the Tory party not to set its face against the poor. He has also expressed his unease with the increased "Americanization" of our country.

For some time, while writing the columns in this book, I seemed to be alone in my concerns. This is no longer true. The general [Mackenzie] and the former Alberta premier may not agree with any of my views, but they share my concerns. They would, I am sure, put things differently; how differently, I cannot know. (2)

There are many of us who now feel like we're alone in our concerns. We know that neoconservatism is destroying our country and we also know that this is not what democracy looks like.

Initially the attack was on the poor, and the religious right was exploited to tell them that their poverty was their own fault. The devout were advised that these "enemies" were poor because God wanted them to be poor. This was Leo Strauss's instructions on how to control the ignorant masses.

But with Harper's agenda in full throttle, it is no longer just the poor who are suffering. The middle class, representing the majority of the population, is in serious trouble.

And yet what does Harper's ideology tell him to do? Provide even more tax cuts to corporations, buy fighter jets and make the supplier's lobbyist his chief of staff to make sure that the money gets into the right pockets, while snubbing his nose at a report with recommendations on helping the disadvantaged.

But not to worry. Neocon senator Hugh Segal advised the Harper government to "temper their message of austerity with compassion." (5)

We're about to be screwed, but they'll be gentle.

Footnotes:

*In many ways I thought that Paul Martin was a neocon, which is why I never voted for him. However, he still felt a moral commitment to assist the most disadvantaged Canadians. Harper not so much.

Sources:

1. Globe and Mail, May 1996.

2. Whose Country is This Anyway? By Dalton Camp, Douglas & McIntyre, 1995, ISBN: 1-55054-467-5, Pg. 17-19

3. Financially, middle-class Canada is awash in a world of hurt, By Scott Reid, Globe and Mail, September 29, 2010

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

5. Not even a crumb from Harper, By Carol Goar, Toronto Star, October 2, 2010

Stephen Harper and the "G"-Man. Even His Nonsense is Imported.

I love book sales and spent hours at one this morning, picking up a great selection.

One that I was happy to unearth was a 1995 copy of Dalton Camp's Whose Country is This Anyway?

I always enjoyed his columns and the book offers a great selection.

However, I was drawn to a piece on Preston Manning and the neocons, and Camp writes about Manning going to Washington, after he helped Newt Gingrich and the boys get elected.

I'm going to share some of those later, but there was an offhanded comment that caught my attention about Republican James Inhofe, a man who has proven that idiots can make a good living. Camp speaks of how Inhofe ran a successful campaign on "g" words.

"The Reform agenda includes a host of issues with American analogs—opposition to abortion rights, gun control and gay rights"—and lower taxes, less government, fewer rights for consumers, and "family values."

This does remind me once again of Senator James M. Inhofe (R. Oklahoma), who has said he campaigned last fall, and won, on "God, gays, and guns." No doubt Preston could arrange through Newt to meet with Inhofe, who is a great admirer of Jesse Helms who is a good friend of Al D'Amato who knows Dick Armey who needs no introduction to Ralph Reed of the Christian Coalition warmly supported by Pat Buchanan who knows Pat Robertson. Knowing our man Manning has direct access to those guys makes you feel warm all over. Doesn't it? (1)

As it happened, Manning and the Reform Party became quite involved with Inhofe. In fact, Rob Anders was once a professional heckler for the man, being outed during a campaign stop.

But what was compelling about this was the "g" words that brought Inhofe to power. I had heard that before and after a bit of a search found it.

In an opinion column of March 21 1995 Stephen Harper defined his Reform Party as being based on three issues, to be more specific, he defined it as being based on three "g-issues"- guns, gays, and government grants. (2)

He replaced "God" because he wasn't pretending to be an evangelist yet. But he was clearly tapping into Inhofe's "genius".

Does Stephen Harper say or do anything that doesn't come from the Republicans? And the worst of the Republicans no less.

"Knowing our man [Harper] has direct access to those guys makes you feel warm all over. Doesn't it?"

Sources:

1. Whose Country is This Anyway? By Dalton Camp, Douglas & McIntyre, 1995, ISBN: 1-55054-467-5, Pg. 185

So Sandy White. How Long Will We Have to Wait?

In response to the realization that the Harper government is so far removed from Canada's historical Tories, a former staffer, Sandy White, has written an opinion piece for the Globe and Mail: Waiting Out the Harper Experiment.

As a Red Tory she suggests that they are making a comeback.

Will they arrive in a flying saucer with Elvis Presley and Marilyn Munroe?

Canada has not had a Red Tory leader since Joe Clark. Brian Mulroney was a crook who weakened the party to such an extent that Stephen Harper was able to beat it to death.

And if you're pinning your hopes on Jim Prentice and Christian Paradis, I'm afraid you will be waiting a very long time.

I've come to accept that the PCs are never going to make a comeback. The Harper government was an experiment that failed and failed badly. I've moved on. I suggest you move on too.

When Stephen Harper "United the Right", He Solidified the Centre. Just Not For Himself.

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

How Stephen Harper became a "Tory" is the stuff of legend. Or more accurately, the stuff of fairy tales. He did have a brief stint with the PCs in the early 80's, but left the Party because they weren't right-wing enough.

The fact is, that the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada was not really right-wing at all, at least not in heart and soul. They were just right of centre. And they were 100% Canadian. And in many ways, historically, they were not unlike the Liberal Party in terms of policy.*

That doesn't mean that there weren't fierce rivalries. They were like two football teams (I don't want to use hockey because Harper has done that to death) who battle each other for the prize, but at the end of the day, both teams are in the same league, and committed to the game.

And while they both went after the same prize, the team that won it, honoured it. Showed it off and protected it for the next winner, whether it be themselves or their opponents.

They didn't win it, then smash it, to make sure that no one else could have it. That's how I see the Reformers, whether calling themselves Social Credit, Reform, Alliance or Conservative. They are the party that wants to smash the trophy and terminate the league.

Uniting the Right Was Not About Vote-Splitting

The common belief was that the PCs and Reform-Alliance joined forces to avoid splitting the vote. Sounds good but completely false. That's the way it was sold when David Frum arranged a meeting between Jean Charest then head of the PCs, and Preston Manning, then head of Reform.

In terms of bridging the differences between the parties of Preston Manning and Jean Charest, the conference made little headway ... the chasm in terms of the egos and pride of the leaders; the different attitudes that the parties have towards populist initiatives; Reform's origins in western alienation, Social Credit, and religious fundamentalism; and the fact that Reform emerged in part as an angry protest against the policies of a Progressive Conservative government made a rapprochement unlikely. (1)

A later report by Laurence Putnam confirmed the divide.

The first misconception about the Reform movement is that it is a conservative party. The Reform party has all the characteristics of a Western populist party and very few marks of a conservative party. (2)

And as to the myth of avoiding vote-splitting. In the West, many of those who voted PC did not go to Reform. Most of Reform's gain was at the expense of the NDP, another party that started out as a Western protest movement. But many also went to the Liberals.

Since the 2000 election, unity activists in both the PC and Canadian Alliance parties have preached that the PC party lost a major part of its family when the Reform Party rose to prominence, however, this is not exactly true. The PC Party did not experience a mutiny, but rather with the decline of the PC Party in Western Canada, an opportunity was extended for a new crew, the Reform movement, to come to power. In fact, many members of the Reform Party elected in 1993 had never been Conservatives at all. Preston Manning had been a member of the federal Social Credit Party prior to incepting the Reform Party. MPs Diane blonczy, Deborah Grey and Val Meredith were never members of the PC Party ... As these members were not Tories throughout the 1980's and early 1990's when the Tories were at their most successful peak since Sir John A. Macdonald ... (2)

Promoters of unity between the PC and Canadian Alliance parties had argued that if there were either only a PC or CA candidate in your average Ontario riding, they would have beat the Liberals in 2000. But what about Etobicoke North? In 2000, no PC candidate ran in Etobicoke North, but a Canadian Alliance candidate did, and yet they gained only 3.9%, and the majority of the PC votes migrated to the Liberal candidate. This despite the fact that provincially, the identical riding was held by PC M.P.P. John Hastings.

This riding is one example that proves 1+1 doesn't necessarily equal 2 when it comes to defeating a Liberal incumbent in Ontario ridings. Another interesting Ontario result was found in the riding of Markham, where Jim Jones was elected as a Progressive Conservative in 1997. Mr. Jones crossed to the Alliance in the summer of 2000, but lost re-election just months later. Why was Mr. Jones electable to the people of Markham, Ontario, as a Tory, but unelectable as a Canadian Alliance M.P.? (2)

It's because the majority of the Canadian electorate are moderates. The same people who voted for Brian Mulroney later voted for Jean Chretien, illustrating that votes between the Liberals and the PC Party were always liquid, while votes cast for ideologically-driven parties, like Reform/Alliance and NDP**, came from a "base".

The Reform movement only became palpable to Canadians when they shed their wolf's clothing and started calling themselves "Conservative", or worse yet "Tories", cashing in on a century and a half tradition. And for awhile, they were able to fool some of the people some of the time. But unfortunately for them, as their policies became increasingly un-Canadian, their level of support has drifted back to their "base".

They have no hope of drawing votes from the NDP, except perhaps in the West, but they are also losing the votes of moderates ... aka: ordinary Canadians.

So now they have a problem. Instead of eliminating what they thought was their own competition, they have eliminated all competition for the centre, and all of the "liquid" votes are now flowing away from them.

They are a right-wing fringe party. Nothing more. They came, we saw, they scared the hell out of us, and now they must leave.

This brings us to Michael Ignatieff. I see him as the perfect leader to unite the centre. And if I wasn't convinced before, a column by the widow of the late PC president Dalton Camp, has me sold. Ignatieff is not "a bleeding heart Liberal" but will lead a party that will be fiscally responsible but socially aware.

His family has a long history in this country, and come from all political stripes. His G-Grandfather, George Munro Grant helped Sir John A. and Confederation, and later promoted his railway. His uncle George Parkin Grant was also a Conservative, and author of the popular Lament for a Nation, as reaction to the defeat of John Diefenbaker. His fear was that we would become too Americanized and too beholden to corporations, and while this book was reactionary, he would later suggest that he felt that Pierre Trudeau was on the right track. (3)

Michael's father George Ignatieff was a foreign secretary under Diefenbaker, Diplomat under Pearson, and even served as acting president of the United Nations General Assembly***. He was also a peace activist, who fought hard against nuclear weapons, earning him a reputation as a "Peacemonger." (4)

Another uncle was Vincent Massey.

And though Michael Ignatieff's political views are his own, they have been nurtured in the true Canadian tradition.

So while Johannes Wheeldon may ask "Can Iggy Find His Centre?" He didn't have to. He was already there. And as Wendy Camp says: "He has come home to us." And whispering in his ear, will be family voices from the past, making sure that he doesn't screw up what they helped to build.

Footnotes:

*Stephen Harper referred to the PCs or "Red Tories" as "Pink Liberals".

**The NDP has since become more moderate and appealing, though some of their early followers feel that they had to sell out to do so. I like them and remember the greats like Tommy Douglas and Ed Broadbent, and the leader Jack Layton used to be.

***Stephen Harper and the Reformers never trusted the United Nations.

Sources:

1. The Winds of Right-wing Change in Canadian Journalism, By David Taras (University of Calgary), Canadian Journal of Communication, Vol 21, No 4, 1996

2. An Analysis On The Differences Between the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada & The Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance, by Laurence Putnam As prepared for the Fraser Institute, December 2002

3. Lament For a Nation: The Defeat of Canadian Nationalism, By George P. Grant, McClelland & Stewart, 1970 edition with new introduction by author.

4. The Making of a Peacemonger: The Memoirs of George Ignatieff, By Sonja Sinclair, University of Toronto Press, ISBN: 0-8020-2556-0

I Agree With Wendy Camp: The Values Held by the Red Tories are Alive and Well in the Leader of the Liberal Party

Wendy Camp, widow of the late Dalton Camp has written a wonderful column for the Mark News recently about Michael Ignatieff being a Progressive Conservative.

I couldn't agree more. He embraces the best of the Liberals and PCs. Both parties that governed from the centre.

In 1993, I voted for Kingston's PC candidate, Barry Gordon, a local auctioneer. I remember the campaign was quite heated between he and Peter Milliken, and as we know, Milliken won and the PCs were reduced to two seats.
In 2001, just days after Peter Milliken was named Speaker of the House, I attended a Gordons auction and noticed that Milliken's sister was in the audience. Barry's wife Alicia, also an auctioneer, announced before beginning the sale, Milliken's appointment.

She pointed his sister out to the audience and stated that we should all be proud and what an honour this was for Kingston. There was a round of applause. That's what politics are supposed to be about. Not this hyper-partisan blood letting that we wittiness today. At some point the discourse must be about what's good for the country and what's good for the Canadian people. But we never have those discussions anymore.

"Just visiting", "elites", "university types". Simple messages to dummy us down.

As Wendy Camp says:

There’s a man out there who has created a deep pool of experience from which we can all draw, through a lifetime spent teaching, observing, and living in the world. He has come home to us and this summer, he has travelled this country talking to whoever will listen. He’s said he has a big red tent in which we can all meet to talk about what we can do for each other and the planet. And under which there is shelter from the storm.

His name is Michael Ignatieff. It just happens he’s a Liberal. I feel he’s being true to himself and by being true to himself, he assures me that he will be true to the people of this country. I am comfortable with the way he thinks, his intelligence, the way he speaks to us and with us across the country, across party lines, in both official languages. I think he’d make a good prime minister. That’s just my opinion.

There’ll be people in the old Progressive Conservative party who’ll say: “Oh my god, she’s gone and turned Grit.” Well, you know what? It’s not about that. It’s about finding the person who best demonstrates the empathy and skills necessary to improve this country and the world beyond it, who best exemplifies those values once embodied by the Progressive Conservatives. That person, I believe, is Michael Ignatieff.

When I first told my friends that I was joining the Liberal Party and supporting Michael Ignatieff, they thought I'd gone nuts. Despite the fact that my parents were always die-hard Liberals, I had become die-hard PC, inspired by a local MP, Flora McDonald.

But I had accepted that the PCs were gone, and flailed about looking for someone to make me believe in politics again. I didn't know much about Michael Ignatieff then, so I read his The Rights Revolution and Blood and Belonging, and I was hooked.

And you know what? I think Dalton Camp would approve. Just ask his wife.

Fraser Institute Paper Reveals That Stephen Harper is Not a Tory

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

Throughout history there are a great many myths, and of course those myths then become facts and those facts become history. But for our time, one of the biggest myths is the labelling of Stephen Harper as a Tory, and his party as conservatives.

Anyone who has ever voted Progressive Conservative in the past, must know in their gut that this party is absolutely nothing like the Progressive Conservative Party that we are familiar with.

Can you imagine the wonderful Dalton Camp, former conservative strategist, ever working with someone like Stephen Harper? When he first learned that there was a movement to unite the Alliance Party (formerly Reform Party) with his conservatives, he was adamantly opposed, suggesting that the two parties had no common ground and that then leader of the Alliance Party, Stockwell Day, was "viewed by most Tories as embedded in the lunatic fringe." (1)

Lawrence Martin recently asked: Is there an old-style Tory in the House?

Is there a moderate Tory left in this land? There are many, of course. It’s just that they have no voice. They might as well be in cement shoes at the bottom of Lake Nipigon. This year, in particular, it has become evident just how much the old Tories of Robert Stanfield and Dalton Camp and Brian Mulroney and Joe Clark have been vanquished.

During their first years of governance, Stephen Harper’s Conservatives paid heed to the views of that progressive breed. But the party’s hard right now appears, with a few policy exceptions, to have assumed control of the agenda. And that agenda is about keeping out boat people, letting in Fox News, building new jails, reviewing affirmative action, killing the gun registry, playing down climate change, revamping the census and giving more voice to social conservatives.

However, I came across a decade old article published for the Fraser Institute, that lays it all out succinctly. Written by Laurence Putnam, it was entitled: An Analysis On The Differences Between the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada & The Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance.

I was a bit confused at first, because the Fraser Institute, with people like Jason Kenney, David Frum and Ezra Levant, worked very hard to unite these parties, and yet clearly this report detailed why such a union was wrong.

This analysis has been prepared in answer to pleas from various political personalities in Canada to unite the Progressive Conservative Party and the Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance. It is the goal of this paper to illustrate, with evidence of past elections, voter migration patterns, an examination of each party's culture and historical evidence to prove that any such unity between these two parties would alienate the moderate support base the Progressive Conservative Party enjoys and which must be captured to form a government.

It is the intention of this paper to successfully show how the Reform Party rose to prominence ... and how the Conservatives can work to ensure that movements such as the Canadian Alliance are not allowed to grow in the future.

What Putnam showed was that this would not be about "uniting the right", because the PC Party was not a right-wing party. I had mentioned this before, that in most ways there was little difference between the Liberals and PCs on policy, so elections were always about platform and personality. But the divide between the Reform/Alliance and the PC was a veritable chasm.

And they knew that.

So why did they do it, and why was it so successful?

I remember years ago reading an article in a May, 1939 issue of Liberty Magazine: Why Germany Will Not Go to War. In it the columnist laid out all the reasons why Adolf Hitler would not declare war in Europe. And what I found interesting was that everything predicted came true, and they lost as a result. And that's because what wasn't factored into the prediction was profiteering.

A lot of people stood to become very rich off that war, and they in fact did, including many American corporations. (George Bush's grandfather made his fortune financing the Nazis)

And this union of the right, as erroneously as it was labelled, was poised to make a lot of wealthy people wealthier. That's what neoconservatism is all about. And it's why they plucked Stephen Harper from the National Citizens Coalition, a group financed and run by multi-national corporations.

Stephen Harper himself has said that he got back into politics because he felt that the NCC no longer had any allies in government, with Brian Mulroney gone. And the NCC held his job open for four years, before naming another president. He was now working for them on the inside.

I'm going to break down Putnam's paper into several posts, because there are many startling revelations. I then intend to edit it down for a chapter in my E-Book, but for now the important thing is that Stephen Harper and his people deliberately perpetrated a fraud on Canadians, when they engineered a hostile takeover of the PC Party.

It puts so many past quotes and stories into perspective.

What was revealed to the Fraser Institute was that there were no grounds for a union. So instead they changed their strategy. And for that they went to Tom Flanagan, the Calgary School and founding member of both the Reform Party and Civitas Society, Ted Byfield.

Ted Byfield, the unabashed voice of the West since the Calgary School’s professors were pups, sees it another way – in terms Leo Strauss might have approved. “All these positions which Harper cherishes are there because of a group of people in Calgary – Flanagan most prominent among them,” Byfield says. “I don’t think he knows how to compromise. It’s not in his genes. The issue now is: how do we fool the world into thinking we’re moving to the left when we’re not?” (2)

I guess "you can fool some of the people some of the time", but who are they really fooling now? Harper's base has been reduced to those who know and relish in the fact that he is not a Tory.

The Reform Movement Was Populism, Not Conservatism

Sources:

1. Hard Right Turn: The New Face of Neo-Conservatism in Canada, Brooke Jeffrey, Harper-Collins, 1999, ISBN: 0-00 255762-2, Pg. 381

2. The Man Behind Stephen Harper, by Marci McDonald, From the October 2004 issue of The Walrus