Roots of Reform: Social Credit and James Keegstra

James Keegstra was the Alberta school teacher who gained notoriety when it was discovered that for 15 years he had been teaching his students that the Holocaust was a hoax.

His sensational trial became the subject of much debate over free speech vs hate crimes, but what was interesting, was not the mainstream contempt for his beliefs, but the people who came to his defense.

Yes there were the usual neo-Nazis and hate mongers, but there were also many religious groups who saw his 'persecution' as a threat to their rights to teach Biblical interpretation.

One of those was a man by the name of Stockwell Burt Day, then assistant pastor at the Bentley [Alberta] Christian Centre and spokesperson for the Alberta Association of Independent Church Schools.

Day was already embroiled in a battle with the Alberta Department of Education and their decision to remove the Bentley Christian School's accreditation because of their teachings, which were deemed be both racist and anti-Semitic. He felt that religious schools should have the right to set their own curriculum. “God's law is clear. Standards of education are not set by government, but by God, the Bible, the home and the school.” (1)

The connection between James Keegstra and Stockwell Day went back further than that, however, in their links to both the Social Credit Party and Keegstra's lawyer; Doug Christie.

Social Credit and Anti-Semitism

Keegstra's parents had joined the Social Credit Party at it's inception in 1935, inspired not only by the promise of monetary reform, but also the Christian fundamentalism.

They listened to Aberhart's radio broadcasts and questioned not a word.

And when the party began distributing anti-Semitic material across the country, they collected every piece, sharing them with their son James.

Then when James Keegstra was old enough, they sent him to the Calgary Prophetic Bible Institute, then under the leadership of Ernest Manning, where he would be "taught right."

In 1957, James himself joined the Social Credit Party, and would remain active in the movement throughout his adult life.

He ran for them, representing Red Deer in the 1972, 1974 and 1984 federal elections. In 1986, he also ran unsuccessfully for the party's leadership with the support of white supremacist Don Andrews and Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel*.

In 1972, when Keegstra first ran for the federal Socreds, the party leader was Real Caouette (the image to the left above). During the same campaign and under the same leader, Stockwell Day Sr, also ran for the party, against Tommy Douglas; not expecting to win but only to publicly attack Douglas' Socialist platform. (Tommy Douglas gave us medicare and is the grandfather of Kiefer Sutherland)

Caouette had some pretty extreme views. According to John Gray:

The disdain for outsiders always seemed to fit conveniently with the theory of conspiracy of the old parties. The Jews were another and equally convenient part of the ... demonology and there was a continuing strain of anti-Semitism ... Caouette revealed that his political heroes were Hitler and Mussolini. As late as a few years ago, his bookshelves contained The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.... If non-Creditisites were horrified, the loyalists did not seem to care. (2)

The Day family were also longtime Social Credit members, and according to Stock Jr.'s mother; Gwendolyn (nee: Gilbert) he was exposed to political activism at home.

When Real Caouette fist won the leadership race in 1961, Ernest Manning, then Premier of Alberta, vetoed the nomination, claiming that his province would never accept a francophone Catholic as party leader. Real left to start his own party, but they were reunited in 1972.

Opposing the political climate in Quebec, Stock Sr. packed up his family and headed west in 1967. He would eventually meet up with Doug Christie and joined his Western Canada Concept Party, which was formed to promote western separation. He would contribute regularly to to the Western Separatist, the party's newspaper.

Day Sr. also appeared to have been friendly with Robert Thompson and in fact Thomson's children once stayed with the Day family for a while. According to David Lethbridge, Thompson was a fan of Ronald Gostick** who made his money distributing racist and anti-Semitic material. (3)

I know that a lot of the names that enter this story appear to be guilt by association. Yes Stock Day Sr. was friends with Doug Christie who defended many Neo-Nazis and hate propagandists. That doesn't mean that Christie himself was anti-Semitic, nor does it mean that everyone associated with him is anti-Semitic.

But this speaks to a long history with this party, that was grounded in fanatical Christian extremism. They believed in a Jewish conspiracy and the fact that 'Socialists' and 'Jews' were in cahoots. William Aberhart suggested:

Personally, I have little doubt that in working through Jews, the Jewish financial group has sacrificed its own people on the altar of its greed for power and this group is preeminently responsible for the poisonous anti-Semitism which is rampant in the world today. (4)

And as late as 1943 when Manning was Premier, their report included:

If international finance and socialism are travelling in the same direction is it possible that socialism is promoted by the money power to hasten the completion of their plot for world domination? Not only is it possible, but there is a fund of evidence which leads to the inevitable conclusion that there is a plot, worldwide in scope, deliberately engineered by a small number of ruthless international financiers. (4)

But then in February 1947:

Imperial Oil had brought in Leduc No. 1, a gusher which was obviously going to transform Alberta from a province of poverty to one of plenty. The month after Leduc, Manning acted. The government passed a resolution repudiating "any statements ()r publications which are incompatible with the established British ideals of democratic freedom or which endorse, excuse or incite anti-Semitism or racial or religious intolerance in any form." Within the next year the Alberta Social Credit Board had been dissolved and the leading Douglasites had been purged from the Cabinet. (4)

He was being pushed by the Douglasites in the party to adopt the economic principles of Social Credit founder, Major Clifford Dougals, and this was why he purged the party of the Douglasite anti-Semitics. He no longer needed monetary reform and no longer needed them. But it clearly did not end the anti-Semistism or racism within the movement. Far from it.

Footnotes:

*Ernst Zundel was also a client of Doug Christie. During the 2000 federal election, where Stockwell Day was running against jean Chretien, the story of Day's involvement with neo-Nazis and his relationship with James Keegstra became public, Ernst Zundel came to his defense saying: "I know the personal toll of standing up for what you believe in, and I was inspired by Stockwell's spirited defense of his school's Accelerated Christian Education curriculum which states that 'Buddhists and Muslims are evil' and 'Jewish leaders were children of their father, the devil."

**Ronald Gostick attended Crescent Heights High School when William Aberhart was principal. He was a long time member of the Social Credit Party and in fact his mother was one of the first Scial Credit MLAs when Aberhart's Party swept the Alberta elections in 1935.

Sources:

1. Canadian Alliance's Stockwell Day and the charge of anti-Semitism: What is the right trying to cover up? By Guy Leblanc and Keith Jones, November 27, 2000

2. Real Caouette: Question now; can message survive?, John Gray, Montreal Gazette, November 9, 1976

3. Jew-haters and red-baiters: The Canadian League of Rights, By David Lethbridge, AntiFa Info-Bulletin, February 2, 1999

4. A Trust Betrayed: The Keegstra Affair, By: David Bercuson and Douglas Wertheimer, Doubleday Canada, 1985, ISBN: 0-385-25003-7, Pg. 34-38

Roots of Reform: Social Credit and a Jewish Conspiracy

The Social Credit Party was the forerunner to the Reform Party of Canada, and ultimately the Conservative Party of Canada, under Stephen Harper.

Born out of the deplorable economic and social conditions of the Depression, Social Credit became as much a religious crusade as a push for economic reform.

But it also had a dark side.

Originating in England; the brainchild of arch-antisemitic Major C. H. Douglas, the necessity for change was inspired by a book that was being distributed at the time, Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion.According to Janine Stingel "Social Credit was wholly dependent on an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory." (1)

For populist parties to succeed they must find a common enemy and a common cause; and in the 1930's that common enemy became the banks, and the cause an alternative financial system.Eventually those horrible banks were believed to be part of a larger conspiracy of the Jewish people to take over the world.

Anti-Semitism in Canada in the 1930s and 1940s involved an image of Jews as international conspirators, secretly plotting world domination through an inchoate combination of international banking, communism and Zionism. In the mythology, based on the forged but widely circulated Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Jews thus posed a threat to national sovereignty, property, peace and prosperity.

Anti-Semitism was not a coincidental adjunct to this right-wing populist movement, but resided at the core of a paranoid vision of bankers and money-lenders swindling honest Canadians out of the wages of their toil.

Depression-era Alberta was fertile ground for such a message, particularly when it came through the medium of a popular radio-preacher turned politician, "Bible Bill" Aberhart."Alberta thus became home to the only North American jurisdiction with a government that officially endorsed anti-Semitism." (2)

William Aberhart and Anti-Semitism

It is widely believed that while Aberhart adopted, or at least attempted to adopt, the economic theories of Major Douglas, he did not buy into the rampant anti-semitism. Like Stephen Harper, he was able to play the role of the moderate. However, evidence suggests otherwise.

Aberhart's positive statements about Jews were balanced by equally negative statements. During a lecture at the Calgary Prophetic Bible Conference in 1922, Aberhart explicitly opposed Zionism and argued that because Jews had not accepted Christ they would never succeed in regaining the Promised Land of
Zion: "

The JEWISH RACE must yet acknowledge that the CHRIST who was crucified to the CROSS of Calvary was the SON of GOD, their MESSIAH. Until they will acknowledge that they must expect the curses of the world and can not expect the Blessings of GOD." In other sermons Aberhart criticized the Jewish nation for its sinfulness, including the sins of selfishness, hypocrisy, usery, violence, injustice, and discontent with wages.He viewed Christianity as a war against the Antichrist and suggested that when Armageddon came, most Jews would be duped by the Antichrist, believing him to be the Messiah. (3)

And though proven to be a forgery, the Protocols were often referenced around the world.

Despite conclusive proof that the Protocols were a gross forgery, they had sensational popularity and large sales in the 1920's and 1930's. They were translated into every language of Europe and sold widely in Arab lands, the United States, and England. But it was in Germany after World War I that they had their greatest success. There they were used to explain all of the disasters that had befallen the country: the defeat in the war, the hunger, the destructive inflation... 4)

Henry Ford printed them in his newspaper, the Social Credit parties of Quebec and Alberta published them in their literature and Social Credit MP for Wetaskiwin, Norman Jaques, tried reading the Protocols in the House of Commons.

But nobody adhered to the message of the Protocols like Adolph Hitler.

To what extent the whole existence of this people is based on a continuous lie is shown incomparably by the Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion, so infinitely hated by the Jews. They are based on a forgery, the Frankfurter Zeitung moans and screams once every week: the best proof that they are authentic. What many Jews may do unconsciously is here consciously exposed.

And that is what matters. It is completely indifferent from what Jewish brain these disclosures originate; the important thing is that with positively terrifying certainty they reveal the nature and activity of the Jewish people and expose their inner contexts as well as their ultimate final aims. The best criticism applied to them, however, is reality. Anyone who examines the historical development of the last hundred years from the standpoint of this book will at once understand the screaming of the Jewish press. For once this book has become the common property of a people, the Jewish menace may be considered as broken ... (5)

When Preston Manning later tried to tap into the success of the Social Credit Party, that ran Alberta for almost four decades, he stated:

As I grew up, I learned that the "prairie populism" with which I was familiar—the Social Credit movement in Alberta—was not an isolated political aberration, but part of a much broader political tradition ... Years later, I developed a more objective view of populism, including a healthy fear of its darker side and a more realistic assessment of its potential as an agent for political change. (6)

He may have developed a 'healthy fear', but it did not stop him from bringing in the extremist elements when he launched his Reform Party. In fact at their first assembly, they adopted a motion to allow Right Wing fringe groups to join them, including Doug Christie's Western Canada Concept (Stockwell Day's father was a close friend of Christie's and a member of the WCP), a separatist party. (7)

When it was learned that several neo-Nazi groups had infiltrated the party, who coincidentally also followed the Protocols of Zion, Manning would simply say that "a bright light attracts bugs."

But as my own late father might say; "so does shite."

Footnotes:

1. Social Discredit: Anti-Semitism, Social Credit and the Jewish Response, Janine Stingel, Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press ISBN 0-7735-2010-4, Pg. 13

2. CANADIAN SOCIAL STUDIES VOLUME 38, NUMBER 1, FALL 2003, By Peter Seixas

3. Social Discredit: Anti-Semitism, Social Credit and the Jewish Response, Janine Stingel, Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press ISBN 0-7735-2010-4, Pg. 20-21)

4. Holocaust Years: The Nazi Destruction of European Jewry, 1933-1945, Nora Levin, Pg 19

5. Mein Kampf, Adolph Hitler, Translated by Ralph Mannheim, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1943

6. The New Canada, Preston Manning, 1992, MacMillan Canada, ISBN: 0-7715-9150-0, pg. 7

7. Of Passionate Intensity: Right-Wing Populism and the Reform Party of Canada. Author: Trevor Harrison Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995. ISBN: 0-8020-7204-6, Pg. 115-116

Stockwell Day: Fire, Brimstone and Neo-Nazis

There is a book written in 2001, about the life of Stockwell Day, a man I have long despised, called 'REQUIEM FOR A LIGHTWEIGHT, Stockwell Day and Image Politics' by Trevor W. Harrison, that goes into a bit of detail about Day's rise to the top.

How did someone with such little education, and absolutely narrow minded views, get to the position he has? He was almost Prime Minster of Canada, and while I filmy believe that Stephen Harper is the worst PM we've ever had, I think Day would have finished us off sooner than Harper is now trying to do.

The first chapter of Mr. Harrison's book is available online and can be read here. (Title page here) I've ordered it and look forward to reading the rest.

In the first chapter the author mentions the ties between Stockwell Day and James Keegstra, the man fired from his teaching position for suggesting that the holocaust was a hoax. Both were living in Bentley, Alberta; a town that would later become infamous as a haven for hate mongers.

"Sometime around 1983, after his dismissal from teaching, Keegstra moved to Bentley where he opened a garage. There, various other prominent members of the extreme right, such as Terry Long, leader of the Church of Aryan Nations, and Doug Christie, head of Western Canada Concept and a lawyer famous for defending individuals accused of hate crimes, are said sometimes to have visited Keegstra.

Day met Keegstra during this period and took his car to the garage for servicing on at least one occasion. However, according to Calgary lawyer Gerald Chipeur, hired by Day in the spring of 2000 when stories linking him to Keegstra resurfaced, Day never returned after the mechanic began a "hate-filled diatribe." (Mr. Keegstra tells it a little differently)

I've mentioned Doug Christie in a couple of posts, and while I don't agree with some of what he has to say, he also makes a lot of sense. Certainly not a burner of crosses. He is just a firm believer in the absolute freedom of speech, while I feel that hate mongering is a very dangerous thing, and that those who incite hatred should be punished.

But for Stockwell Day, his relationship to Doug Christie goes back a bit further. From Wikipedia:

His father, Stockwell Day, Sr., was long associated with the Social Credit Party of Canada. In the 1972 federal election he was the Social Credit candidate running against New Democratic Party leader Tommy Douglas in the riding of Nanaimo—Cowichan—The Islands. Day, Sr., supported Doug Christie and was a member of the Western Canada Concept.

From 1978 to 1985, Day (Junior) was assistant pastor and school administrator at the Bentley Christian Centre in Bentley, Alberta. His school taught the Accelerated Christian Education curriculum, which caused some controversy for its alleged anti-semitism.

Apparently Mr. Christie and several others actually joined the Alliance to support Stockwell Day's leadership bid, because they believed that they had finally found a voice for their neo-conservative view points. He would later be kicked out when the publicity became unfavourable, but this was the political environment where Stockwell cut his teeth.

There was an interesting article about Day's fundamentalism and links to neo-Nazi groups, that appeared in July of 2000. A decade earlier, the Reform Party was also being linked to some of the same people that Doug Christie was defending.

That's the trouble with a political party voicing extremist views. It attracts all sorts.

But back to Stockwell Day, fundamentalism and the neo-Nazis.

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

Part 1: Day's roots in the religious right
By: Gordon Laird

On the surface, Bentley looks a little like a set from an old western movie: a single main street rolls through the centre of town alongside old storefronts and residences. An old beer parlour and hotel sits downtown, and you can't turn a corner without finding a house of worship. It's a picturesque slice of central Alberta and the place where Stockwell Day, who made his name as leader of a renegade evangelical church, went from pastor to politician.

Until recently the treasurer of Alberta, Day is now a candidate for the leadership of the Canadian Alliance party. But despite the bucolic setting, back when Day was becoming a public figure Bentley and nearby Red Deer and Eckville percolated with Christian fundamentalism - and a virulent, faith-driven brand of anti-Semitism. This ideological weave of old Social Credit conspiracy doctrines, religion and far-right politics explains why to this day, despite Day's prominence in Alberta's cabinet, there are still neo-Nazi sympathizers from back home who claim to be his friends.

Day made headlines for defending fundamentalist school curricula that a government commission later found to hold "a degree of insensitivity towards blacks, Jews and natives."

When anti-Semitic teacher Jim Keegstra got tossed from his classroom in Red Deer in the early 80s for teaching about the "Jewish conspiracy," he certainly didn't stop profligating his message. Rather, he headed to Bentley, where he set up the Christian Defence Fund (CDL) and ran a mechanic's garage. The garage was popular, despite Keegstra's public denial of the holocaust. Even Stockwell Day - the man who would be prime minister some day - took his car to get serviced there. Eventually, Keegstra - who calls Day by his nickname, "Stock," as does everyone in town, attracted a bevy of notorious characters.

Visiting him in the garage or at his Eckville home were Aryan Nation leader Terry Long, Douglas Christie, lawyer for almost every major Canadian holocaust denier who's ever ran foul of the law, neo-Nazi Ernst Zundel and various white supremacists from south of the border - all of whom lent their passions to the the already combustible area.

Indeed politics and religion in this central Alberta region have always been intense. It is Reform country and before that Social Credit country. The party ruled Alberta from 1935 to 72 and continually struggled with anti-Semitism within the party. In the Day family, Stock's father, Stockwell Day Sr., ran for the federal Socreds against the NDP's Tommy Douglas in Vancouver in 1972. Later, he hooked up with the separatist Western Concept Party, also dedicated to preserving "our" Christian and European heritage and founded by lawyer Doug Christie. ("Doug, it is time for you, the captain, to call "all aboard," wrote Stock Sr. in the organization's newsletter in 1996.)

Following the Socred tradition, Day found his political calling while at the controversial Bentley Christian Centre. From 1978 to 85, Day was assistant pastor and school administrator. And in 1984 he made headlines for defending fundamentalist school curricula that a government commission later found to hold "a degree of insensitivity towards blacks, Jews and natives."

The ACE material that Day defended included a reading lesson which asked junior high students: "The Jewish leaders were children of their father, the devil - true or false?"

Alberta senator Ron Ghitter headed the 18-month commission on schooling in the wake of the Keegstra affair. His report raised serious questions about the Accelerated Christian Education (ACE), a curriculum imported by the Centre from the Texas-based School of Tomorrow and a rigid set of prescriptions for fundamentalist teaching on scripture and creation science.

"ACE schools were schools of dogma," says Ghitter, a former cabinet minister. "They didn't follow official curriculum and the kids who came out had sort of a twisted Christianity with anti-Semitic overtones." Ghitter recalls one telling incident in a Red Deer Christian school where he discovered an ACE book that argued "all kinds of Buddhists and Muslims are evil." He took the book to the principal, who promptly denied knowing anything about the literature, saying that it was an old book. Ghitter checked the cover: it was new.

"It's repulsive that people would be teaching this material," he explains. "But in certain pockets of central Alberta - Eckville, Bentley, Red Deer - they're good people but they sometimes take the position that their religion is right and others are inferior." At the time Day fervently defended the material - and the right of his school to teach whatever it wanted - saying he was willing to "go to jail, if need be."

"God's law is clear," said an angry Day to the Alberta Report in 1984. "Standards of education are not set by government, but by God, the Bible, the home and the school."

But there was more to the ACE material than just Bible teaching. Social studies lessons warned students that democratic governments "represent the ultimate deification of man, which is the very essence of humanism and totally alien to God's word." Science lessons taught pure creationism, noting that all evolutionists were guilty of "depravity and sinfulness." In other words, the ACE material that Day so passionately defended sometimes took an extreme and dismissive view on secular society - a position that was radical even for religious private schooling.

Religion was so high-strung that kids from the Bentley Christian Centre weren't allowed to play sports with children from outside the parish.

Moreover, there was the Jewish question. Paula Simons of the Edmonton Journal, who interviewed Day at the time, recently reported that the ACE materials were peppered with some disturbing Keegstra-esque statements. In one reading lesson, junior high students were asked: "The Jewish leaders were children of their father, the devil - true or false?" Day was quick to insist that the teachings at the Bentley Christian Centre were never anti-Semitic or intolerant. "That is totally inaccurate and slanderous," he told a reporter in 1985. "We refer to the Jews as the chosen people - the materials are against anti-Semitism."

What Day has to say about this today cannot be known by NOW readers as the former treasurer did not respond to five calls over six days and a set of e-mail questions. Ghitter himself is careful about accusing the former pastor of being anti-Semitic.

"I would never make that allegation against Stockwell," says the senator who himself is Jewish. "But built in that (religious) ideology is the roots of anti-Semitism. It's there in the roots of Social Credit - and it is in today's Alliance, though not necessarily in the leaders."

The current pastor at Day's church, doesn't spare much sympathy for the former Alberta treasurer. Gregory Rathjen says that when Day left in 1985 to pursue a political career, the assistant pastor left behind a community that was deeply divided.

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. Very few people knew. It's not acceptable," says the pastor who outright rejected Stockwell Day's old ACE curriculum after a trip down to ACE's Texas headquarters. And Stockwell Day? "Stock wrote me a letter saying he had nothing to do with it - but he lived off of it and enjoyed it," says Rathjen, frankly. "That's what this church was - a bully. They bullied people and won."
*********
Bentley locals tell stories about Stockwell Day's church group going out to "push down" the Bentley beer parlour with prayer one evening: a group laid their hands on the building and prayed for it to fall like Babylon.

"They prayed by the Hotel, put their hands on the beer parlour to collapse it for being sinful," recalls one resident. "It was this charismatic preacher there - Stockwell had charisma, but followed this minister blindly."

It is impossible to avoid religion in Bentley. On a per capita basis, Alberta's self-described "model community" has more places of worship than most towns - six churches for 900 residents. Day's church comprised one-third of Bentley's population, with nearly 300 people. And just to keep things interesting, Bentley reportedly had a practicing witch - and a coven - for a number of years.

The intense religious dynamic sometimes exploded. Local doctor Bill McKendrich claims he was driven out of Bentley in 1978 by the Bentley Christian Centre because church leaders wanted their own doctor. "When I was there in Bentley, there was a very strong fundamentalist group trying to take over the village," he says. "If you don't belong to the church, you don't belong to the community." "People are helpful here," says longtime resident Doris Bargholz, "but when there's a controversy, people aren't afraid to take sides: the coffee shop, the barber shop, these are places where conflicts are resolved. People feel strongly."

(Gordon Laird is an award-winning journalist and author of Slumming it at the Rodeo: the Cultural Roots of Canada's Right-wing Revolution, Douglas and McIntyre. This feature originally appeared in Toronto's NOW magazine)

To Part Two

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