Men should pledge themselves to nothing; for reflection makes a liar of their resolution. Sophocles
Pledges are nothing new for politicians. Some are broad in scope, like FDR's pledge to a New Deal for Americans, or President Obama's pledge to not raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year.
In 1994, Newt Gingrich's Contract With America, while mostly a treatise on "family values" laced with anti-government claptrap, helped the GOP win the primaries. It was a pledge.
What a lot of Canadians are no doubt unaware of, is that Stephen Harper's Reform Party helped to draft the Contract. It's author, Republican pollster Frank Luntz, had been working with Harper and the gang since 1991, and in fact it was Luntz who told Harper to use hockey terms whenever he could to lure us into a state of complacency.
What really sold Americans on The Contract, was the "folksy" way that it was delivered; and the fact that it was revealed just days before the election, there was little time for anyone to give it a thorough analysis.
During this week's Ontario leadership debate, Conservative Tim Hudak, "pledged" that if he couldn't balance the budget in two years, or create one million jobs in eight years, he would resign.
He delivered this pledge with the same "folksy" sincerity as Newt Gingrich did his, and again near the end of the campaign. Will it be enough to fool voters?
We know that Hudak visited America's Far Right to help draft his platform, at a time when the Tea Party was calling for a renewal of The Contract.
Most of the opposition to Hudak's pledge appears to be in the reality of his being able to honour it. I worry that he will.
Not that it might boost his credibility, but of what it could cost Ontario.
In 1995, Conservative MP Jason Kenney, then head of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation; criss-crossed the country promoting his anti-tax philosophy. As part of his tour, he met up with Mike
Harris who signed a pledge not to raise taxes if elected. Harris also pledged to balance the budget.
To keep the first promise, while lowering taxes for our
wealthiest citizens, Harris implemented and increased user fees, and downloaded many services to municipalities, resulting in property tax increases for most residents.
To keep the second, in a desperate eleventh hour move, he sold a toll highway, giving away a century of needed revenue
In the final week of the campaign, all parties will flood the
airways with ads, further confusing the electorate. Maybe all they will remember is the goofy grin and the "pledge".
Despite the fact that such contracts would not be legally binding in Canada, we might still be on the hoof for the settlement.
Since Citizens United paved the way for the wealthy to buy U.S. political candidates outright, there is more for Americans to worry about than losing their democracy, though that is certainly a blow to a once democratic country.
The people with all of this money expect something in return and in the case of Newt Gingrich, and his financial backer Sheldon Adelson, it might be a price few Americans are willing to pay.
Adelson apparently has demanded that the $10 million he gave to Gingrich be repaid with a war in Iran, if Gingrich is ever president. (maybe on the moon)
Bill Maher and former Republican Congressman Mark Foley (yes that Mark Foley) discussed this recently, and Foley rightfully claimed that the "passion of the moment should not dictate foreign policy". This bubble that conservatives live in, that facts can never penetrate, has to burst, before they do something really stupid.
They actually believe that they can win a nuclear war. Having more nukes only protects you from a potential nuclear attack. Using them means something else altogether.
Like many conservative bubble dwellers, Adelson claims to love Israel, which is code for hoping Israel levels the rest of the Middle East. Former president Jimmy Carter was interviewed by Time magazine last week, and was asked about the Israel/nuclear situation.
Are you optimistic about Israel's future?
No, I'm not. The U.S. has the least influence in the Middle East now than it's had since Israel was formed. We are totally immune to any sort of influence from the Palestinians or from the Arab world. We are completely in bed with the Israelis, who are persecuting the Palestinians horribly, and this is contrary, I think, to the best interest of Israel.
What do you think it means that Iran seems to have its first nuclear fuel rod?
Well, of course, the religious leaders of Iran have sworn on their word of honor that they're not going to manufacture nuclear weapons. If they are lying, then I don't see that as a major catastrophe because they'll only have one or two military weapons. Israel probably has 300 or so.
Carter is an Evangelist who created Habitats for Humanity. The Evangelists circling the GOP like vultures, would never dream of doing something to help mankind. Instead they seem determined to destroy it, arrogantly believing that only they will survive.
We don't talk about this enough (at all) in Canada, but as Lawrence Martin warns us in Harperland, Stephen Harper follows the doctine created by American conservatives: The Clash of Civilizations. He is onboard with the anhilation of Iran. Newt Gingrich and Stephen Harper together as leaders would be terrifying.
If there is one good thing about the new policies that allow corporate financing of politicians, it's that the wealthy who used to operate in the shadows, are now known to us. They are front and centre of the ugliness. The Koch Brothers we knew about. Some of the others, not so much.
It turns out that Newt's sugar daddy is not just insane but allegedly engages in criminal activities. Today's headline: Gingrich's billionaire campaign backer under federal investigation after lawsuit alleges he hushed possible ties to Chinese organized crime.
Now that we know who they are it will be like shooting fish in a barrel. We'll have the billionaires begging to change the election financing rules, or at least moving back to the shadows.
Stephen Harper still refuses to tell us who financed his leadership campaign in 2003. It might be nice to have that list so that we could shine a light on those shaping Canadian policy. But then again, maybe it's best we don't know.
Newt Gingrich frightened even Republicans this week with his plans to develop a colony on the moon by 2020. He had obviously given this a lot of thought, because he indicated that the colony would consist of 13,000 people and would be named the 51st state.
What he didn't say was how he would choose those 13,000. Would it be a penal colony? Would he snatch up vagrants on the streets? Arizona's illegal immigrants?
I think he should have a contest and allow people to choose who they would like to send to the moon. The entries with the best reasons for removing this person from earth would win.
So who would you like to send to the moon? Your Boss? Your in-laws? That girl at the bank who pretends she doesn't see you and keeps her head down writing fictitious numbers on a piece of paper while you stand in line? (I have issues)
If you polled Canadians I'm sure the top answer would be Stephen Harper. But I don't think that would work. He'd have to take along his camera crew to make sure that his images were correctly airbrushed. It's difficult to say how good the lighting is on the moon.
Then he'd need his videographers, his hairstylist and his enormous communications team to ensure that he didn't say something really stupid. He has so many of them, that he now has to tie them together to keep them from bumping into each other. Too many unexplained bruises.
Harper would also insist that the Koch Brothers accompanied him. Before long they'd start drilling into the moon so they could monopolize the cheese market. The media would ignore the damage while chasing the glittering moon rock.
And of course he'd have to be boss of this new colony, even if there was someone else better qualified. He'd just run attack ads against his opponent, calling her a gay loving, gun hating, radical, feminist, terrorist loving liberal. The other colonists would get so sick of hearing it that they'd refuse to vote at all, so he could then be king.
However, King Steve would never forget those behind his success. The American conservatives. As reward he would make sure that all the cheese was piped back to them, even if it meant starvation for "his people".
Wait a minute .... pro-American conservative? .... 51st state? .... self appointed despot?
We think that Stephen Harper is only our problem, but like it or not, the rest of the world is paying attention and what they see us turning into is not something they admire.
It’s well known that America’s dependence on foreign oil forces us to partner with some pretty unsavory regimes. Take, for instance, the country that provides by far the largest share of our petroleum imports. Its regime, in thrall to big oil interests, has grown increasingly bellicose, labeling environmental activists “radicals” and “terrorists” and is considering a crackdown on nonprofits that oppose its policies. It blames political dissent on the influence of “foreigners,” while steamrolling domestic opposition to oil projects bankrolled entirely by overseas investors. Meanwhile, its skyrocketing oil exports have sent the value of its currency soaring, enriching energy industry barons but crippling other sectors of its economy.Yes, Canada is becoming a jingoistic petro-state.
And Will Oremus, the author of the Slate piece is right. It's pretty hypocritical that Harper is blaming "foreignors" for the opposition to the pipelines, when the damn pipelines and most of the Tar Sands are now owned by "foreignors".
The U.S., French, British, Chinese, Thai, Korean and Norwegian interests have all bought stakes in oil-sands projects. According to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP), international companies have invested nearly $20 billion in the last three years through mergers, partnerships and outright purchases of projects.
The Ethical Oil Institute, is a phony grassroots organization, created by Ezra Levant and run by Stephen Harper’s current Director of Planning, Alykhan Velshi. Velshi, as we know has close ties to Dick Cheney and George Bush.
Director of the Ethical Oil Institute is Kathryn Marshall, a blogger and sometimes columnist. Marshall appeared on Power and Politics recently, where Evan Solomon repeatedly asked her if she was employed by Enbridge, but she refused to answer.
While it's all good fun to play Spot the Freemason, something very serious is going on here. Last summer, John Bruk, the Asia Pacific Foundation's founding president, warned that Ottawa was ignoring the rapid emergence of Chinese government interests "in sheep's clothing" taking over Canada's natural resource industries. Bruk told B.C. Business magazine: "Are we jeopardizing prosperity for our children and grandchildren while putting at risk our economic independence? In my view, this is exactly what is happening." As things have turned out, Bruk was more right than he knew.
When your currency is quickly becoming backed by a single commodity (not gold), the risks are enormous. And when China and other foreign interests, have a large stake in that commodity, the risks become even greater. Do they care if Canada's economy fails? There is no vested interest, other than in profit.
Canadians’ increasing reliance on crude natural resources has economists on the lookout for symptoms of “Dutch Disease”—a phenomenon in which a natural resources boom strengthens a country’s currency, making its other exports more expensive and less competitive on the world market.
President Obama’s rejection of Keystone XL is only as secure as his re-election. GOP front-runner Mitt Romney has called the decision “shocking,” and Newt Gingrich called it “stunningly stupid.” By 2013, the two North American countries could be on the same team again when it comes to oil. If so, it’ll be us against the world.
Newt Gingrich is now the front-runner, so it would be Newt and Harper against the world. Imagine that. Dumb and Dumber II.
What Newt doesn't understand is the power of the people, who are just as determined to stop the Northern Gateway Pipeline, as they were the XL.
While blasting President Barack Obama for rejecting the Keystone XL Pipeline and the thousands of jobs it has been estimated it would create, Gingrich warned Canada will send its oil to China instead. And he praised Harper, too.
"What Prime Minister Harper -- who, by the way, is conservative and pro-American -- what he has said is he's gonna cut a deal with the Chinese and they'll build a pipeline straight across the Rockies to Vancouver," Gingrich said Saturday night. "We'll get none of the jobs, none of the energy, none of the opportunity.
Maybe Harper and Newt could go on Dancing with the Stars. A much better couple than Manning and Gingrich. Their steps are perfectly timed.
I wonder what the Harper team will do this time to help their conservative allies South of the border? They tried to railroad Obama in 2008, and I'm sure they've still got a few tricks up their sleeve.
Personally, I think Gingrich would be a gift to the Democrats, but who knows?
"In Gallup's poll of the Republican faithful at the start of 1966, Nixon was ahead by twenty-three points. Michigan governor George Romney sat fourth. But Romney was the one all the pundits were picking ..." Nixonland, By Rick Perlstein, 2008
George Romney was of course, Mitt's father. But why did the pundits think that he would beat out Nixon?
I just received this week's Time magazine and on the front cover they have George's son asking "Why don't they like me?"
On Chris Matthews Hardball this week, several on the panel are still predicitng a Romney victory. However, what they fail to understand is that the base of the party are not looking for a Republican who can win, but a true "conservative" to carry their banner, come hell or high water.
In 1966, the media had not yet caught on to the fact that the Republican Party had been hijacked by the conservative movement. They simply felt that George Romney was the best man for the job, and assumed that all those voting Republican would see that.
However, Conservatives would not have thrown their support behind Romney the way they did Nixon, earning him not only the candidacy, but the presidency.
"Borrowed in part from the legacy of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, Canadian neo-conservatism owes much of it's character to the right-wing populist tradition of the West. "Indeed, Canadians became exporters of neo-con innovation in the 1990s. 'I would say Margaret Thatcher and Mr. [Preston] Manning are the two non-Americans we learned most from'', said U.S. Republican House Speaker, Newt Gingrich in 1995.
I know him [Preston Manning] because I watched all of his commercials. We developed our platform from watching his campaign.' Like cowboy culture, Canadian neo-conservatism is a growth industry, spawning a whole generation of Will James outlaws in hot pursuit of political power." (Slumming it at the Rodeo: The Cultural Roots of Canada's Right-Wing Revolution, Gordon Laird, 1998, Douglas & McIntyre, ISBN: 1-55054 627-9, Pref. xiv-xv)
The political cartoon above, first appeared in the Alberta Report Magazine on March 27, 1995, under the caption 'Preston Manning and Newt Gingrich dancing in newt suits'. The two men formed a lasting friendship as they worked out ways to promote combative style politics.
Republican pollster Frank Luntz, was then working with Canada's Reform Party, but took his leave to help Newt draft his Contract With America. Ralph Reed of the U.S. Christian Coalition wrote a corresponding document Contract With the American Family, to bring in the Religious Right.
... Even more ominous for democratic rights in [British Columbia] is the recent hatching of the B.C. clone of Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition. With 1.7 million active members and a $25 million (US) annual budget, the U.S. organization has become a formidable lobbying force in American politics, installing its anti-choice, anti-gay agenda and candidates at all levels of government, from school boards to Congress .... the Christian Coalition of Canada materialized after dozens of conservative Christians in this country thronged to Washington, DC, last fall [1995] to attend a major convention of the U.S. organization.
"Advisors" to the new CCC reportedly include Ted and Link Byfield (owners of the ultra-conservative B.C. Report and Alberta Report magazines), Jason Kenny (head of the Canadian Taxpayers Association), and Alex Parachin (head of the Christian Broadcasting Associates in Toronto, the Canadian branch plant of Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network).
The B.C. chapter is sure to be a factor in the upcoming election, giving a boost to Reform Party candidates and any others who will go on record opposing abortion ... While Don Spratt may be telling readers "Nobody has anything to fear from the Christian Coalition," progressive activists and journalists will have to make sure the electorate knows better." (The Christian Coalition Comes to Canada, by Kim Goldberg, The Albion Monitor, May 5, 1996)
"Journalists will have to make sure the electorate knows better"? Yeah. Good luck with that. A decade and a half later and they still don't get it.
Even Kelly Block's recent attack on our aboriginal communities, stems from American neoconservatism. She's working on behalf of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, described as a pyramid scheme. And CTF is a spin-off of Grover Norquist'sAmericans For Tax Reform.
Both traverse the country with their debt clocks and force conservative politicians to sign pledges not to increase government revenue. Jason Kenney had Mike Harris sign it in 1995. Enough said.
I now watch American political commentary programs, because it's the only way I know what Harper's next move will be. And it is also the only way to understand the politics of the Conservative Party of Canada. They are part of the Conservative movement that began in the U.S. in the 1940s, imported by Ernest Manning, and they have been in lock step ever since.
We just didn't notice until they came to power in 2006. It has been said that the Harperites introduced Western style politics, but in fact, it was American style Conservatism.
Listening to someone like Evan Solomon, is like having a hockey commentator call the plays at a baseball game. He's not even in the ballpark.
Dog Whistles and Playing to the Base
A letter in Time magazine this week, discusses why many Republicans don't trust Mitt Romney. "They are distrustful of his recent public conversions on abortion, gun control and gay rights, or turned off by his Massachusetts health care law." (November 18, p. 20)
Those conversions of course, refer to the fact that he used to respect gay rights and women's reproductive rights, feared guns, and was committed to improving the health of his constituents, or at least assuring that all had access to good health care. All of these things are now kacky poo poo to the Republican base.
How did they let it get this far?
It's because they only played to that base with dog whistle politics. Saying the right thing to stir up the ignorant and now they are forced to draft policy to appease the ignorant, or risk being unelectable.
On Chris Matthew's Hardball this week, they discussed the rise of Newt Gingrich, who now has the perfect blend of ignorance and moderation, to make everyone happy. At least for now. Newt used to be deemed too right wing. His politics haven't changed, only the expectations of the conservative base.
One panelist on the program, Chicago Tribune columnist, Clarence Page, said that segregation is making a comeback. Instead of signs reading "Blacks to the back of the bus" or "Whites only", Anglo Republican politicians are simply ignoring the concerns of black communities, and turning others against them by suggesting that they are demanding too much.
Michelle Obama was booed recently by NASCAR fans, prompting Rush Limbaugh to praise them for going after the "uppity" first lady. It was blown out of his dog whistle as "uppity n.....", and the base sang Hallelujah.
Our own Fox News North painted First Nation struggles as being against "white people and Indians" with another banner "we're on your side". The "Indians indulged" makes it pretty clear whose side they're on.
Harper government policies are also a promotion of the new form of segregation. He doesn't attack women, but instead removes the word "equality" from the Status for Women mandate, puts an end to affirmative action and pay equity initiatives, closes 12 of the 16 Status for Women offices and eliminates their research funding.
His government doesn't overtly attack minorities, but closes down Human Rights Commission offices, so that those suffering from discrimination have no place to address their concerns.
Gawd, I wish our media would catch up. Maybe we should send them all dog whistles for Christmas, because they sure as hell are not trying to communicate to us.
When it was discovered that neo-Nazis had infiltrated the Reform Party, Preston Manning fell back on his father's tired line, when the media exposed his extremist elements.
The hottest new reality show, Who gets Kicked Out of the Trailor Park?, also known as the Republican debates, is taking the U.S. by storm.
Across the country sounds of "Don't tell me what stupid thing Rick Perry said this week, I'm taping it!" and "Michelle Bachmann did go to high school, right?" or "You mean, Mitt Romney changed his mind again?!" fill the air.
Herman Cain, once in the lead, has found himself in a bit of trouble though, and Perry is catching up in the polls. It started with a bizarre ad campaign, depicting his chief-of-staff Mark Block standing, talking, and smoking a cigarette. Some called it a brilliant "in your face" response to the "liberal elite". Others, "an irresponsible disregard for the health of the people Cain aims to represent." I just call it creepy. You be the judge.
The ad is having an impact, both negative and positive, but another story may change the opinion of some of his supporters.
Seems our man Cain was charged with sexual harassment. Conservative parrots are chirping the usual "media bias" and "witch hunt", but if he was hoping to capture any of Bachmann's religious support, he may be out of luck.
I can't wait for the next episode. I hear that all of the wives that Newt Gingrich cheated on, will be acting as mediators. At least those still living.
The "real" reality is, that one of these clowns could be the next president of the United States. I may have to take up smoking.
I've already posted on how Harper's Reformers helped Newt Gingrich win the House in the mid 1990's.
They didn't get much more right-wing than the Newt.
But now Gingrich is challenging the Harper government's new tough on the poor by making them all criminals, law and order agenda, that includes prison expansion and the cancelling of rehabilitation programs.
Gingrich, the former Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, is the best-known leader of Right on Crime, a new conservative group that is blowing the whistle on the idea that more prisons, more prisoners and more money poured into punishment is the way to keep people safe. In the Post, he wrote that the U.S. spent a staggering $68 billion last year on corrections, largely to lock up petty criminals and addicts. Worse, he added, “half of the prisoners released this year are expected to be back in prison within three years. If our prison policies are failing half the time, and we know there are more humane, effective alternatives, it is time to fundamentally rethink how we treat and rehabilitate our prisoners.”
What a week for the Harper government to announce the latest instalment of its “tough on crime” agenda. Ottawa doled out $150 million to fund hundreds of new beds at jails in Ontario, Quebec and the Prairies, part of a plan that will cost at least $2 billion over the next five years (the government’s figure) or as much as $5 billion (the estimate by the independent Parliamentary budget officer). The Conservatives should think again, and take on board the message from Gingrich & Co. Instead of harping on about being “tough on crime,” they should focus on getting it right on crime — in the best possible way.
But how can their wealthy buddies profit from that?
Listen to Stockwell Day try and justify his "build it and they will come" waste of our money.
“These proposals included cries for billions of new money for social assistance in the name of “child poverty” and for more business subsidies in the name of “cultural identity”. In both cases I was sought out as a rare public figure to oppose such projects.” - Stephen Harper (1)
We have already established that the entire platform of Stephen Harper has come from the American Republicans and their Religious Right. He left nothing to chance. He took their ideas and replicated them here, right down to Fox News. Safe given their unwarranted success, but stupid given their insanity.
In a piece entitled Luntz of Luck With Newt, Dalton Camp discussed Preston Manning's appearance on an American program with Newt Gingrich and Frank Luntz in 1995.
Also present as interlocutor, and lending a little verisimilitude, was Frank Luntz, president of Luntz Research, who, according to Higgins [the host], 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.
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." (2)
And while Harper prefers an incremental approach, so as not to "spook the electorate", there's no argument that Frank Luntz and his Republican pals are running the show. "elimination of public funding for the arts, the humanities, and the Public Broadcasting Service...". And Luntz was just getting started.
Grover Norquist, another Republican hack who speaks for corporate America, was behind Jason Kenney's Canadian Taxpayers Federation.He wants government [regulation] to be reduced to the extent that it can be drowned in a bathtub.
They simply want to eliminate taxes for the rich and transfer them to the poor, believing that if the rich can get as rich as humanly possible, they will be sure to throw a few crumbs to the less fortunate. Just don't touch their stuff, because Stockwell Day is building American style prisons, and praying he can keep them filled.
Which brings us to the Harper government's refusal to address poverty in this country, ignoring every single recommendation of a senate committee.
There is ample evidence that far too many Canadians are falling through the cracks of existing income support and housing programs; yet Harper’s government evidently prefers not to think about new ways to help the 3.4 million Canadians the report identified as still living in poverty. Worse still, the Senate report concluded that, far from lifting people out of poverty, many of our existing programs are so badly designed that they hold people down.
Fighting poverty ought not to be a partisan issue. Indeed, the Senate subcommittee was notable for its bipartisanship, with Art Eggleton, a Liberal, as chair, and Hugh Segal, a Conservative, as vice-chair. That makes it doubly disheartening that Harper’s government has ignored the committee’s call for a comprehensive anti-poverty plan. (3)
And Hugh Segal, the PC Party sellout, was only concerned that Harper and his caucus might say something stupid, so advised that they "temper their message of austerity with compassion." Words that work.
They braced for a disappointment, but the brush-off was more callous than they anticipated. This week, the government delivered its response to the Senate’s 2009 report, In From the Margins: A Call to Action on Poverty, Housing and Homelessness. It rejected every one of the report’s 74 recommendations. It ignored the senators’ evidence that Ottawa is spending $150 billion a year on social programs that merely perpetuate poverty. It concluded with these all-too-familiar words: “The best long-term strategy to fight poverty is the sustained employment of Canadians.”
The glimmer of hope that anti-poverty activists, people with disabilities and overburdened charities had nursed since last December when the Senate’s social affairs committee released its comprehensive plan to eradicate poverty, went out. (4)
But if you believe that Stephen Harper is concerned about the state of economy, and that the only reason for his cutbacks and callous disregard for human suffering, is for the greater economic good, guess again.
This man has given more gifts to the corporate sector than Brian Mulroney or George Bush ever thought of, and has also given more gifts to himself in an ever increasing commitment to his narcissism.
Doug Draper asks "where is the public outcry" over this self-promotion orgy, which included 50 million dollars for bloody signs?
Those signs posted across the Canadian landscape – a few of them highlighted here – make up a good chunk of a record $130 million Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Conservatives spent on advertising themselves in the 2009/2010 fiscal year ending this past March, according to a wave of recent stories in The Globe and Mail and other mainstream media. And God, or maybe only Harper, knows how much more of our money will be spent on federal government ads in this 2010/2011 fiscal year with an election looming sometime in the not-to-distant future. (5)
He's right to ask: Where is the public outcry?
And while the Harper government ignores the poor, Tony Clement spends 50 million dollars of our money to help a buddy flip a property.
Where is the public outcry?
The scandalous spending during the G-20 weekend from hell included $ 85,000.00 at a mini bar, while Canadian children go to bed hungry.
Where is the public outcry?
More than $ 100,000 to drain a quarry so the RCMP have a place to sleep (??????)
Where is the public outcry?
Image consultants and first class travel, while the rest of us are told to fend for ourselves.
In September of 2007, Michael Ignatieff visited Peterborough to present a speech. His topic was the desperate need in Canada to fight child poverty.
He didn't criticize the city's MP, Dean Del Mastro. In fact he never mentioned him at all. And yet Del Mastro saw fit to write a letter to the Peterborough Examiner.
"Doesn’t it warm your heart when a wealthy person of extreme privilege drops by to speak about how he wants to tackle child poverty! Such was the case when we were graced by the presence of long-time U.S. resident, deputy Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff." (6)
Despite the fact that Mr. Ignatieff only taught at Harvard for five years, and most of his professional career was in Great Britain, where he not only taught at Oxford and Cambridge but worked as a journalist for the BBC. And the notion of him being a "wealthy person of extreme privilege", is rich coming from a man who is known not only for driving the country's biggest cars, but who lives very well on the taxpayer dime.
But seeing as how Mr. Ignatieff was there speaking of child poverty, you might expect Del Mastro to defend his party's position or offer alternative wisdom on the subject.
But nope! Nothing but a partisan rant.
Michael Ignatieff has seen suffering. He's covered wars in places like Kosovo and Sarajevo. He visited Kurdistan after the genocide and travelled to Rwanda with Boutros Boutros-Ghali to examine the skeletal remains of a population. He didn't have to. He could have just enjoyed his "extreme privilege".
But as a man who has dedicated his life to human rights issues, he saw suffering in his own country and wanted to gain support for an initiative to help eradicate it. He deliberately made it non-partisan.
But if Dean Del Mastro, Stephen Harper and the rest of this party, can choose to spend our money on themselves and their corporate buddies, and deny help to those who really need it, I'd like to know one thing:
Where is the public outcry?
Sources:
1. The Bulldog, National Citizens Coalition, February 1997
2. Whose Country is This Anyway? By Dalton Camp, Douglas & McIntyre, 1995, ISBN: 1-55054-467-5, Pg. 186
A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada
Canada's Access to Information Act was passed into law by Pierre Trudeau in 1983.
Conceived in the late 1970s, drafted and passed into law in the early 1980s, the Act was quite radical in its impact. It created an enforceable right of access for Canadians, subject to limited and specific exceptions, and provided for an appeal process for refusal of access independent of government, first, to an Information Commissioner and then to the Federal Court. Despite ongoing criticism of the legislation, there is no doubt that it has served to slowly but nevertheless effectively strip away much of the natural resort to secrecy which has been one of the less useful legacies to the country of British parliamentary government. In short, the Act established new standards for the release of information which required often reluctant Ministers and bureaucrats to embrace the tenets of open, more transparent government. One cannot pick up a thoughtful editorial, public affairs magazine or throne speech and not find these concepts now heralded as one of the essential bases of the "new", more relevant politics. (1)
The act wasn't perfect but it was a start and has been a useful tool, especially to journalists. It has also been a thorn to many politicians of all political stripes, as they have tried to stall information they'd rather not have made public. But it rarely worked.
Eventually the truth came out, and the fact that they tried to withhold that truth, only made the potential scandal worse.
Then along came Stephen Harper, and he would do more to circumvent the access to information act than anyone before him. But he wrapped it up in language designed to placate a distrustful public. And that language was courtesy of Republican pollster Frank Luntz.
Because while we sought transparency, they instead gave us 'accountability'.
I constantly hear the need for "transparency" coming from members of the financial services industry as well as Members of Congress. But if you asked the American people, accountability is a much higher priority. The fact is, a majority of Americans can’t even explain what transparency actually means. But everyone understands and demands accountability from all sectors of the economy ... and the government. (2)
Those are the words of Frank Luntz and he used the notion of 'accountability' as part of his book: Words That Work. And when I say the notion of accountability, I mean exactly that.
It's interesting that the entire 'Accountability Act', came not from anyone in the legal, civic or justice community, but from a Republican pollster whose job it is to get people elected and keep them in power. And not by being a better or more ethical government, but simply by using words that work. 'Accountability', not 'transparency'.
And it worked for a while. That was until it was determined that this government was the most secretive in this country's history.
Robert Marleau, the information commissioner when Harper assumed power, resigned:
... a few months after issuing a set of failing-grade report cards that blamed those "at the very top" for systematically denying Canadians information about what the government is doing in their name. (2)
And our new information officer, Suzanne Legault, has given the Harper government a failing grade. And while they continue to take Luntz's advice and use the word 'accountability' as much as possible, nothing has changed.
So when David McKie asks recently, the G-20 and G-8 expenses debate, is it really about transparency, we are not the ones to ask. We're not familiar with the term. We've been Republicanized.
What we have recorded to date is about a quarter of a billion dollars. In other words, a fraction of the total bill, which we're told is comprised mostly of security costs born by the RCMP and CSIS. Because of security concerns with those organizations, a detailed breakdown of the remaining costs may never come. If it does, the information, as it was this summer when foreign affairs first released its costs, will be heavily censored. This is not transparency.
You had us until you mentioned the 'T' word David.
In it he suggests that remnants of the Tea Party movement have headed to Canada, creating a bumper sticker mentality.
However, as I've posted before, much of this anti-government, anti-intellectual sentiment, was home-grown. We exported it.
Canadians became exporters of neo-con innovation in the 1990s. 'I would say Margaret Thatcher and Mr. [Preston] Manning are the two non-Americans we learned most from'', said U.S. Republican House Speaker, Newt Gingrich in 1995.
'I know him [Preston Manning] because I watched all of his commercials. We developed our platform from watching his campaign.' Like cowboy culture, Canadian neo-conservatism is a growth industry, spawning a whole generation of Will James outlaws in hot pursuit of political power." (1)
Gingrich created an "us against them" campaign that has only gained momentum within the Republican movement.
And while the world saw hope when Obama was elected; that intelligence would replace the sheer stupidity of the Bush administration; with the help of Fox News and their spin-off Tea Party movement, they were able to paint the president as un-American ("just visiting"?), a communist and even a terrorist. And they took control of the political debate.
If the trend toward placing only the ignorant into government continues, what can this mean for a country with so much military might? Does anyone really want Sara Palin anywhere near the "red button"? Even if it's only metaphorical, the fact remains that she could start a nuclear war.
And just as the Religious Right infiltrated the political structure, the corporate funded Tea Party movement is doing the same thing. And many Americans are concerned about this, and rightfully so. In fact, many Republicans are now concerned about this.
Extremism Thou Name is Stephen Harper
One of the Tea Party candidates who will be vying for a senate seat is Sharron Angle, from Nevada. Angle is being described as an 'extremist' because of her views on a wide range of issues. However, I read through that list of 'extreme" views, and guess what? They represent the Reform Party platform, and could be espoused by most of Stephen Harper's caucus. In fact several of them, we have heard from Harper himself.
1. Angle: believes that the U.S. Department of Education should be eliminated ... She claims the Department of Education is "unconstitutional" and should not be involved in dictating educational standards.
Harper and the NCC [National Citizens Coalition] endorsed a private school tax credit proposed by Ontario's Progressive Conservative government in 2001 [Jim Flaherty*], arguing that it would 'save about $7,000 for each student who does not attend a union-run public school'. Education Minister Janet Ecker criticized this, saying that her government's intent was not to save money at the expense of public education. (2)
At a Reform Party Assembly
The Reformers gathered in Saskatoon saved perhaps the loudest cheers, whistles, and applause for [William] Gairdner's last shot: 'And my favourite proposal, by the way, is returning choice to education by privatizing every school in the country'. (3)
2. Angle: Angle believes in United States withdrawal from the United Nations, saying it is a bastion of liberal ideology and "the umpire on fraudulent science such as global warming."
Though Stephen Harper is working to get an undeserved seat on the United Nations Security Council, he has always opposed the body.
3. Angle: supports the Federal Marriage Amendment to ban same-sex marriage. She believes that single-income households are the best way to raise a family
We already know how Harper and his party feel about same-sex marriage and this quote sums up the party's beliefs: "We should try to keep our mothers in the home and that’s where the whole Reform platform hangs together." - Garry Breitkreuz
4. Angle: favors the privatization of Medicare.
So does Stephen Harper. Remember his quote, "It's high time the feds scrapped the Canada Health Act"
5. Angle: has said that the Social Security system should be "transitioned out".
The Reform Party wanted to privatize both CPP and the Old Age Pension. Still do.
6. Angle: has stated that she opposes legalizing marijuana and has said that she feels the same about alcohol.
7. Angle: quoted as saying: "What is a little bit disconcerting and concerning is the inability for sporting goods stores to keep ammunition in stock ...
8. Angle: proposed a bill that "would have required doctors to inform women seeking abortions about a controversial theory linking an increased risk of breast cancer with abortion."
Can you say Maurice Vellacott?
Three years ago, [Saskatchewan MP Maurice Vellacott] helped to bring an American doctor and activist to Parliament Hill to tell Canadian women that abortion increases the risk of breast cancer. It turned out that the doctor, Angela Lanfranchi, was speaking from a defined religious point of view that had little apparent basis in science.
And, at the time, the link between the procedure and the disease had been discounted by the National Cancer Institute in the United States, the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada (and their U.S. counterparts), as well as the Canadian Cancer Society and the Canadian Breast Cancer Network.
So if Americans believe that Sharron Angle's views are extreme, but they are the same views held by our current government, can we expect to read a headline in the New York Times: Anti-intellectualism: Political venom moves South?
They may have the Tea Parties, but we brewed the tea.
Footnotes:
*When Jim Flaherty was running against Ernie Eves for the Ontario Conservative leadership in 2002, an American freelance journalist wrote of Flaherty: His full-bodied, conservative platform of tax cuts, privatization, and school choice, first caught the attention of grassroots conservatives with his unexpected announcement in last year's budget of a $3,500 ($2,300 USD) per-child tax credit for parents who send their children to independent schools. The measure, according to Laura Swartley of the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation for School Choice, is the most generous education tax credit in North America. It alone has won Flaherty the support of social conservatives and minority religious groups. (4)
Sources:
1. Slumming it at the Rodeo: The Cultural Roots of Canada's Right-Wing Revolution, Gordon Laird, 1998, Douglas & McIntyre, ISBN: 1-55054 627-9, Pref. xiv-xv
2. Stephen Harper's Biography 3. Preston Manning and the Reform Party, By Murray Dobbin Goodread Biographies/Formac Publishing 1992 ISBN: 0-88780-161-7, Pg. 165-166
There was an interesting column in the New York Times this week by Timothy Egan: Building a Nation of Know-Nothings. In it he discusses the absolute dumming down of American politics, and the selling of lies, that have become "facts", to that dummed down populace.
But it was not just the Religious Right that made American politics so toxic, but media outlets like Fox News. The same Fox News that Stephen Harper and his trusty sidekick Kory Teneycke are trying to flog to the Canadian people.
My guess is it's pretty easy to arrange lunch with the Prime Minister. No doubt Stephen Harper often lunches with labour leaders and advocates for the homeless [she says tongue in cheek]. So it should be considered no big deal that, among those the PM has lunched with, is U.S. media billionaire Rupert Murdoch, who has probably done more than any single individual in recent years to push American politics sharply to the right.
It's interesting to imagine, however, why our Prime Minister would want to meet with Murdoch, whose Fox News TV channel has poisoned U.S. political debate and nurtured America's extremist right-wing Tea Party movement. If you subscribe to the notion that Harper has no particular political agenda, his lunch with Murdoch in March 2009 might seem harmless, perhaps a purely social affair.
But the evidence suggests they were discussing plans to transform the Canadian political landscape by creating a right-wing, Fox-style TV station in Canada. Present at the lunch was Fox News president Roger Ailes, known for bringing cutthroat Republican campaign tactics to the screen. (Ailes designed the infamous race-baiting Willie Horton commercials that brought George H.W. Bush to power.) Also present at the lunch was Harper aide Kory Teneycke, who has since become the front man in the bid by Quebec media mogul Pierre Karl Peladeau to get a specialty TV licence for a Fox News-style network in Canada.
Then there's the fact that the lunch, during an official Harper visit to New York, was kept secret -- until being unearthed recently by Canadian Press reporter Bruce Cheadle.
And Egan of the New York Times describes what this will mean for Canadian politics, which have already become hyper-partisan and toxic under Stephen Harper.
And how the Republicans sell lies and half truths as "facts".
It’s not just that 46 percent of Republicans believe the lie that Obama is a Muslim, or that 27 percent in the party doubt that the president of the United States is a citizen. But fully half of them believe falsely that the big bailout of banks and insurance companies under TARP was enacted by Obama, and not by President Bush ... a president’s birthday or whether he was even in the White House on the day TARP was passed are apparently open questions. A growing segment of the party poised to take control of Congress has bought into denial of the basic truths of Barack Obama’s life. What’s more, this astonishing level of willful ignorance has come about largely by design, and has been aided by a press afraid to call out the primary architects of the lies.
In the much-discussed Pew poll reporting the spike in ignorance, those who believe Obama to be Muslim say they got their information from the media. But no reputable news agency — that is, fact-based, one that corrects its errors quickly — has spread such inaccuracies. So where is this “media?”
Two sources, and they are — no surprise here — the usual suspects. The first, of course, is Rush Limbaugh, who claims the largest radio audience in the land among the microphone demagogues, and his word is Biblical among Republicans. A few quick examples of the Limbaugh method: “Tomorrow is Obama’s birthday — not that we’ve seen any proof of that,” he said on Aug. 3. “They tell us Aug. 4 is the birthday; we haven’t seen any proof of that.” ... On the Muslim deception, Limbaugh has sprinkled lie dust all over the place. “Obama says he’s a Christian, but where’s the evidence?” The design is to make Obama un-American, (aka "Just Visiting")
Finally, there is Fox News, whose parent company has given $1 million to Republican causes this year but still masquerades as a legitimate source of news. Their chat and opinion programs spread innuendo daily. The founder of Politifact, another nonpartisan referee to the daily rumble, said two of the site’s five most popular items on its Truth-o-meter are corrections of Glenn Beck. Beck tosses off enough half-truths in a month to keep Politifact working overtime. Of late, he has gone after Michelle Obama, whose vacation in Spain was “just for her and approximately 40 of her friends.” Limbaugh had a similar line, saying the First Lady “is taking 40 of her best friends and leasing 60 rooms at a five-star hotel — paid for by you.” The White House said Michelle Obama and her daughter Sasha were accompanied by just a few friends — and they paid their own costs. But, wink, wink, the damage is done. He’s Muslim and foreign. She’s living the luxe life on your dime. They don’t even have to mention race. The code words do it for them.
And Teneycke is already playing around with the race nonsense, dissing Muslims at every opportunity. But he also threw out a little colour when his Sun Media lauded Stephen Harper for choosing a "white guy" as governor general. He put it out there to see how we'd respond. We did nothing, so expect more of the same.
There is another important point to consider here, with the realization that we are poised to become the next nation of know-nothings.
The Americans appear to be about to give the Republicans control of Congress in the mid-term elections, proving they've learned nothing from past mistakes (Weapons of Mass Destruction anyone?)
The last sweep was in 1995 under Newt Gingrich. Would it surprise you to know that Gingrich claims to owe his success to the Reform Party? Stephen Harper's Reform Party under Preston Manning, when Harper was his lieutenant?
Canadians became exporters of neo-con innovation in the 1990s. 'I would say Margaret Thatcher and Mr. [Preston] Manning are the two non-Americans we learned most from'', said U.S. Republican House Speaker, Newt Gingrich in 1995.'I know him [Preston Manning] because I watched all of his commercials. We developed our platform from watching his campaign.' Like cowboy culture, Canadian neo-conservatism is a growth industry, spawning a whole generation of Will James outlaws in hot pursuit of political power." (1)
Before that Gingrich was thought to be from the fringe.
"Newt Gingrich was no Ronald Reagan. A career politician, he was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1978, at the age of thirty-five, and became the Republican Whip in 1989. Despite this measure of success, however, he was never part of the Republican inner circle, largely because of his extreme views ... (2)
So while many in the media correctly suggest that Stephen Harper's ideology is pure Republican, in many ways the "new" Republican ideology is also pure Reform Party. Stephen Harper's Reform Party. The Party he wrote policy for and morphed into the Conservative Party of Canada.
Are you looking forward to Fox News North as much as I am?
Sources:
1. Slumming it at the Rodeo: The Cultural Roots of Canada's Right-Wing Revolution, Gordon Laird, 1998, Douglas & McIntyre, ISBN: 1-55054 627-9, Pref. xiv-xv1.
2. Hard Right Turn: The New Face of Neo-Conservatism in Canada, Brooke Jeffrey, Harper-Collins, 1999, ISBN: 0-00 255762-2, Pg. 32
A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada
In 1993, the Reform Party had it's first big electoral success, winning 52 seats, all but one from the West, including the seat of Stephen Harper, with the help of a $50,000.00 campaign against his opponent and former boss, Jim Hawkes, paid for by the National Citizens Coalition.
The Reformers ran on a platform of anti-government, anti-Ottawa.
Having a clear critical dynamic, focused on the corrupt Ottawa establishment, was of the first importance to Reform's recent success. In this, as in so many other ways, this party has a similar focus to the United States Republican Party in its present mood ... Part of its appeal is to anti-Quebecois sentiment "let Quebec either secede", Reform says in effect, "or, preferably, stay in Canada but without any of the special privileges it seeks." Outside Quebec this message is extremely popular. It might be noted that Reform did not bother to run candidates in Quebec. (1)
Other policies that appealed to many in the West included:
- Giving over to the private sector as many functions as possible (including Petro Canada and Canada Post, for example). Government would manage any remaining publicly-funded enterprises, but not operate them. It would cut at least 25 per cent off subsidies to Crown corporations like the CBC.
- The government should have no role in job-creation apart from clearing obstacles for the private sector.
- "The treatment of every motion in most of our legislatures and Parliaments as confidence motions
- Giving voters the right to recall their MP if the MP fails to represent their views adequately. "So you don't trust politicians?", Manning asked during the campaign. "Here is our money-back guarantee: we'll put the power in your hands to fire your elected MP." Recall is the Party's single most popular policy plank, according to its direct-mail surveys, and certainly its most constitutionally radical, and one may expect it to be implemented should Reform win the next Canadian elections. As the Party says in its advertising literature, "Recall will obligate MPs to listen to their constituents between elections." (This one was soon abandoned when his own party wanted to recall him)
- Cancelling government subsidies for special-interest groups.
- Pulling the government out of unemployment insurance, and letting employers and employees fund it themselves. This policy reflects that same concern shown by the Republicans for making people more responsible for themselves.
- In general, allowing each person to be the major provider of his or her own basic needs, including most social services and medicare. This means, in effect, that more social services should be user-pay, and that relatives and private charities should bear more of the welfare burden.
- Slashing immigration.
- Not giving any government seal of approval to homosexuals, abortion-on-demand, and political correctness generally. "Reform", Manning told one rally, "refuses, and continues to refuse, to be intimidated by the extremists of political correctness".
- Abolish the policy of official bilingualism. (1)
Throughout the campaign, which became increasingly an attack on Ottawa and the federal government, often making them just one Montana Freeman away from a stand-off, there were several people south of the border who were paying attention, including Newt Gingrich and Grover Norquist.
"Indeed, Canadians became exporters of neo-con innovation in the 1990s. 'I would say Margaret Thatcher and Mr. [Preston] Manning are the two non-Americans we learned most from'', said U.S. Republican House Speaker, Newt Gingrich in 1995.'I know him [Preston Manning] because I watched all of his commercials. We developed our platform from watching his campaign.' (2)
And using the techniques and talking points honed by Manning and the Reformers, Gingrich's team created their "Contract with America".
It is thus not difficult to understand why the Republicans, in the run-up to the mid-term elections of last November, made such a point of dissociating themselves from Washington and identifying instead with popular sentiment on such issues. The dividends of defining Washington as the source of false values are seen in the results of the elections, which gave the Republicans control of both the House and the Senate.
In the months preceding these elections, the House Republican leadership under the direction of Newt Gingrich developed their "Contract with America", a promise to introduce, in the first ninety days of a Republican-dominated House and Senate, a set of ten bills based on their careful reading of what a majority of Americans were signalling they wanted. (1)
And several of these bills were adopted right from Manning's play book, including: a "Personal Responsibility Act", drastic cuts to social programs and privatization of several services. And two men who helped to draft this "contract" were Grover Norquist and Frank Luntz.
Norquist, of course is the anti-tax guru who inspired the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and Luntz is the Republican pollster who told Stephen Harper that the best way to get a majority was to stay on message about tax cuts and accountability, and talk hockey every chance he got.
"By February 1994, many Republicans ... were upbeat about their chances of doing well in the mid-term elections scheduled for November ... An optimistic group of members of the House of Representatives met in Salsbury, Maryland, to discuss their platform ..."Overwhelmingly male, middle-aged and white*, with a large contingent from rural and southern states, they could hardly have claimed to be representative of the American people, but they were certainly indicative of the constituency that elected them." (3)
They did win what Newt Gingrich called 'the most shattering one-sided Republican victory since 1946.'
No one disagreed with him. Certainly not Canada's Preston Manning, the leader of the like-minded Reform Party, which a year earlier had taken the fifty odd seats in the federal election. Not only had Manning visited Gingrich for a photo opportunity, but Gingrich now attributed his electoral success to techniques he had learned from Manning and his Reformers. (3)
But the Reform Party also paid attention to something that Gingrich had done:
In this election, the Republicans were closely in tune with prominent conservative media personalities like Rush Limbaugh, a no-holds-barred, technically brilliant and aggressively comic articulator of anti- Washington, anti-elite, pro-mainstream sentiment who appears nightly on national television, and Pat Buchanan, a Congressman and television and radio personality who takes the conservative side on the nightly verbal sparring match, "Crossfire".
More significantly, the Republicans tapped into the nation's religious heartland, gaining the overt support of the powerful Christian groupings which make up the Christian Coalition. The Coalition, while mainly evangelical, embraces a wide spectrum of the devout from Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network, to prominent traditionalist Catholics. According to Ralph Reed, Christian Coalition's executive director, "One of every three voters was someone who attends church regularly, who is socially conservative"**. The Democrats, according to Reed, "badly miscalculated how to handle" this important segment of the electorate, and tried to "marginalize and stereotype these voters and their leaders". (1)
And:
"Amoung these organized religion was clearly uppermost in Gingrich's mind. The role of the evangelicals in assuring Gingrich's victory was far greater than it had been for Reagan. As Rosalind Petchesky points out in an article on anti-feminism and the New Right, this heightened emphasis of moral conservatism in the American neo-conservative movement was unprecedented. It was also producing a situation in which the party's platform was being increasingly designed to meet the requirements of these supporters." (3)
Enter Jason Kenney, who the following year would attend a major convention of the U.S. Christian Coalition, then headed up by Ralph Reed who was hired by Pat Robertson. (4)
... Even more ominous for democratic rights ... is the recent hatching of the B.C. clone of Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition. With 1.7 million active members and a $25 million (US) annual budget, the U.S. organization has become a formidable lobbying force in American politics, installing its anti-choice, anti-gay agenda and candidates at all levels of government, from school boards to Congress. The B.C. chapter is headed up by Operation Rescue activist Don Spratt, and claims among its founding board members former B.C. Premier and ardent anti-choicer Bill Vander Zalm ... "Advisors" to the new CCC reportedly include Ted and Link Byfield (owners of the ultra-conservative B.C. Report and Alberta Report magazines), Jason Kenny (head of the Canadian Taxpayers Association) ... (5)
So by the time the next Canadian election rolled around, Jason Kenney and his gang were ready to "become a formidable lobbying force in [Canadian] politics, installing its anti-choice, anti-gay agenda and candidates.
"... the notion that some Reform members may have strong Anglo-Saxon nativist inclinations is supported by more than merely the background profiles of its leaders, members and supporters. It is supported also by the words of many of its ideological mentors who depict Canada as not only historically an Anglo-Saxon country but also part of a wider Anglo-Saxon culture that is in need of recognizing and re-establishing its heritage." (5) ** Reform is a mass-base party (110,000 active members, 1993, and rapidly rising) of social conservatives led by an evangelical Christian, Preston Manning. (1)
Sources:
1. Policy from the People:Recent Developments in the USA and Canada, By Philip Ayres, Proceedings of the Fifth Conference of The Samuel Griffith Society, April 2, 1995
2. Slumming it at the Rodeo: The Cultural Roots of Canada's Right-Wing Revolution, Gordon Laird, 1998, Douglas & McIntyre, ISBN: 1-55054 627-9, Pref. xiv-xv
3. Hard Right Turn: The New Face of Neo-Conservatism in Canada, Brooke Jeffrey, Harper-Collins, 1999, ISBN: 0-00 255762-2, Pg. 36-37
4. The Armageddon Factor: The Rise of Christian Nationalism in Canada, By: Marci McDonald, Random House Canada, 2010, ISBN: 978-0-307-35646-8 3, Pg. 5
6. Of Passionate Intensity: Right-Wing Populism and the Reform Party of Canada, By Trevor Harrison, University of Toronto Press, 1995. ISBN: 0-8020-7204-6, Pg. 170
A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada
When I read Marci McDonald's Armageddon Factor, I was surprised that she didn't have more on Jason Kenney. Her book was excellent and connected a lot of dots for me, but Kenny is just as involved with the Religious Right as Stockwell Day. In fact, maybe more so, especially to the American movement. And his beliefs are also just as troubling.
However, while researching another story I came across an old article from Australia, that directly ties the Reform Party and the Republican Party, and in a way that we all missed. I had already written about the close relationship between Preston Manning and Newt Gingrich, but this goes further and deeper, and involves Jason Kenney in a very big way.
I should have seen this before, but I had my light bulb moment yesterday. So I went over all of my notes and skimmed some old postings, and it was all there. So I'm going to try and put everything in chronological order as best I can. I will be doing it several parts. But it involves the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, the Christian Coalition and Grover Norquist. A strange combination indeed.
In 1989, Brian Mulroney began discussing the implementation of the GST, which became a very hot button issue with Canadians. This prompted Saskatchewan resident, Kevin Avram, to start a kind of grass roots organization, to mobilize people against this new tax. (1)
So he attended a conference in Austin, Texas where he met a representative of the “Association of Concerned Taxpayers” which was then headed up by Grover Norquist. So he decided to set up a chapter in Canada, which he simply named the Association of Saskatchewan Taxpayers, which was incorporated on May 1, 1989. Jason Kenney was hired as Executive Director.
Meanwhile, a similar group had started in Alberta called Resolution One. I'm still hunting down information on them, but they may have been connected to Link Byfield. Though not a member of the Reform Party himself (his father Ted was a founding member), he drafted "Resolution One" for Preston Manning, which became the Reform Party's fiscal philosophy. (2)
Link was a founding member, along with Stephen Harper, of the Northern Foundation and is currently involved with the Wildrose Alliance Party. Resolution One became the Alberta Taxpayers Association and they joined with the Association of Saskatchewan Taxpayers to become the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, and Jason Kenney was named CEO. Rob Anders also claims to have been involved with them at some time as well, according to his resume, when he first ran for public office.
I have a bit more information on the American Association of Concerned Taxpayers, as it relates to Stockwell Day (when he had big hair. Oye!), but I just wanted to follow along with Jason Kenney and Grover Norquist for now.
Norquist had worked for Ronald Reagan, setting up Americans for Tax Reform, as a "think-tank" to sell his tax cutting measures. It was such a success that he kept it going, with branches and affiliates right across the country, including AOCT, on which CTF was fashioned.
In 1988, Norquist was asked to work on the campaign of George H. Bush, and he advised him to stick to one simple message. It was the message that he had adopted for his own anti-tax outfits. Remember the famous "Read My Lips"? That was Grover Norquist.
Well Jason Kenney did all but tell people to read his lips, though Stephen Harper tried it out in 2008. But in 1995 when Kenney was touring Canada, he must have felt the invisible hand of Norquist brushing against his cheek.
"Before the 1995 Budget was brought down .... the CTF sponsored no fewer than eighteen protest rallies across the country whose theme was 'No New Taxes.' These rallies were also deliberately coordinated with others sponsored by the Reform Party and the National Citizens Coalition for maximum affect. "... any casual observer of the CTF's literature cannot fail to note the groups neo-conservative approach to the role of government in general. As well-known tax expert Neil Brooks has stated, the CTF's 'anti-tax rhetoric disguises a view that government should play a minimal role' ... David Perry of the Canadian Tax Foundation ... notes that much of the group's anti-tax sentiment is based on ignorance of the actual situation in Canada .... a perception of reality, rather than reality' .... "Many other tax experts ... have also pointed out that the benefits received from government in exchange for taxes have to be taken into account ... Kenney's response to this, however is instructive. 'We only look at taxes, not benefits'.. (3)
And in the same way that Americans for Tax Reform originally propped up Ronald Reagan, it was pretty clear that the CTF were doing the same thing for the Reform Party.
Public-Service union president Darryl Bean has called the CTF 'a front for the Reform Party,' and it is not difficult to understand the source of his accusations. Preston Manning has often been asked to address its anti-tax rallies. At one such event in Pickering Ontario in 1995, media accounts routinely reported some 3,500 Reform Party supporters in attendance, and Manning received a standing ovation. "... (3)
Now this was 1995, and in the fall of that year, Jason Kenney, along with dozens of Canadian conservative Christians thronged to Washington, DC, to attend a major convention of the U.S. Christian Coalition, (4) then headed up by Ralph Reed.
When Robertson's campaign flamed out, political analysts served up a new round of obituaries for the religious right, but once again, the reports of its death proved premature. Even as Robertson nursed a wounded ego, he was hatching his organizational revenge, hiring a fresh-faced young doctoral student named Ralph Reed to build a grass-roots evangelical network, focusing first on the takeover of school boards and town councils before ultimately commandeering the machinery of the Republican National Committee itself. That institutional coup took place almost entirely beneath the media's radar, and by the time it finally caught their attention, Reed's Christian Coalition controlled both houses of Congress and would later play a major role in putting George W. Bush in the White House, not once but twice. (5)
Jason Kenney and his gang came back to Canada with a new agenda. They were going to replicate the success of the Christian Coalition on home turf. In McDonald's book, Armageddon Factor, she states that this initiative was the brainchild of Roy Beyer and Brian Rushfeldt, but Jason kenney was involved in this as well.
... Even more ominous for democratic rights in [British Columbia] is the recent hatching of the B.C. clone of Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition. With 1.7 million active members and a $25 million (US) annual budget, the U.S. organization has become a formidable lobbying force in American politics, installing its anti-choice, anti-gay agenda and candidates at all levels of government, from school boards to Congress. The B.C. chapter is headed up by Operation Rescue activist Don Spratt, and claims among its founding board members former B.C. Premier and ardent anti-choicer Bill Vander Zalm ... "Advisors" to the new CCC reportedly include Ted and Link Byfield (owners of the ultra-conservative B.C. Report and Alberta Report magazines), Jason Kenny (head of the Canadian Taxpayers Association), and Alex Parachin (head of the Christian Broadcasting Associates in Toronto, the Canadian branch plant of Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network). (4)
I'm going to leave it there for now. Most of what I have written here has been covered in other posts, but it's what happens next that is rather surprising, so I want to cover it separately. This just sets the stage.
The media missed this in the U.S. "and by the time it finally caught their attention, Reed's Christian Coalition controlled both houses of Congress" (5) ... this was missed in Canada as well, though one diligent reporter did try to sound the alarm.
While Don Spratt may be telling readers "Nobody has anything to fear from the Christian Coalition," progressive activists and journalists will have to make sure the electorate knows better. (4)
