Since You Brought it Up: Stephen Harper and R.B. Bennett

In 1931, during a particularly stormy debate in the House of Commons, a member of the Opposition asked Conservative MP Walter D. Cowan, why he didn't wear his "nightshirt". An odd question to be raised in Parliament, but a very significant one.

Before winning his seat in the federal election of 1930, Cowan had acted as treasurer for the Ku Klux Klan in Saskatchewan. In fact, several new Tory MPs, who joined the government of R.B. Bennett, were affiliated with the Klan.

Quebec Liberal MP, Jean F. Pouliot, produced official Klan documents showing that Cowan, as treasurer, had overseen the collection of more than $40,000 in dues and donations in the province, for which he was paid a salary of $2,170. Pouliot also charged that Ambrose Bury, the Conservative MP from Edmonton, was a Klan member and noted "that body celebrated his victory by burning crosses on the side of a hill near Edmonton." Then in 1934, Pouliot alleged that not only Cowan and Bury, but new Regina MP F.W. Turnbull "and other members of the Ku Klux Klan" were sitting in the Tory side of Parliament.

Initially Bennett refused to address the accusations until the media ran with the story and he was forced to make a public statement denouncing the Klan.

In his new book on Bennett, The Rebel Who Changed a Nation, John Boyko states that the Conservatives in Saskatchewan had been so aggressively anti-Catholic, that even the KKK endorsed several candidates. He's being kind. The relationship between the Conservatives of the 1920s and the Invisible Empire ran much deeper.  We have to remember that the Klan of that day, especially in Canada, were not like the KKK of the post Antebellum  period in the South.

They did not engage in lynchings or castrations, but were more of a religious fundamentalist group, policing morality, endorsing vigilante justice and protecting their White Ango-Saxon Protestant heritage.  As such their targets of hatred were Jews, Catholics and French Canadians.

Boyko's book is the first full-length biography of this controversial prime minister, and he suggests that one of the reasons for that is that Bennett burned most of his papers.  I think it's more likely that Bennett burned most of his papers to avoid having such a book written.

I noticed in the bibliography, that Boyko does not mention two very important books written of this era.  Julian Sher's White Hoods:  Canada Ku Klux Klan (Newstar, 1983) and Martin Robin's Shades of Right: Nativist and Fascist Politics in Canada 1920-1940 (University of Toronto Press 1992)

He also avoids mentioning Cowan, Bury or Turnbull.

Yet at the time, Regina dentist Walter Davy Cowan, was very open about his involvement with the Klan, not only acting as their treasurer, but was a popular speaker at their rallies, including the one advertised on the left, that took place on May 15, 1929.

Klan membership lists were filled with the names of Tory supporters, and their meetings attended and harangued by party activists. According to Dr Walter D. Cowan, the Klan treasurer, Regina Conservative elected for Long Lake to the House of Commons in the general election of 1930, and columnist for the Regina Standard, the Klan was 'the most complete political organization ever known' in the West.  'Every organizer in it is a Tory,' he wrote R.B. Bennett. 'It cost over a thousand dollars a week to pay them. I know it for I pay them. And I never pay a Grit. Smile when you hear anything about this organization and keep silent.' (Robin 1992, p.68)  

Cowan's advice of "silence" was heeded not only by Bennett, but by many "prominent Conservative colleagues who welcomed the Klan's arrival, appreciated its ignition potentials and gloated over prospects of a political windfall."  And according to Robin, " J.F Bryant, the Tory lawyer and Orangeman, was a key player in the Tory-Klan game."

History has sought to downplay the role of the Klan in Canada, but when it is reduced to a few lines in a new book, suggesting only that Bennett's anti-Catholic stance inspired several Klan members to vote for him, it looks like a deliberate attempt to obliterate that history.
 
But why?
 
Telling are some of the endorsements for Boyko's book.  Conservative Senator Hugh Segal claims that it should be required reading "for any Canadian who wants to understand the real roots of modern Conservatism."   Indeed, in the book Boyko compares Stephen Harper to Bennett, though he may understand Harper as little as he understands, or refuses to understand, Bennett.
 
Segal is right in many respects.  Bennett was cool and aloof, a multi-millionaire corporate lawyer who assisted in many mergers, and refused to address poverty.  Under pressure, he attempted a few measures during the Depression, but they were too little, too late.  During the 2008 election debate, when the topic was rising unemployment, Harper claimed to understand, himself once being unemployed for a long period of time.  When pressed on the issue, turns out that it was by choice.  His wife had a thriving business printing material for the Reform/Alliance Party, so he spent his time planning for the next election.  Not really the same thing.
 
And then of course his suggestion that the recession provided an opportunity to buy cheap stocks.  People worrying about putting food on the table, are hardly looking for bargains in the stock market.
 
Both men lack empathy, although Bennett grew up poor, unlike Harper who grew up in privilege.  His father made a bundle on an accounting program he designed for Esso and Harper grew up in a high-middle-class WASP neighbourhood.
 
Another endorsement comes from Brian Lee Crowley, a Neoconservative activist with ties to many right-wing think tanks.
 
In an interview with Allan Gregg, Boyko states that much of the negativity surrounding Bennett, has been exaggerated, claiming to have found little evidence of "Bennett Buggies", the name given to cars with their engines removed and hooked up to horses (In the U.S. they were "Hoover wagons").  But they were real and images can be found in many places.  A trip to the library will help.
 
Perhaps the most important similarity between Stephen Joseph Harper and Richard Bedford Bennett, is that both used religious fundamentalists and the radical right to get elected, then attempted to dismiss them once they got they wanted: POWER.  And yet the policies of both men reflect the desires of religious fundamentalists and the radical right, including tough immigration rules, a roll back of earned "rights", and an attack on the French language, to name a few.
 
In Allan J. Lichtman's White Protestant Nation (Atlantic Press, 2008), he traces the modern American conservative movement to the Era of the Klan, a strong political force in the 1920s and 30s.  According to Hugh Segal, so can Canada's modern day conservatism, which successfully managed to eradicate the "progressive" years, just as the American conservatives try to forget the impact of Dwight D. Eisenhower, the last moderate Republican president.
 
After accusations of the "new" conservatism being more a "radical conservatism", every bit an oxymoron as Stephen Harper's suggestion that "progressive conservatism" was the same, American Cory Robin claimed that they were reactionary Tories in the same vein as Edmund Burke.  And what Burke reacted to was the French Revolution.
 
After being sent his argument by one of my right-wing followers, I reminded him of another "reactionary conservative" party that had embraced Edmund Burke.  From a radio broadcast on April 1, 1933, "the year 1789 has been expunged from the records of history." 
 
"It was obvious to all why 1933 was being compared to 1789.  "Any contemporary, whether schooled in history or not, instinctively knew that the French Revolution was the measure of things in the modern world. 'We want to eradicate the ideology of liberalism and replace it with a new sense of community'"  (Foundational Pasts: The Holocaust as Historical Understanding, By Alon Confino, Cambridge University Press, 2011, ISBN 978-0-52173-632-9, p. 6)
 
The man making that announcement? Joseph Goebbels.  According to Hannah Arendt in The Origins of Totalitarianism:

While the seeds of German race-thinking were planted during the Napoleonic wars, the beginnings of the later English development appeared during the French Revolution and may be traced back to the man who violently denounced it as the "most astonishing [crisis] that has hitherto happened in the world"—to Edmund Burke . The tremendous influence his work has exercised not only on English but also on German political thought is well known.

It should be noted that John Boyko is a teacher at Lakefield College School, listed as one of the most expensive private schools in the country.  They are also under royal patronage, due in part to a famous former student, Prince Andrew.
 
The Orange Lodge and the Klan worked in tandem during Bennett's time, and while the Klan has lost most of its influence, the Orange Lodge and their counterpart, the Monarchist League, are working to restore our WASP heritage.
 
They are behind the rewriting of our citizenship guide, returning the "Royal" to our military and are now pushing to have a crown placed on our Olympic uniforms.
 
This new biography on Bennett provides an opportunity to have an adult discussion on the roots of the current movement, and the impact of radical right-wing fringe groups.  We no longer have to open the door a crack, because Boyko has flung it wide open.

A Voice From the Past Responds to the Monarchist League of Canada

On a tip from one of my readers, who drew attention to the enormous clout being given to the Monarchist League of Canada, a right-wing fringe group associated with the Orange Lodge; I did a bit of research, and what I found should be shocking to most Canadians.

This is not just a tea and crumpets fan club, but a group working to establish an Anglo-Saxon hierarchy in a multicultural country.

Not only were they behind the change to our military, restoring the 'Royal' to its name and the crown to its symbolism, but they were also responsible for the ridiculous new citizenship guide, a throwback to the 1950s.

New Canadians must again pledge allegiance to the Queen and her heirs, and the only commitment to Canada is to uphold our laws.

Our government suggests that these moves are to "right a wrong".  In other words, we should never have stopped paying homage to a foreign dignitary, and placing their interests above our own.

However, instead of taking direction from the Monarchists, Canada's neocons might want to pick up a history book; one not written by Paleoconservative Peter Brimelow. 

Facts, Facts and More Facts

My husband and I recently purchased a large collection of military books from the estate of a former officer in the Canadian air force.  There are over 150, and what we liked about them, was that they were written during the wars they covered, better capturing the mood of the nation.

Most books today on the subject, focus too much on battles and their outcomes.

We've only owned them for a day, so I've just thumbed through them; but one caught my attention, so I stayed up last night until I finished it.  It was written in 1939, just after the invasion of Poland, by Canadian scholar, Watson Kirkconnell (1895-1977).

In response to a comment left after my last posting on the topic, I reminded my reader that Canada did not enter WWII for Britain, and in fact when Louis St. Laurent was acting as secretary of state for external affairs, Great Britain's foreign secretary, Ernest Bevin, thanked Canada for coming to their assistance "during the darkest days of World War 11".  St. Laurent immediately set the record straight.   In his reply to Bevin he went out of his way to emphasize that Canada's declaration of war had been an independent decision made by the country's elected representatives, that it was prompted by the nation's determination to fight Nazism and had nothing whatever to do with helping Britain. (The Making of a Peacemonger: The Memoirs of George Ignatieff, By Sonja Sinclair, University of Toronto Press, ISBN: 0-8020-2556-0, p. 108)

Kirkconnell in his 1939 book Canada, Europe and Hitler, validates this claim.  In describing the public sentiment as Canada was heading to war, he shares a quote by Lord Tweedsmuir, who on October 12, 1938, stated:  "A Canadians first loyalty is not to the British Commonwealth of Nations, but to Canada, and those who deny this are doing to my mind, a great disservice to the Commonwealth." (Oxford University Press, p. 108)

When my father went overseas, it was not to fight for Britain, but for Canada.  He was Acadian on his mother's side, and Irish Catholic on his father's, so had little respect for the British monarchy.  The only thing England ever gave him was a nurse he met at a dance.  My mother, who arrived here as a war bride.

Without knowing how long the war would last, how many casualties we would suffer, or what defining battles would take place, Kirkconnell provides some very compelling insight on Canada's decision to go to war, that blows the idea of an Anglo-Saxon dominance out of the water.

Quebec Premier, Maurice Duplessis, felt that French-Canadians should stay out of the conflict, and challenged conscription.  This caused a rift in his own party, with several members jumping ship, including Gilbert Layton, Jack Layton's grandfather.

Feeling confident that Quebec citizens would agree with him, Duplessis called a snap election, despite the fact that he had two more years to govern.  As a result, his 76 seats were reduced to 16, and the Liberals won 66.  " Quebec has proudly proclaimed to the world that it believes in a national unity wider that that envisaged by the strident isolationism of Mr. Duplessis and his kind". (p. 113)

This vindicated our integrity as a nation.  We had a shared enemy and a shared interest.

Kirkconnell concluded the chapter by saying:  "... it may in the end paradoxically prove true that Adolf Hitler, without intending any such consummation, has done more than any other force in the world to make Canada a nation."

But What of King and Country?

In the First World War, many Canadians rallied under the cry of  "for King and Country".  However, as many historians point out, the simple fact was that most who answered that call, had been born in Britain, so were heading home to fight for their country.  In fact, Desmond Morton in his 1994, When Your Number is Up: the Canadian Soldier in the First World War, concluded that "Seventy percent of the men who enlisted in the CEF (Canadian Expeditionary Force) were British immigrants, even though British immigrants were just eleven percent of Canada’s population. Anglo-Saxon Canadians whose ancestors had lived in North America for generations had low enlistment rates similar to those seen in French Canadian communities."

If you peruse the attestation papers on the Government of Canada website, Morton's argument appears valid, especially for those who signed up at the beginning of the war.

This notion that we are who we are, only because of the contribution of White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) males, is an insult to our rich cultural heritage.

"... 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.

"Read for example Peter Brimelow's words bemoaning the eclipse of Anglo-Saxon hegemony. 'At the end of the nineteenth century, belief in the superiority of the Anglo Saxon values ... (was) the most social norm in every English-speaking country ... For WASP supremacists everywhere, however, the twentieth century has been a most distressing experience.' (Of Passionate Intensity: Right-Wing Populism and the Reform Party of Canada, By Trevor Harrison Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995. ISBN: 0-8020-7204-6, p. 120-121)

This is why we have to challenge the Monarchist League of Canada at every turn.  Not their right to exist.  Many Canadians like the tradition of the Royal Family.  For my dad, there were two.  His own and the Montreal Canadians.  He probably would have gone to war wearing their logo.

When JFK visited Canada in 1961, observers claimed that he drew larger crowds than were there for the Queen and Prince Philip on a recent visit", and he "created the biggest traffic jam" in Ottawa's history.  (Kennedy & Diefenbaker: The Feud That Helped Topple a Government, By Knowlton Nash, McClelland & Stewart, 1991, ISBN: 0-7710-6711-9, p. 108).

I don't know of any head count, but no doubt President Obama's first visit to Canada was just as well attended as that of Will and Kate's, and definitely more than that of Charles and Camilla.

Canada chooses her own heroes and for a variety of reasons, and those who deny that, do a great disservice to our country.

Canada's Citizenship Guide Was Not Written for Immigrants

In 2000, John Aimers, the Dominion Chairman of the Monarchist League of Canada, spoke at a Senate Committee meeting, on Bill C-16, an Act respecting Canadian Citizenship, that in part discussed the role of the monarchy in our country.  In 2002, Aimers objected when John Manley, then Deputy Prime Minister, suggested that it was time to abolish the monarchy.

Seeing a political advantage, Jason Kenney stood up in the House and declared:

Mr. Speaker, I rise to join millions of Canadians in expressing profound dismay at the rude and thoughtless remarks of the Deputy Prime Minister this weekend ....  [he] has a high responsibility to lead Canadians in honouring our sovereign as we thank her for her 50 years of graceful and selfless service to Canadians and members of the Commonwealth throughout the world.

I doubt millions of Canadians thought much about it either way, and "selfless service" would be a bit of a stretch.  We are not talking about Mother Theresa.  Queen Elizabeth is a very wealthy woman who lives large at taxpayers' expense.  If she was truly selfless, she would give some her fortune away to her "subjects" who are suffering because of cuts to essentials, like healthcare and education.

Personally, I hadn't really thought much about the Queen.  Some Canadians love the tradition of the Royal Family, and I never questioned that.  However, after first being made aware of the Monarchist League, once led by John Aimers, an Orange Lodge member with dual Canadian/U.S. citizenship, I'm now taking a very keen interest.

Jason Kenney not only showed his loyalty to the Queen, but also to the League, allowing them to all but write his new time warp citizenship guide.  The inducement for such a guide was not a desire for immigrants to have a better understanding of Canadian history, it was to present a guide to how all Canadians should be living, and to where our allegiances should be.

Aimers and his Orange Lodge were disgusted when Canada removed the loyalty oath that public servants had to take.  "I pledge allegiance to the Queen .... " and just as upset when the Citizenship oath, while still swearing allegiance to a foreign monarch, no longer included her "heirs and successors".

The "new" Oath of Citizenship reads:

I swear (or affirm)
That I will be faithful
And bear true allegiance
To Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second
Queen of Canada
Her Heirs and Successors
And that I will faithfully observe
The laws of Canada
And fulfil my duties as a Canadian citizen

This was written for John Aimers, the Orange Lodge and the Monarchist League.  One supporter of the new guide wrote about how thrilled he was that his "8-year-old daughter [was] doing a school project on Henry Kelsey, a British fur trader, explorer and sailor who is credited as the first white man to discover the Canadian prairies."

"The first white man to discover the Canadian prairies?"  Why is this something we should celebrate?  Wow!

Who is John Aimers?

Aimers had been fighting for the Royal Family in Canada since the 1970s, when Trudeau sought independence from the Crown.  When not doing that, he was a teacher at several exclusive private schools.  A regular Mr. Chips.

However, the torch had to be carried by someone else, when it came to changing our rules of citizenship, because he was named in a sexual abuse case, while teaching at an expensive private school in Montreal.

According to the court documents, Mr. Aimers, a respected debating coach, allegedly offered to tutor D.J. at his home, where he plied the boy with liquor and marijuana.  "Thereafter, Aimers proceeded to fondle D.J.'s crotch and attempted to forcibly remove D.J.'s pants," the lawsuit reads. "Aimers kissed D.J. and forced his tongue into D.J.'s mouth and put his penis in D.J.'s mouth," the court documents say.

It cost Selwyn House millions.  Goodbye Mr. Chips.

Had the Liberals been working with a child molester to alter the social makeup of Canada, the Reformers would have been all over it.  Instead they've allowed his replacement, Robert Finch, to have crowns put back on uniforms, fly the red ensign (not YET our official flag), implement a citizenship guide reflecting "values" of the 1950s and place our navy and air force at the Queen's command.

Let the Games begin

Historian Margaret Conrad said of the new guide, that it “represents a new kind of Canada, one that is less sympathetic with my personal sense of a progressive, forward-looking nation, but the new slant is no doubt in keeping with the sentiments of the current administration in Ottawa ... It's kind of like a throwback to the 1950s, ... It's a tough, manly country with military and sports heroes that are all men."

Women were all but written out.

And we continue to be written out.

The appointment of female judges has diminished to a trickle under the Harper government, dashing any hopes that equal gender representation is on the doorstep. Only eight women have been appointed to the federal judiciary this year, compared to 41 men. Figures for 2010 were only slightly less skewed, with 13 women and 37 men being given judgeships.

The thought that Stephen Harper has appointed 99 judges in two years is frightening enough.  Paul Weyrich is cackling while dodging flames.

That citizenship booklet was a guide for us.  Welcome to Canada, unless you're a woman, a Muslim, a non-white, or anyone who reads the Toronto Star.

What we need is a completely new Oath:

I swear (or affirm)
That I will be faithful
And bear true allegiance
To Canadian values of tolerance
Equality and fairness
And join the fight to end poverty and homelessness
That I will recognize the full rights of gays and women
The rights of religion, including the right not to have one
And that I will faithfully observe
The multicultural makeup of this diverse country

Maybe we could even throw in in another one:  And I promise to never again elect a Reform Party government.  That one is for us, while we still have an us.

More on the Monarchist League and Bidding Adieu to the Royal Family

I wrote recently of a Liberal Party initiative to limit the role of the monarchy in Canada.  It is undemocratic and almost tyrannical, given the strict rules to the rights of ascendancy.  Recently, restrictions on women have been removed, but Catholics are still out and of course anyone without "Royal" blood.
 
However, Canada's Monarchist League is out to give the British Royal family more face time and are attempting to bring back all of the old traditions that promote our WASP heritage.  Anathema to French Canadians and First Nations.
 
The League admits to being behind our 1950s style citizenship guide, the expensive and archaic renaming of our navy and airforce, and the push to have the Queen's picture put back in public places.

In recent years, the Conservative government of Stephen Harper has shown an appreciation for the value of the monarchy and a willingness to restore royal symbols, Rowe said. Under its watch, a new citizenship guide has come out that emphasizes the role of the monarchy and the image of the Crown has been restored to the patch worn by customs officers on their uniforms.

The league attributes this new attitude toward the monarchy in no small part to the arm-twisting, subtle negotiating, public campaigning and persistent pestering of government officials its members have engaged in over the years.

However, many other groups have twisted Harper's arm, so why is he giving this small organization so much say over our culture and how taxpayer money is spent?

It's politics and another opportunity to divide Canadians.  He's counting on the silent majority being agreeable to the quaint customs, without looking at the broader implications.

"Monarchist League Getting Younger, More Dynamic, Say Members"

CBC did an in depth piece on the League in July, pointing out the fact that many young people are now joining the tea and crumpet crowd.  So I thought I'd take a closer look at this new phenomenon. 

These kids are not in this for the sake of tradition, but are just another vehicle for the conservative movement.  I've spent a great deal of time studying their American counterparts, like Young Americans for Freedom and Youth for Western Civilization, and their websites are almost identical in theme.

Liberal, "leftie" bashing and the promotion of far-right causes. Look at the photo of William and Kate that goes with the CBC piece.  No tea and crumpets there.

On their website, the links to their imperial guides, include the majestic:

- Tory Bloggers

- Kathy Shaidle who promotes on her blog the actions of James O'Keefe, not someone our youth should be trying to emulate.

- Daniel Larison, a paleoconservative voice for "Anglo-American conservatives"

- Lew Rockwell, right-wing activist and chairman of the Ludwig Von Mises Institute, that promotes the Confederacy and is deemed to be racist by the Southern Poverty Law Center.  "Rockwell and the prominent libertarian theorist Murray Rothbard championed an open strategy of exploiting racial and class resentment to build a coalition with populist paleoconservatives."

- Peter Brimelow - the man who taught Stephen Harper everything he knows about the supremacy of the Anglo-Saxon race.  His Quebec bashing book The Patriot Game so affected Harper that he went out and bought ten copies to give to friends.  (Shut up.  I'm pretty sure he does have ten friends).  Our young aristocrats even include a quote from the owner of the anti-immigration site V-Dare and self described Paleoconservative:  "The attitude of successive governments towards the monarchy is that of the urchin, secretly urinating on some shrub in the hope that it will die."  How profound.  Picture me swooning.  Brimelow is also involved in the white race promotion group Youth For Western Civilization.

Spend a few minutes on their site and tell me if you get a warm and fuzzy feeling.  Anything regal jump out at you?

The Monarchist League claims to be non-partisan, but clearly, at least its youth wing, is anything but.  It is an indoctrination into far right-wing causes, promoting the Paleoconservative notion of the supremacy of the white race.

I wonder how many of these kids graduated from the Manning Centre for the Destruction of Democracy?

I want Canada to be independent.  Canada's neocons are now embracing this movement because it paints them as traditional conservatives, loyal to the Crown.  However, Sir John A. fought against too much influence from both Britain and the U.S.  His challenges prompted popular cartoons, of a Johnny Canuck kicking the butts of John Bull and Uncle Sam.  I tweaked one of them a little.

I expect that these young monarchists will protest the upcoming Liberal convention and the Harperites will create a whole new swath of bumper stickers, suggesting that the Liberals are unpatriotic, hate our navy and air force and want to overthrow the monarchy in a some kind of coup.

And only they can save the Queen.  Just not her silver tea service.

It's Time to Rethink the Monarchy's Role in Canada

At the upcoming Liberal convention in January, one resolution being brought forward is 114: Canadian Identity in the 21st Century.

The resolution sets out to define Canadian sovereignty, independent of the British Royal Family.

They bring up some very interesting points, many that I was not aware of.

WHEREAS Canadians believe in earning one’s position in life and not being simply born into privilege;

WHEREAS our head of state should be a true representative of the People of Canada;

WHEREAS Canada prides itself in being a democratic nation, with democratic institutions;

WHEREAS foreign law bars individuals not of the Anglican faith from rising to the position of head of state of Canada;

WHEREAS Canada’s head of state should conform to Canadian laws of gender and religious equality represented in the Charter of Rights and Freedom;

WHEREAS Canadians pay more to maintain the monarchy than the British;

WHEREAS an unelected individual can and is prepared to supersede the will of the Parliament;

BE IT RESOLVED that the Liberal Party of Canada, urge the Parliament of Canada to form an all party committee to study the implementation of instituting a Canadian head of state popularly elected and sever formal ties with the British Crown.

The timing of this resolution is important, because there is a group of individuals, committed to reaffirming our ties to the British Crown.  They are behind the renaming of our navy to the Royal Canadian Navy, antiquated and misleading.  We are no longer part of the British military, nor do we have a monarch, despite what Stephen Harper thinks or would like.

One of my readers contacted me about doing a piece on this now influential Monarchist League.  They are in the news quite a bit, no doubt behind Rob Ford's musings about putting the Queen's picture back in public buildings.  They are also pushing to have another patch added to our ugly Olympic uniforms, that look like those worn by Boy Scouts and Girl Guides.

The patch would be to celebrate Queen Elizabeth's 60 year reign.

That should be up to the Brits to decide whether or not to put it on their uniforms.  It has no place on ours.

I've been doing a bit of digging and so far what I've learned of this Monarchist League is quite troubling, so I will be posting some info soon.

Don't get me wrong.  Most of the rank and file are just people who like the nostalgia.  However, there is an agenda.  Not one that most Canadians would support.

I hope the resolution passes, but more importantly that it raises awareness to the archaic ties to a family that we pay more to support than the country where the family hails.  They are wealthy enough.  They don't need us.

Time to re-share my favourite video, representing the Canada we knew and loved, before Stephen Harper got his hands on it.

[Song & video produced by Julia Bentley & Andrew Gunadie]