where Michael Ignatieff is supposedly hiding out, he has been travelling the country, introducing himself to Canadians.
As Warren Kinsella points out, the Liberal leader "...has literally had four times as many events and activities as his main opponent." It just doesn't command much media coverage when the House isn't sitting.
Former N.W.T. premier acclaimed as Liberal candidate August 24, 2009
Federal Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff landed in Yellowknife on Monday afternoon, in part to show his support for the party's latest addition.
Liberals in the Northwest Territories riding of Western Arctic confirmed on Saturday that former premier Joe Handley will be their next federal candidate.
Handley, who was N.W.T. premier from 2003 until 2007, was the only person to seek the party's nomination.
On his arrival on Monday afternoon in Yellowknife, Ignatieff toured Buffalo Airways' facility at the local airport, then visited a local daycare centre.
Speaking to reporters, Ignatieff said resource revenue sharing is the most important issue facing Canada's North.
"Our vision of the North is tied to making sure that all the peoples of the North get a fair shake out of what's obviously going to be a resource for them over the next five, 10, 15 years," Ignatieff told reporters Monday afternoon.
"We think that we've got to work that out now before the resource boom really hits."
He is also expected to attend a barbecue hosted by the Western Arctic Liberal Association.
Handley, 66, has been working as a private consultant in Yellowknife since he retired from territorial politics in 2007. Handley was appointed to the CBC's board of directors in 2008.
The Western Arctic riding is held by New Democrat Dennis Bevington, who has been the territory's MP since 2006.
The Liberal leader's visit to the N.W.T. comes after Prime Minister Stephen Harper toured the three northern territories last week, in what some had called a pre-election campaign jaunt with numerous repackaged funding announcements.
Green party leader Elizabeth May spent the weekend in Whitehorse, releasing her party's northern strategy on Friday and supporting Yukon Green candidate John Streicker.
The latest poll numbers have the Liberals and Conservatives in a dead heat, but is this good news for Stephen Harper?
This was his summer. He's gone around announcing and re-announcing projects, being photographed everywhere; and except for a few missteps and his abysmal performance at the Three Amigos summit, hasn't looked that bad.
Liberal Senator Warren Kinsella digs a little deeper on his blog. For Stephen Harper's summer tour, ticket sales were just not what they should have been.
It's Summer. There isn't a lot of stuff to write about, politically, so you tend to get a lot of Summertime speculative stories by anonymous "senior strategists" who are neither senior nor strategic. It's a Summertime, North-of-the-Queensway thing.
Here's ten things you already know, but I'll point out anyhow. You're welcome.
1. Prime Ministers, being Prime Ministers, always get more media coverage than Opposition leaders. Always.
2. Governments - who have power and therefore actual money to hand out, and ribbons to cut - always get more media coverage than anyone else does. Always.
3. For an Opposition leader or Opposition party in the Summertime, that stuff gets even worse. National political coverage drops off dramatically and, with it, what little national media coverage you were getting.
4. If you are an Opposition party that wants to get lots of coverage for something, you can devote a ton of resources to putting together a big event. And then, the very same media pundits who have been criticizing you for being "invisible" will criticize you for putting together a big event in the Summertime, when "no one is paying attention."
5. Incumbents go up in the polls when legislatures aren't sitting. That's why Reformatory trained seals are so eager to get the Hell out of Ottawa all the time. Question Period is good for the Opposition, but not for governments.
6. Smart Opposition leaders use the Summer before a possible election to quietly get ready - their team, their policies, their bank account, their election readiness, themselves.
7. Smart Opposition leaders don't worry about getting in the paper a lot in the Summertime, because they also know that the last thing Joe and Jane Frontporch want is a politician getting in their face in barbecue season.
8. Opposition leaders who are months away from becoming Prime Ministers go to regional media markets in the Summer - to road test their team, their policies and themselves. Ask Mulroney (Summer '84), Chrétien (Summer '93), Harper (Summer '05); they all did the same thing, and it kind of worked out for them, didn't it? The Ottawa media will complain, but that's because it's Summertime and they're hot and bored.
9. Saying a guy has no policies - when that guy has written nearly 20 acclaimed policy books - is stupid. Saying a guy is "invisible" - when he has literally had four times as many events and activities as his main opponent - is stupid. Saying a guy isn't election-ready - when he's out-fundraising a sitting government, when he has united his party and made it competitive, when he has attracted advisers who know how to win (from équipe Charest and Team McGuinty and elsewhere) - is stupid. It's all stupid.
10. As the great Romeo LeBlanc used to say: when hunting bear, don't get distracted by rabbit tracks. Keep hunting bear, Liberals.
With Ryan Sparrow pulling the strings for Diane Finley, and Pierre Poilievre chosen to spout more of his nonsense; the Liberals have asked Parliamentary budget officer, Kevin Page, to do a cost analysis of EI reform.
This was a wise move, because how could we possibly believe a thing the Cons tell us when it comes to money.
Liberals have stroked the potential trigger of a fall election by asking Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page to examine what they say is an inflated Conservative cost analysis of their plan to revamp employment insurance. Conservative and Liberal MPs who are part of a working group formed to discuss changes to the EI system said progress was made at a closed-door session Thursday. They agreed to get together again in two weeks for another round of negotiations.
Liberal Human Resources critic Mike Savage, one of the working group's co-chairs, said bureaucrats have been asked in the meantime to work on some proposals “that might move the ball.”
But Mr. Savage has also written a letter to Mr. Page requesting an assessment ofConservative calculations that peg the cost of the Liberal proposal to create uniform national standards for EI qualification at up to $4-billion.
“They torqued it up beyond belief,” Mr. Savage said of the Conservative figure. He has asked that Mr. Page's analysis be completed by the end of August and that it be made public.
Mr. Page responded to Mr. Savage's request by asking the Human Resources Department for the data, analysis and assumptions that were used to calculate the cost of the Liberal plan. Pierre Poilievre, a Conservative member of the working group, dismissed the move to bring in Mr. Page, saying, “We already have a costing.” The Liberals, he said, “are shopping around for a different number that suits them.”
He called the Liberal plan both “expensive and irresponsible.”
Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff has the opportunity to put forward a no-confidence motion in late September if he is not happy with the working group's results.
The EI Working Group was established in June to explore ways to improve fairness in EI eligibility and to examine the potential for bringing self-employed Canadians into the EI system.
There are currently 58 different regional standards for EI eligibility. A person has to have worked anywhere from 420 to 700 hours in the previous 12 months, depending on the regional unemployment rate, to collect benefits.
The Liberals want to lower the number of hours of work required to 360, a measure that they say would cost an additional $1.5-billion a year. They say, however, that they're flexible on what the qualifying level should be.
The government, at the request of the working group, agreed to determine how much it would cost if the work requirement were set at such hourly levels as 390, 420 and 560. But Human Resources Minister Diane Finley told the meeting yesterday that she had asked her officials to stop that work because the government was not going to support a national standard, the Liberals said.
NDP Leader Jack Layton, whose party initially proposed the 360-hour standard, has said repeatedly that he will vote against the Conservative government on any matter of confidence. Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe has been less unequivocal but he, too, supports the Liberal proposal on employment insurance.
That means any Liberal confidence motion is likely to push the country into an election.
The Globe and Mail reported yesterday that the Conservatives have started to call on Canadians to give them a majority government in the next election.
Conservative talking points sent yesterday to Tory MPs said the Globe story contained false analysis and speculation. It warned against suggesting that the government wants an election this fall.
“It is essential that all Caucus members and activists remember that we are NOT – repeat NOT – pushing for a fall election. We are focused on the economy. We are focused on implementing our economic action plan,” said the memo.
I read Clair Hoy's book; Stockwell Day: His Life and Politics and in it he mentions that Day's parents were always actively involved in politics, but provides little detail. We know from other sources that they belonged to the Social Credit Party and in fact Day Sr. once ran unsuccessfully as a So-Cred candidate. (also a supporter of Doug Christie and member of the Western Canada Concept.)
This Party had early on earned a reputation as being anti-Semitic, but when Preston Manning's father became the (Social Credit) Premier of Alberta, he tried to tone down the rhetoric and purge the Party of those with radical views.
Mind you in 1983, they overturned their decision to expel Jim Keegstra, and he was allowed back in; so underneath not much had changed.
In 2000, journalist Gordon Laird wrote a piece for Toronto's NOW magazine, entitled Bentley, Alberta: Hellfire, Neo-Nazis and Stockwell Day; just as Day's star was beginning to rise in federal politics. He had won the leadership of the Alliance Party and would be running for the job of Prime Minister; so Mr. Laird thought that Canadians deserved to know just what kind of a man this leader was.
The Alliance Party had emerged from the Reform Party, which had seemingly emerged from the Social Credit Party.
From 'The Prairie Roots of Canada's Political "Third Parties"', Department of Political Science, Simon Fraser University: "In many ways, the Reform party resembled the Social Credit party. It obtained its strongest support in Alberta, opposed an extensive and redistributive welfare state, and was disproportionately supported by older, middle class men.
We saw that in the 1991 video of Stephen Harper, when he was trying to take his Reformers nationwide. You just have to look at the crowd, and while there are several women present, it is as described above; 'disproportionately middle class men', but also disproportionately middle class WHITE.
In 1995, Stephen Harper wrote an op-ed piece in which he suggested that the Reform Party was "based on three issues, to be more specific, he defined it as being based on three "g-issues"- guns, gays, and government grants."
But it was more than just being anti-gay. There were several in the Party, including Stockwell Day, who believed there was some kind of homosexual conspiracy, in the same way that they had once believed that there was a Jewish conspiracy.
The Bethune Institute for Anti-Fascist Studies, in San Francisco, California; published an article in 1999; entitled "Jew-haters and red-baiters: The Canadian League of Rights", which dealt mostly with anti-semitism and the infiltrating of unions; but the author also speaks of the natural progression toward homophobia.
The first issue of CLR's magazine "Family Values", "... was taken up entirely by a reprint of Paul Cameron's vicious homophobic and anti-homosexual propaganda. A later issue claimed that noted 1940s sex researcher, Alfred Kinsey, trained pedophiles to perform experiments on infants "a few months old."The Kinsey reported is then spuriously tied to the rise of pornography, which is then further linked to sex education in schools. Given the nature of fascism as a totality, it is hardly a surprise that the antisemitic and racist politics of the CLR would be extended to anti-homosexualism."
In fact, when he first ran in the Alberta provincial election in 1985, he declared his campaign a "moral crusade," and railed against homosexuality and pornography. He would later refuse to send condolences to the Palestinian people on the death of President Yassir Arafat because a speechwriter of George Bush claimed that he had died of AIDS.
But if Day has done a reasonable job of hiding his radical evangelism, former Alliance MP Larry Spencer, who once held the riding of Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, Saskatchewan, could not.
In November 2003 he gave an interview to Vancouver Sun reporter Peter O'Neil, in which he claimed that "... he would support any initiative to outlaw homosexuality. He stated that in the 1960s, a "well-orchestrated" conspiracy began and led to recent successes in the gay rights movement. This conspiracy, he further said, included seducing and recruiting young boys in playgrounds and locker rooms, and deliberately infiltrating North America's schools, judiciaries, entertainment industries, and religious communities. (sound familiar?)
According to him, this conspiracy started with a speech given by a U.S. gay rights activist in the 1960s whose name he could not remember. Spencer stated: His quote went something like this ... "We will seduce your sons in the locker rooms, in the gymnasiums, in the hallways, in the playgrounds, and on and on, in this land." It was quite a long quote stating what was going to happen to the young boys of North America.
Spencer further blamed former Canadian prime-minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau for the "movement" gaining public acceptance since he legalized homosexuality in Canada in 1969. He mentioned that although no government would have the courage to strike down these laws, and that he would support any initiative that advocated such a move.
Stephen Harper, then Alliance leader, fired Spencer and replaced him as candidate for the next election, with Tom Lukiwski. Most of us know how that turned out, but if you haven't seen the video, here it is:
These are not isolated incidents, and there are many anti-gay quotes available from Reform/Alliance MPs, including a press release from Garry Breitkreuz (Yorkton-Melville), in which he claims that "in the 1950s, buggery was a criminal offence, but it has now become a requirement to receive benefits from the federal government.”
And let's not forget Jason Kenney, the man who was beside Stockwell Day during his rise to the top. Not only is he creating a 'whites only' immigration policy, but he recently appointed an anti-gay activist to the Refugee Board, who will determine which of those claiming refugee status on the grounds of sexual orientation; will be returned to their homeland to face persecution and perhaps even death; and who will be allowed to stay.
He's kind of a nut so I'm guessing he'll try to 'cure' them or ship them back.
The gay community has a right to fear a Harper majority, because his ideology runs much deeper than just homophobic remarks, and for the extremists in the party, they really believe that homosexuality is an evil that must be stopped.
I'm sharing this story in two parts, because it shows the two sides of Stockwell Day's extremism.
That he is a small minded, despicable little man, is beside the point. Knowing that he is not only in government, but holds an important cabinet position, should be of concern to all Canadians.
Bentley, Alberta: Hellfire, Neo-Nazis and Stockwell Day A two-part look inside the little town that nurtured a would-be prime minister - and some of the most notorious hate-mongers in Canada
In Part 1 of Bentley Alberta: Hellfire, Neo-Nazis and Stockwell Day - Gordon Laird's feature on the town that helped shape the Canadian Alliance leadership hopeful - Straight Goods looked at Day's evangelical roots and his connection to the controversial Accelerated Christian Education program. In Part 2, Laird looks into Bentley's Neo-Nazi ties. Just as the Bentley region had more faith than it sometimes knew what to do with, it certainly saw more neo-nazis than most sleepy rural towns. Keegstra made international headlines in 1983 when he was dismissed for teaching "Jewish conspiracy theory as if it were fact" to hundreds of Eckville students over an eight-year span.
After unsuccessful appeals to win back his job, Keegstra wound up in criminal court in 1984, charged with a federal hate crime. He was convicted in 1985 after a sensational trial that revealed a central Albertan community torn by racism - and a trenchant defendant supported by a rag-tag collection of anti-Semite activists, "free speech" advocates, and self-avowed neo-Nazis.
Bentley resident Jim Green was an old Social Credit insider who'd been running - and losing - in federal elections since 1972. Green was also a formidable scholar and fundamentalist in his own right. When Keegstra got into trouble Jim Green phoned up to give him some practical advice: "'You should keep your mouth shut,' I told him," he recalls of Keegstra's outspoken and unrepentant ways. "I said, 'Would you consider losing your life over it?'" "He said, 'So be it.' - I said, 'Me too.' So that's how we got so close."
"I'd vote for Stockwell." - anti-Semitic teacher Jim Keegstra
Together with Bentley native Terry Long and Calgary Aryan activist Tom Erhart, Green and Keegstra formed the Bentley-based Christian Defence League (CDL), a Keegstra fundraising group that pledged "to defend the basic principles of Christianity in this modern age."
In Web of Hate, author Warren Kinsella describes the CDL as "the most extreme anti-Jewish organization active in Canada" at the time. Long would later leave the CDL to become Canadian head of the para-military Church of Aryan Nations. For those familiar with Keegstra's hate crime trial or the CDL, it came as little surprise that young Jim Keegstra came from a strong Social Credit family (like Stockwell Day's father who ran for the Party), attended Bill Aberhart's (the first Social Credit premier of Alberta) Calgary Prophetic Bible Institute, and by 1957, had already joined the party.
And what is to be made of the fact that this extremist who says he has differences with the Alliance candidate on theology still considers Day a political icon? "I'd vote for Stockwell," Keegstra tells me. "Not just [from] knowing him." He quickly dismisses other Canadian Alliance leadership candidates, including Reform Party founder Preston Manning.
"I don't know about Preston," he says with some concern. "Preston went to a Bilderberg [summit] meeting. Rides in a limo with Conrad Black. [He's] hobnobbing with the New World Order." Manning, says Keegstra, is too close to the "Jewish World Government" conspiracy.
Keegstra remembers meeting Day first in 1983. "I knew he had the gift of meeting people and of getting along with people," says the former schoolteacher from his home in Red Deer. "So when I heard that he was getting into politics, I thought he'd found his chosen path."
"I worked on Stock's cars all the time," says Keegstra, recalling chats they had in 1984 about freedom-of-speech issues and Keegstra's upcoming hate trial. "I discussed the topic with him."
He says that they differed on matters of theology, noting that Stock's church favoured prophetic doctrine that favoured "the Jews as God's children." Green says he knew Stockwell Day "pretty well" through the garage and the Bentley Christian Centre. "He came to the garage - said he wanted to be one of the first ones in there when Keegstra opened his garage." He says he didn't know Day's politics at the time.
"As far as I know Day didn't support the CDL - but he liked Jim Keegstra." Green, who now lives in B.C. claims Day corresponds with him. "Usually if you write to an MLA you get a form letter, but when you get a four page letter back, you know he's listening. And the handwritten one's too. I know he's reading my letters - but nothing that could be used against him, you know. You gotta read between the lines." ********* Few Canadian politicians have a rap sheet of gaffes as long as Stockwell Day. When he won his first election in 1996, his acceptance speech was full of ambitious moral prescriptions that had nothing to do with his new job as a provincial legislator.
He "railed against homosexuals in the armed forces and pornography," reported the Red Deer advocate at the time. "He called for harsher penalties for violent crimes, and attacked other issues that belong in the federal domain."
From early on, Stockwell Day had big aspirations. "As a Christian, I acknowledge the lordship of Jesus Christ over the whole universe," explained Day in 1998, in response to a gaffe made against single-parent families. "I believe that the Bible is the infallible word of God and every word in it, cover to cover, is true."
With this literalist belief in the Bible comes some unusual ideas that rarely gather press.
As one educator made notes in an informal presentation Day made in Red Deer during 1997, the Treasurer claimed the following things to be true: 1) The earth is 6,000 years old; 2) Adam and Eve were real people; 3) Humans and dinosaurs co-existed; and 4) There's as much evidence for creation as evolution. The educator declines to be named because he believes Day to be vengeful and worries that a public comment could affect local school funding.
Around Keegtra's Bentley garage, fundamentalism was the common thread: in learning how to love God better, some of these men somehow learned how to hate, too. Day and Keegstra might not agree on Christian eschatology or conspiracy theory, but the fact of the matter is that Stockwell Day won the respect of men who have, more or less, decided that everyone is against them. Not just because Stock is a local boy done good, but because, as Jim Green put it, "he's a good Christian." Green and Keegstra attended a few 6am prayer meetings that pastor Day led for local menfolk.
"I realized that Mr. Day had a certain quality: it is the knowledge and experience in his life - from his Dad, too," says Green. "The people in North Red Deer [where Day was elected provincially in 1986], the Christian people, they liked what he stood for and talked him into moving there," says Green. "He was always pushed: people wanted someone with strong principles. I paraded [protested] with Day and his people in front of a school in Red Deer - against sex education." Self-avowed libertarian Gary Botting describes Day as a friend. "Stock and I would pick each other's brains," he recalls. "Politics, a lot to do with education, a bit to do with what was going to happen with Keegstra. I found him very much down to earth."
Botting is a fascinating figure: despite articling with Doug Christie as a lawyer in 1991, by 1996 Botting had completely disavowed Christie's "anti-Semitic, pro-Nazi agenda," as he put it. Throughout the 1980s, Botting prepared briefs for the local RCMP about the activities of Keegstra, Long and other members of the far right. But at the same time, Botting maintained extensive correspondence with - and sometimes hosted - insurgent racialists from the Western Guard and the American Anti-Communist Federation.
In 1991, Botting championed the case of Howard Pursley, a 250-pound Texan neo-Nazi - in his bid for political refugee status. His dismissal from Red Deer college was based in his controversial support of Keegstra - as a civil liberties case - and his own curious attempt to bring Keegstra's favorite book, The Hoax of the Twentieth Century, into his own college classroom.
Nevertheless, Botting remains convinced that his motives were pure and that both he and Day were above the repugnant but legitimate views of the Christian Defence League. "Day was concerned about the notion of free speech - the principle of free speech of where I was coming from. He understood. Not everyone did." Botting is emphatic: "Day didn't buy into Keegstra's anti-Semitic platform at all. Put it this way, if it had to be a Christian world - God help us - you'd want Day there."
(Gordon Laird is an award-winning journalist and author of Slumming it at the Rodeo: the Cultural Roots of Canada's Right-wing Revolution, Douglas and McIntyre. This feature originally appeared in Toronto's NOW magazine).
There is a book written in 2001, about the life of Stockwell Day, a man I have long despised, called 'REQUIEM FOR A LIGHTWEIGHT, Stockwell Day and Image Politics' by Trevor W. Harrison, that goes into a bit of detail about Day's rise to the top.
How did someone with such little education, and absolutely narrow minded views, get to the position he has? He was almost Prime Minster of Canada, and while I filmy believe that Stephen Harper is the worst PM we've ever had, I think Day would have finished us off sooner than Harper is now trying to do.
The first chapter of Mr. Harrison's book is available online and can be read here. (Title page here) I've ordered it and look forward to reading the rest.
In the first chapter the author mentions the ties between Stockwell Day and James Keegstra, the man fired from his teaching position for suggesting that the holocaust was a hoax. Both were living in Bentley, Alberta; a town that would later become infamous as a haven for hate mongers. "Sometime around 1983, after his dismissal from teaching, Keegstra moved to Bentley where he opened a garage. There, various other prominent members of the extreme right, such as Terry Long, leader of the Church of Aryan Nations, and Doug Christie, head of Western Canada Concept and a lawyer famous for defending individuals accused of hate crimes, are said sometimes to have visited Keegstra.
Day met Keegstra during this period and took his car to the garage for servicing on at least one occasion. However, according to Calgary lawyer Gerald Chipeur, hired by Day in the spring of 2000 when stories linking him to Keegstra resurfaced, Day never returned after the mechanic began a "hate-filled diatribe." (Mr. Keegstra tells it a little differently)
I've mentioned Doug Christie in a couple of posts, and while I don't agree with some of what he has to say, he also makes a lot of sense. Certainly not a burner of crosses. He is just a firm believer in the absolute freedom of speech, while I feel that hate mongering is a very dangerous thing, and that those who incite hatred should be punished.
But for Stockwell Day, his relationship to Doug Christie goes back a bit further. From Wikipedia:
His father, Stockwell Day, Sr., was long associated with the Social Credit Party of Canada. In the 1972 federal election he was the Social Credit candidate running against New Democratic Party leader Tommy Douglas in the riding of Nanaimo—Cowichan—The Islands. Day, Sr., supported Doug Christie and was a member of the Western Canada Concept.
From 1978 to 1985, Day (Junior) was assistant pastor and school administrator at the Bentley Christian Centre in Bentley, Alberta. His school taught the Accelerated Christian Education curriculum, which caused some controversy for its alleged anti-semitism.
Apparently Mr. Christie and several others actually joined the Alliance to support Stockwell Day's leadership bid, because they believed that they had finally found a voice for their neo-conservative view points. He would later be kicked out when the publicity became unfavourable, but this was the political environment where Stockwell cut his teeth.
There was an interesting article about Day's fundamentalism and links to neo-Nazi groups, that appeared in July of 2000. A decade earlier, the Reform Party was also being linked to some of the same people that Doug Christie was defending.
That's the trouble with a political party voicing extremist views. It attracts all sorts.
But back to Stockwell Day, fundamentalism and the neo-Nazis.
Bentley, Alberta: Hellfire, Neo-Nazis and Stockwell Day A two-part look inside the little town that nurtured a would-be prime minister - and some of the most notorious hate-mongers in Canada
On the surface, Bentley looks a little like a set from an old western movie: a single main street rolls through the centre of town alongside old storefronts and residences. An old beer parlour and hotel sits downtown, and you can't turn a corner without finding a house of worship. It's a picturesque slice of central Alberta and the place where Stockwell Day, who made his name as leader of a renegade evangelical church, went from pastor to politician.
Until recently the treasurer of Alberta, Day is now a candidate for the leadership of the Canadian Alliance party. But despite the bucolic setting, back when Day was becoming a public figure Bentley and nearby Red Deer and Eckville percolated with Christian fundamentalism - and a virulent, faith-driven brand of anti-Semitism. This ideological weave of old Social Credit conspiracy doctrines, religion and far-right politics explains why to this day, despite Day's prominence in Alberta's cabinet, there are still neo-Nazi sympathizers from back home who claim to be his friends.
Day made headlines for defending fundamentalist school curricula that a government commission later found to hold "a degree of insensitivity towards blacks, Jews and natives."
When anti-Semitic teacher Jim Keegstra got tossed from his classroom in Red Deer in the early 80s for teaching about the "Jewish conspiracy," he certainly didn't stop profligating his message. Rather, he headed to Bentley, where he set up the Christian Defence Fund (CDL) and ran a mechanic's garage. The garage was popular, despite Keegstra's public denial of the holocaust. Even Stockwell Day - the man who would be prime minister some day - took his car to get serviced there.Eventually, Keegstra - who calls Day by his nickname, "Stock," as does everyone in town, attracted a bevy of notorious characters.
Visiting him in the garage or at his Eckville home were Aryan Nation leader Terry Long, Douglas Christie, lawyer for almost every major Canadian holocaust denier who's ever ran foul of the law, neo-Nazi Ernst Zundel and various white supremacists from south of the border - all of whom lent their passions to the the already combustible area.
Indeed politics and religion in this central Alberta region have always been intense. It is Reform country and before that Social Credit country. The party ruled Alberta from 1935 to 72 and continually struggled with anti-Semitism within the party. In the Day family, Stock's father, Stockwell Day Sr., ran for the federal Socreds against the NDP's Tommy Douglas in Vancouver in 1972. Later, he hooked up with the separatist Western Concept Party, also dedicated to preserving "our" Christian and European heritage and founded by lawyer Doug Christie. ("Doug, it is time for you, the captain, to call "all aboard," wrote Stock Sr. in the organization's newsletter in 1996.)
Following the Socred tradition, Day found his political calling while at the controversial Bentley Christian Centre. From 1978 to 85, Day was assistant pastor and school administrator. And in 1984 he made headlines for defending fundamentalist school curricula that a government commission later found to hold "a degree of insensitivity towards blacks, Jews and natives."
The ACE materialthat Day defended included a reading lesson which asked junior high students: "The Jewish leaders were children of their father, the devil - true or false?" Alberta senator Ron Ghitter headed the 18-month commission on schooling in the wake of the Keegstra affair. His report raised serious questions about the Accelerated Christian Education (ACE), a curriculum imported by the Centre from the Texas-based School of Tomorrow and a rigid set of prescriptions for fundamentalist teaching on scripture and creation science.
"ACE schools were schools of dogma," says Ghitter, a former cabinet minister. "They didn't follow official curriculum and the kids who came out had sort of a twisted Christianity with anti-Semitic overtones."Ghitter recalls one telling incident in a Red Deer Christian school where he discovered an ACE book that argued "all kinds of Buddhists and Muslims are evil." He took the book to the principal, who promptly denied knowing anything about the literature, saying that it was an old book. Ghitter checked the cover: it was new.
"It's repulsive that people would be teaching this material," he explains. "But in certain pockets of central Alberta - Eckville, Bentley, Red Deer - they're good people but they sometimes take the position that their religion is right and others are inferior."At the time Day fervently defended the material - and the right of his school to teach whatever it wanted - saying he was willing to "go to jail, if need be."
"God's law is clear," said an angry Day to the Alberta Report in 1984. "Standards of education are not set by government, but by God, the Bible, the home and the school."
But there was more to the ACE material than just Bible teaching. Social studies lessons warned students that democratic governments "represent the ultimate deification of man, which is the very essence of humanism and totally alien to God's word."Science lessons taught pure creationism, noting that all evolutionists were guilty of "depravity and sinfulness." In other words, the ACE material that Day so passionately defended sometimes took an extreme and dismissive view on secular society - a position that was radical even for religious private schooling.
Religion was so high-strung that kids from the Bentley Christian Centre weren't allowed to play sports with children from outside the parish.
Moreover, there was the Jewish question. Paula Simons of the Edmonton Journal, who interviewed Day at the time, recently reported that the ACE materials were peppered with some disturbing Keegstra-esque statements. In one reading lesson, junior high students were asked: "The Jewish leaders were children of their father, the devil - true or false?" Day was quick to insist that the teachings at the Bentley Christian Centre were never anti-Semitic or intolerant. "That is totally inaccurate and slanderous," he told a reporter in 1985. "We refer to the Jews as the chosen people - the materials are against anti-Semitism."
What Day has to say about this today cannot be known by NOW readers as the former treasurer did not respond to five calls over six days and a set of e-mail questions. Ghitter himself is careful about accusing the former pastor of being anti-Semitic.
"I would never make that allegation against Stockwell," says the senator who himself is Jewish. "But built in that (religious) ideology is the roots of anti-Semitism. It's there in the roots of Social Credit - and it is in today's Alliance, though not necessarily in the leaders."
The current pastor at Day's church, doesn't spare much sympathy for the former Alberta treasurer. Gregory Rathjen says that when Day left in 1985 to pursue a political career, the assistant pastor left behind a community that was deeply divided.
Rathjen arrived in 1986 to a disaster: a demoralized congregation had shrunk almost by half, allegations of fraud were afoot, and the church owed $12,000 to creditors. Factions were warring. It was a dark time in Bentley. "The church leaders had risen to unquestioned authority," explains Rathjen. "They had moved away from the congregational government with the assumption "You're here to serve and not ask questions."
Rathjen reports that, before its collapse, the former Bentley Christian Centre was a renegade Pentecostal church that instituted a divine mandate to replace grassroots congregational representation. Throughout this period, Stockwell Day was assistant pastor and school administrator.
"They changed their by-laws so that the people would have no say - leaders to be appointed by other leader, as determined by scripture," explains Rathjen. "It was a haughty, arrogant, pride-filled success story that led to disaster."
Fuelled by American-style revivalism, the church emphasized radical gospel practices - such as speaking-in-tongues - that whipped worshippers into a frenzy. "They have emotional experiences and then try to build a doctrine around it," explains Rathjen. The intensity of the church and constant stream of visiting American pastors gave Bentley an international profile within fundamentalist circles. But the church eventually succumbed to its own extremes.
"I would say that it was as close to a cult as you can get," says pastor Rathjen. "They were still holding on to the Christian teaching - but with manipulation and control. Very few people knew. It's not acceptable," says the pastor who outright rejected Stockwell Day's old ACE curriculum after a trip down to ACE's Texas headquarters. And Stockwell Day? "Stock wrote me a letter saying he had nothing to do with it - but he lived off of it and enjoyed it," says Rathjen, frankly. "That's what this church was - a bully. They bullied people and won." ********* Bentley locals tell stories about Stockwell Day's church group going out to "push down" the Bentley beer parlour with prayer one evening: a group laid their hands on the building and prayed for it to fall like Babylon.
"They prayed by the Hotel, put their hands on the beer parlour to collapse it for being sinful," recalls one resident. "It was this charismatic preacher there - Stockwell had charisma, but followed this minister blindly."
It is impossible to avoid religion in Bentley. On a per capita basis, Alberta's self-described "model community" has more places of worship than most towns - six churches for 900 residents. Day's church comprised one-third of Bentley's population, with nearly 300 people. And just to keep things interesting, Bentley reportedly had a practicing witch - and a coven - for a number of years.
The intense religious dynamic sometimes exploded. Local doctor Bill McKendrich claims he was driven out of Bentley in 1978 by the Bentley Christian Centre because church leaders wanted their own doctor. "When I was there in Bentley, there was a very strong fundamentalist group trying to take over the village," he says. "If you don't belong to the church, you don't belong to the community." "People are helpful here," says longtime resident Doris Bargholz, "but when there's a controversy, people aren't afraid to take sides: the coffee shop, the barber shop, these are places where conflicts are resolved. People feel strongly."
(Gordon Laird is an award-winning journalist and author of Slumming it at the Rodeo: the Cultural Roots of Canada's Right-wing Revolution, Douglas and McIntyre. This feature originally appeared in Toronto's NOW magazine)
With all the accusations thrown at Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff, suggesting that he supports torture; it's interesting that while those are fabrications, our own government was complicit in the torture of Afghan prisoners.
They may not have held the whip, but they closed their ears to the cries of pain.
Then to top it off, when it was discovered that they were helping to provide the bodies for the torture chamber, Stockwell Day just turned to the standard Tory action when discovered in a scandal. Lie, lie, lie.
Canada's opposition parties were demanding changes to the Afghanistan detainee transfer agreement and calling for the Defence Minister's resignation following accounts of gruesome torture of prisoners in Kandahar.
Monday's Question Period exploded with a barrage of complaints and repeated calls for Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor's ouster from the portfolio.
The calls were sparked by a Globe and Mail investigation that uncovered gruesome stories and allegations of abuse by Afghan authorities who take prisoners who have been captured by Canadian troops, despite Canada's assurances that the rights of detainees are protected.
NDP Leader Jack Layton said the transfer of prisoners to Afghan authorities should stop immediately, a public inquiry be launched and Mr. O'Connor be sacked. He was backed up by all opposition parties.
The matter dominated early debate in Question Period. Deputy Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff said Mr. O'Conner was “incompetent” and should be replaced by a minister “who can ensure the Geneva convention will be respected” by both Canada and its allies.
Liberal Defence Critic Denis Coderre later told the Globe the party would “do what we have to do” to have their demands answered. “At every level ... [the Harper Government] totally failed in Canada's role regarding human rights,” Mr. Coderre said. “There's too many questions.”
Earlier Monday, human rights experts and university professors Michael Byers and Amir Attaran said the Canadian Forces should stop transferring detainees into Afghan hands and build their own detention facility in the Asian country.
In the current circumstances, they said, Canadian Forces members are complicit in the alleged torture that is inflicted on prisoners of war in Afghan prisons. “Under international law, you are prohibited from transferring to torture. You are prohibited from facilitating torture in any way,” said Mr. Byers, who teaches international law and politics at the University of British Columbia.
“We're not simply speaking about the criminal responsibility of individual Canadian soldiers. We're speaking also of command responsibility, of criminal responsibility that continues up the chain of command, to any superior officer who knew of the risk of torture and who ordered or allowed our soldiers to transfer detainees nevertheless,” he said.
In 30 interviews with men recently captured in Kandahar province, a Globe and Mail investigation has uncovered a litany of gruesome stories and a clear pattern of abuse by the Afghan authorities who work closely with Canadian troops, despite Canada's assurances that the rights of detainees are protected.
Mr. Attaran said the Canadian government has to make an announcement by the end of the day, given that allegations of torture in Afghan prisons are now public.
“The acid test for (Mr. O'Connor and Chief of the Defence Staff General Rick Hillier) is today. Can they, by the end of the day, call it quits on what is an illegal practice?” said the law professor at the University of Ottawa.
Canadian Forces members regularly hold detainees for a few days of questioning at Kandahar Air Field, then give them to the National Directorate of Security, Afghanistan's intelligence police. Over and over, detainees interviewed by The Globe described how Canadians tied their hands with plastic straps, marking the start of nightmarish journeys through shadowy jails and blood-spattered interrogation rooms. “If this report is accurate, Canadians have engaged in war crimes, not only individually but also as a matter of policy,” Mr. Byers said.
Then of course, Stephen Harper, rather than answer to the allegations, pulled his usual blame it on the Opposition, who he claimed must apologize to the troops. For What?
In Question Period, in the face of continued questions about the treatment of prisoners in Afghanistan, Harper continues to instead choose partisanship over substance to respond to the issue. He continues to fail to recognize the significance of Canada fully adhering to the Geneva Conventions and to be seen to be doing so to the world.
Instead, Harper's instincts are to mock Dion and Layton and use the troops as a shield for his accountability. The opposition should apologize to the troops? Are you kidding me? This is not about the troops. This is about Harper and O'Connor. The only parties that owe an apology to the troops are Harper and O'Connor. They've let this situation develop in Afghanistan where the Canadian Forces are put in the middle of a chaotic no-win situation.
They've ramped up the combat mission yet left our Forces in the position of having no safeguards to ensure the Geneva Conventions will be followed. That's inexcusable and it's a lack of civilian experience and proper oversight of the military operation that is the problem.
But Stockwell Day trumped them all when he told an out and out lie in the House of Commons. He claimed that detainees were being monitored and that Correctional staff from Canada were doing the monitoring. That man has such a wild imagination. I guess he needs something to make up for his complete lack of education and moral compass.
OTTAWA - Urging an end to the "political circus" over Afghan detainees, Afghanistan's ambassador to Canada says no Canadians, including corrections officers, have monitored treatment of prisoners turned over by Canadian military forces.
However, Ambassador Omar Samad said in a Global National interview that Canadian officials will soon have "unrestricted access" to prisons under an agreement currently being worked out with Canada in the wake of political uproar over alleged torture of detainees.
Samad contradicted assertions by Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day that Corrections Canada officers have been monitoring prisoner treatment - an assertion Day repeated in the Commons Friday, saying they are there "to see if there are cases of torture."
Samad said Corrections Canada officers have for many months, under their mandate to help build Afghan police capacity, had access to some prisons in Afghanistan and may have come across prisoners.
"It doesn't mean those were detention centres of people who were arrested by Canadian forces," Samad said. "So if this has created confusion, I think that we all need to take a step back and define what we're talking about and to bring some clarity to this instead of turning it into a political circus."
"From the Afghan point of view, it's clear there was no followup or monitoring of detainees caught by Canadian forces turned over to Afghans, especially to the NDS (National Directorate of Security) that took place prior to this current time."
Day came under fire in the Commons earlier, with opposition MPs saying the corrections officers, sent in February to help prison reconstruction efforts, have no mandate to monitor prisoners or enforce a Canada-Afghanistan prisoner transfer agreement.
The minister had trumpeted their role Thursday after three days of confusion and contradiction about alleged abuse of prisoners turned over by Canadian troops, access to Afghan prisons and enforcement of a Canada-Afghan prisoner transfer agreement under which the Afghan human rights commission was to monitor prisoner treatment.
Day had said Thursday that corrections staff had made 15 visits to Afghan jails. But his spokeswoman, Melissa Leclerc, had said later they have no mandate to monitor prisoner treatment.
On Friday, Day told the Commons "they are there to support the Afghan officers by training them in the work that they do in the prisons and also to ensure, to see if there are cases of torture."
After question period, deputy Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff said Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor should be "put out of his misery" after five days of contradictions and confusion on the Afghan detainee affair.
And former Liberal justice minister Irwin Cotler told reporters that Canadians must be trained specifically to recognize torture and abuse if they are going to be part of a systematic monitoring system.
"You can't have a drive-by inquiry by some corrections officials who may in fact not even know that it's part of their mandate to monitor the detainees and to understand if there have been situations of torture and inhumane treatment," Cotler said.
While the media has been going on and on about 
