Their banner reads "Seek God ... Trust God ... Love God." Rolling Stone magazine calls them "a secretive group of wealthy donors that has funneled billions of dollars to right-wing Christian activists", and ABC says "Meet the Most Powerful Conservative Group You've Never Heard Of".
Their executive director once boasted "we control everything in the world" and a former secretary suggests that they not only support globalization but are globalization.
Who are they?
They are the Council for National Policy, and in 1997, at their Montreal conference, they invited the president of the National Citizens Coalition, Stephen Harper, to speak to them, on the state of Canadian politics.
To understand the enormity of this invitation, guests may only attend meetings with the unanimous consent of the Executive Committee. If one person didn't trust him, he would not have been allowed to attend. They all trusted him. Since then, documentary film maker, Josh Reeves, who was able to secure a membership list, claims that our prime minister's name is on that list.
Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid
Antichrist pacing to and fro. Laughs exultantly.
ANTICHRIST: What more could I wish for? It’s only a matter of time now and not long at that. The whole world will soon be at my feet. What fools those Jews were to agree to assist me to this throne of Russia. I do not need their support any longer. Tomorrow I will break my covenant with them. Their religious ceremonies must cease. I will not tolerate such stuff in my realm.
Enter false Prophet. Salutes Antichrist.
ANTICHRIST: What brings you here to me, sir?
FALSE PROPHET: I come to make you a proposition. You already know something of my origin and my purpose in being in this world. There is a work that we can best accomplish by working together.
ANTICHRIST: You interest me. What is your proposition?
FALSE PROPHET: It is this. You well know, my Lord, that the day is fast coming when you will be the supreme ruler of this world. Already you have more power than all the governments of Europe and Asia, together. Your word is law. The kings of this earth tremble at your smallest command. Their thrones will soon be yours. But there is one thing that will always hinder your progress as long as it is allowed to exist. That thing is true religion. As long as people retain even the thought of God, their allegiance will be divided between yourself and Him.
ANTICHRIST: I realize that well enough. That is why I propose to banish religion from the earth. I will not allow the name of God to be mentioned under penalty of death. Just give me a little longer. Tomorrow I intend to break my covenant with those Jews and cancel all their religious rights. Once they are exterminated, what religion there will be left in this world will not be difficult to eradicate.
FALSE PROPHET: My Lord, I highly commend your actions, but why not go a step further still? I suggest not only the annihilation of all worship of God but propose to introduce a new form of worship in which you yourself will take the place of God. In that way man’s natural tendency to worship will be gratified and you will be exalted to a position never before held by a man. I have full control over the apostate religions that at present are worshipping our adviser, Diabolos, and a multitude of his demons. I propose turning all apostate religions into one great channel with yourself as the object of worship.
ANTICHRIST: I like well your proposition. We have all the power of the Devil behind us. We can accomplish our ends without difficulty. Militarism will be the order of the day. Deception shall be our weapon where force is unwise, until we get complete control. Let us proceed with care and the whole world will soon be out our feet.
FALSE PROPHET: One thing we have to consider. Some will refuse to worship you. How can we prevent them from evading us?
ANTICHRIST: That will not be hard. We will soon have full control of the trade and commerce of the world. We will then make the people swear their allegiance to us and bow down and worship before they will be allowed to buy or sell. When they do, we will brand them like cattle, and no one will be allowed to buy or sell unless they have our mark upon them. We will do away with any who refuse.
FALSE PROPHET: Then our last difficulty is solved. The future is open before us my Lord. Woe to him who opposes or dares to cross our path. Now let us launch our great campaign. You complete your world conquest and cease not until the last king has thrown his crown at your feet. I will see that apostate religion keeps pace with your advancements. Meanwhile we will complete all details of our plan and when we meet again it will be to make dreams come true. Image, False Prophet, Antichrist, Guards and so forth. Long blast on cornet.
FALSE PROPHET: Here ye all this proclamation and decree hereby issued by the command of the Antichrist, the supreme ruler of this world. (Reads decree concerning worship of image, receiving of mark, etc.) At the sounding of the trumpet this decree shall immediately become law, and woe to any who refuses to worship the image of the greatest man this world has ever seen. (1)
The above is an excerpt from a play written by Ernest Manning and William Aberhart in 1931. Using students from the Calgary Prophetic Bible Institute, they performed it at high schools and church halls, and it is said, scared people half to death.
Based on the popular novel by Sydney Watson: Mark of the Beast, Manning and Aberhart clearly wanted to scare their audiences into accepting Christ, then and there. In one scene a young girl claims that she goes to church and reads the Bible, but was told that wasn't good enough, and the Antichrist did away with her entire family.
This play was not written for entertainment but was a form of fear mongering. Just going to church and reading the Bible was clearly not enough. You had to be saved.
The play also put the Jews in line with the Devil.
Aberhart and Manning were former Social Credit premiers of Alberta, and according to Janine Stingel, SC was the only party based solely on the notion of a Jewish conspiracy. Manning would later "purge" the party of the anti-Semites, but it was mainly for political expediency, since they were starting to demand that he adhere to social credit principles. Anti-Semitism would continue to define his party for many years. (2)
James Keegstra, the Alberta school teacher who for 15 years taught his students that the Holocaust was a Hoax, attended the Calgary Prophetic Bible Institute, and his parents were devout Social creditors. Ron Gostick, whose mother was a Social Credit MLA, was one of the largest distributors of hate literature in North America. Stockwell Day's religious fanaticism, may have also come from his parents, who were not only members of Social Credit, but his father once ran for the party against Tommy Douglas.
The Bible broadcasts of Aberhart and Manning played for decades, to a wide audience. To suggest that they didn't have an impact would be naive. And the brand of Christianity they taught often bordered on the occult.
In Stephen Harper's 1997 speech to the CNP he said that "The predecessor of the Reform Party, [was] the Social Credit party, and in fact many of the early Reform members, were previously with the Socreds.
The Council for National Policy was the brainchild of Tim LeHaye, co-author of the apocalyptic fiction series: Left behind. It so happens, that LeHaye was also inspired by Sydney Watson's: Mark of the Beast, and his books deliver the same anti-Communist, "you must be saved" philosophies.
The idea of creating the CNP was to act as an umbrella group for all the Christian Right organizations, that were created or rejuvenated, after the election of Ronald Reagan. They wanted to make sure that their hold on power would continue even after he was out of office.
Using the idea of a "voting block", they could bribe and even blackmail conservative candidates.
In 1999, George W. Bush spoke before a closed-press CNP session in San Antonio. His speech was recorded on audio tape. Apparently he promised to appoint only anti-abortion-rights judges to the Supreme Court and to take a tough stance against gays and lesbians, though since they refused to release the tape to the public, no one knows for sure. Soon after, they declared that Bush was fit for the mantle of Republican leadership. (3)
I wonder what Stephen Harper's closed door meeting was like, given the enormous support he received from CNP members James Dobson and Paul Weyrich. Dobson placed ads on 130 Canadian radio stations, denouncing same-sex marriage, while Harper used it as a campaign strategy (4); and Paul Weyrich forbid his people to talk to the Canadian press, fearing they might say too much, and risk Harper's losing the election (5).
Cross Border Hoppers
When Stephen Harper cut a deal with Peter Mackay to purchase the rights to the Progressive Conservatives, he changed the name to the Conservative Party of Canada. Actually, the first name given was Conservative Reform Alliance Party, but they didn't like the acronym.
However, many people weren't fooled into believing that Harper and his Alliance members were now Tories. Even before the takeover became official, the Edmonton Journal commented on the prospects of a new Conservative Party: “The [social conservative] bogeymen won't go away just because they'll be hidden from the public inside a new Conservative Party. They'll still be there, under the bed, waiting for a chance to spring up and spout their offensive anti-gay, anti-choice, anti-immigration, pro-gun, pro-death penalty views.”
In 2005, the Vancouver Sun estimated that “roughly half the current 98 members” of the Conservative caucus “are religious social conservatives,” which is “well over double the national average.”
What has also been discovered, is that many members of Harper's caucus, then and now, actually belong to several Christian Right organizations that fall under the umbrella of the Council for National Policy. Focus on the Family, the Christian Coalition, the National Rifle Association (yes, God loves guns), Campus Crusade for Christ, the Promise Keepers, and many more.
Over 800 Canadian conservative activists, including Conservative MP Rob Anders, have been trained at the Executive Director of CNP, Morton Blackwell's Leadership Institute. (6) In 1998, Anders' former legislative assistant, Trevor Cazemier, was a guest at the CNP annual conference, sponsored by Republican strategist, Mark Montini. (7) His slogan: “If Mark doesn’t light your fire, your wood is wet.”
Montini then ran a firm called Complete Communication Strategies, and was a trainer at the Leadership Institute, running what he called the "human resources department for the conservative movement." According to his bio "Mark Montini has also consulted in Greece, Canada and Chile, offering a taste of American-style political communication skills."
And that taste of "American-style political communication skills" has left an aftertaste, though it explains why Republicans and Canadian conservatives, sound so much alike.
Their wood is always dry.
Sources:
1. Aberhart of Alberta, By L.P.V. Johnson and Ola MacNutt, Institute of Applied Arts Ltd., 1970
2. Beyond the purge: Reviewing the social credit movement's legacy of intolerance, By Janine Stingel, Canadian Ethnic Studies Journal, Summer, 1999
3. Meet the Most Powerful Conservative Group You've Never Heard Of, By Marc J. Ambinder, ABC News, May 2, 2005
4. EQUAL MARRIAGE GROUP CALLS ON HARPER TO PUBLICLY ‘DRAW THE LINE’, Canadians For Equal Marriage, January 27, 2005
5. Harper's U.S. neocon booster changes his story, By Beth Gorham, Canadian Press, January 27, 2006
6. The Armageddon Factor: The Rise of Christian Nationalism in Canada, By: Marci McDonald, Random House Canada, 2010, ISBN: 978-0-307-35646-8 3, p. 104-105
7. Tysons Corner meeting, CNP, Ritz-Carlton Tysons Corner, McLean, Virginia, May 1-2, 1998
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