Justin Trudeau, Al Qaeda, and Looking for 'To Do About Something'

Recently, the Harper government attacked Justin Trudeau for visiting a mosque, where allegedly, recruitment for members of Al Qaeda had once taken place.

Harper's Reformers are coming out in droves to plant the seed that Trudeau belongs to this terrorist group. Soon they'll be suggesting that it was he who engineered 9/11.

However, Trudeau visited Al-Sunnah Al-Nabawiah mosque, in his Montreal riding of Papineau, in 2011; before the U.S. made this assumption and many years after the alleged activity took place.

That didn't stop Harper's latest neutered attack dog (with Baird and Del Mastro yelping somewhere else), Steven Blaney, from stating "It is completely unacceptable that Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau would associate with a group that allegedly radicalizes Canadians to join al-Qaeda and engage in acts of unspeakable violent extremism."

Because of this "lack of judgement" the "trustworthy" Blaney concludes that Justin Trudeau cannot be trusted. You can be sure that this will appear in an attack ad or fundraising letter in the near future.

But let's see who else can't be trusted if the criteria is simply guilt by association.

Conservative MP Maxime Bernier, was dating a girl with ties to Hell's Angels. He even left his "briefs" in her home, both the ones you wear and the ones you should not allow the public to see, although both unacceptable given that he was then our Foreign Minister.

Not only did Harper not care about this girl's obvious exploitation of the hapless Bernier, but they gave her mother a job.

WHAT IF THIS HAD BEEN JUSTIN TRUDEAU?

When the story broke that former commander of CFB Trenton, Russel Williams, was a serial killer, photos appeared with Williams and Peter MacKay keeping stride, and his face adorned a training manual.

Now of course we know that MacKay was unaware of William's criminal activity, but ...

WHAT IF THIS HAD BEEN JUSTIN TRUDEAU?

MacKay's credibility did come into question however, with his backing of rebels in Libya, that West Point years earlier confirmed had ties with Al Qaeda. MacKay would only suggest that he didn't know much about them. But.....

WHAT IF THIS HAD BEEN JUSTIN TRUDEAU?

Jason Kenney spoke at a rally of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, then banned as a terrorist group. He claimed not to know, but ....

WHAT IF THIS HAD BEEN JUSTIN TRUDEAU?

In Ukraine recently, John Baird had his photo taken with Oleh Tyahnybok, the anti-Semite head of the Svoboda Party. Does that mean that Baird himself is anti-Semitic? Of course not. But ...

WHAT IF THIS HAD BEEN JUSTIN TRUDEAU?

Peter Kent associated himself with the Jewish Defense League, to appeal to Jewish voters, until it was reported that they were on the U.S. FBI Terrorist watch list. He eventually distanced himself from the group, but not so Jason Kenney who allowed them to influence his decision to ban British MP George Galloway.

In fact, JDL appear to be stronger than ever, with the help of Sun Media, Harper's personal accomplishment.

Yves Engler wrote recently of the rise of their racist militarism in Toronto, aimed at those opposed to the genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza.

New to pro-Palestinian activism in Toronto, I was unaware of just how aggressive and organized the JDL had become. It's reached the point where some Palestinian solidarity groups avoid publicizing pickets out of fear they might disrupt them.

In the U.S., the JDL has been outlawed since 2001. Its members have been convicted in a series of acts of terror, including the killing of the regional director of the American Arab Anti-discrimination Committee and a plot to assassinate a Congressman. A member of the JDL's sister organization in Israel killed 29 Palestinian Muslim worshipers in the Cave of the Patriarchs Massacre 20 years ago. In 2011 the RCMP launched an investigation against a number of JDL members who were thought to be plotting to bomb Palestine House in Mississauga.

Leader of the JDL, Meir Weinstein, has a twitter account, and though he has only 18 followers, two of them are Israel's PMO (JDL also banned in Israel) and Harper's Sun TV. Recently a Sun follower tweeted a video to Ezra Levant suggesting that five minutes of running a day could improve your health. He quipped that this was good news for the Palestinians running from Israeli gunfire.

This is the kind of Canada the Harper government is creating when they harvest hate for political support. I seem to remember the leader of a different nation, during different times, who did that, and the results were catastrophic.

WHAT IF THIS HAD BEEN JUSTIN TRUDEAU?

When Stephen Harper was helping to organize the Reform Party (now called the Conservative Party of Canada), he allowed several far-right groups (at the time Harper himself was always described as being from the far-right), to set up recruitment tables at Reform Party conventions.

One of these groups was well known White Supremacist Paul Fromm's
Canadians for Foreign Aid Reform. In turn, these groups sold memberships to Harper's Reform Party.

According to the anti-racist Shofar:

On June 13, 1991, several Heritage Front members attended a meeting of Paul Fromm's Canadians for Foreign Aid Reform (C-FAR) where [Al] Overfield from the Reform Party set up a table to sign people up for the Party.

... it is interesting to note that the policies of both groups stem from the idea that minorities are receiving unjustifiable special treatment under current Canadian legislation.

... The attraction of Reform for Overfield and like-minded persons, he said was that it was strictly white bread, 100 percent white Canadians, really anti-immigration; there was really no difference between those people and them.

When it was discovered that Neo-Nazis were operating within the Reform Party, Stephen Harper claimed not to know. However, given their very public profile, I find that hard to believe. He was simply harvesting hatred for political gain.

So does this mean that Stephen Harper is or was a Neo-Nazi? Of course not. But ...

WHAT IF THIS HAD BEEN JUSTIN TRUDEAU?

Steven Blaney, the man who is protecting us from the young Trudeau, while giving the JDL a free pass, was in the news recently for lying about when he knew of an RCMP ban on Swiss Arms rifles. But thank heavens Blaney stood up to those dangerous RCMP thugs, and said that we can now own them. I thought I was going to have to make a lawn ornament out of mine.

Not the first Blaney controversy.

During the 2005/06 federal election campaign, he was one of the candidates who took part in the "In and Out" election financing scheme, where Party central deposited money into his bank account, which he immediately sent back for illegal Party ad buys. (They were already over their spending limit)

Blaney had raised just $13,185.00 for his campaign; $1,275.00 donated by himself.

The federal party, transferred $28,626.34 to him, which he then "spent". His return records show $ 24,641.34 for TV and radio, and $ 3,985.00 for newspaper ads, despite the fact that these were not HIS expenditures.

This meant that he received a rebate of thousands of dollars from taxpayers, that he was not entitled to.

So does this mean that Steven Blaney is a liar and cheat? OK you got me there. But....

WHAT IF THIS HAD BEEN JUSTIN TRUDEAU?

Stephen Harper's Extremist Roots Are Showing, Despite $400.00 Haircuts.

There was an article in the Toronto Star that confirmed many of the comments I have been making over the past several weeks. How did a man who has been referred to many times over the years as a 'Right-Wing Extremist', manage to re-invent himself into something that we now see as a real human being?

When he showed up as head of the Alliance Party, also then known as the NCP or Neo-conservative Party; Canadians said "no way!!" He was whiny and mean, looking at you as though you should be lucky just to have laid eyes on him.

Well, no amount of piano playing will disguise the real Stephen Harper. The Stephen Harper of the Northern Foundation and the National Citizens Coalition. The Stephen Harper of 'Operation Pork-Chop' and the Council for National Policy. The Stephen Harper who was friends with the likes of Peter Brimelow, Wolfgang Droege and Paul Fromm.

But his extremist roots are showing and you don't have to look too closely to see them.

Harper's extremism is showing
Toronto Star
By Linda McQuaig Columnist
November 3, 2009

If, as polls suggest, Stephen Harper is poised to win a majority, it's largely due to the media notion that his past reputation for extremism no longer holds.

In fact, apart from his reluctant embrace of economic stimulus, Harper has shown little of the "moderation" that supposedly now puts his government comfortably within the Canadian mainstream.

Departing from Canadian political tradition, for instance, the Harper government has abandoned Ottawa's long-standing attempt at even-handedness in the Middle East conflict, repositioning Canada as unequivocally on Israel's side.

The Harper government also appears to have embarked on a disturbing and less-reported campaign to silence Canadian critics of Israel, in ways that threaten to undermine Canada's tradition of open debate, particularly at our universities. The Prime Minister himself set the tone for this by appearing to equate criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism.

"I guess my fear is what I see happening in some circles is (an) anti-Israeli sentiment, really just a thinly disguised veil for good old-fashioned anti-Semitism," Harper told Montreal's CJAD Radio in May 2008.

Others in the Harper cabinet have gone farther. Speaking last September in Thornhill, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney charged that "Israel Apartheid Days on university campuses like York sometimes begin to resemble pogroms."

York University has seen some intense debate over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, particularly since Israel's invasion of Gaza last winter. But to compare heated exchanges to pogroms – organized campaigns of slaughter and pillage of European Jews – is absurd.

Kenney's depiction of York was so inaccurate it prompted a rebuttal from two York professors of Jewish studies, who like the Harper government's support for Israel. "We and a large number of other Jewish men walk around campus every day wearing kippot and do so without fear," professors Eric Lawee and Martin Lockshin wrote in the Canadian Jewish News. "Another 4,000 other Jews ... also walk around campus every day in total freedom.

They benefit from a wide range of Jewish activities – a kosher restaurant on campus, rich Jewish student activity life, a wide array of top-level Jewish studies courses, student and faculty exchanges with leading Israeli universities – all encouraged and supported by the president of York and his administration."

Branding critics of Israel's actions in Gaza as anti-Semitic is particularly untenable in light of the extremely critical findings about Israel's Gaza campaign in a UN report by Richard Goldstone, an internationally respected South African judge who is also a dedicated Zionist and long-time friend of Israel.

The tone set by the Harper government seems to be encouraging an attack on open debate about Israel on Canadian campuses. An ad-hoc group of parliamentarians, including Conservatives, Liberals and New Democrats, has set itself up as an "inquiry" into what it considers a new anti-Semitism, with a particular focus on campuses. They open hearings in Ottawa this week.

The charge that anti-Semitism is tolerated on campuses has been explicitly made by B'nai Brith Canada. In an ad in the National Post, the organization charged that students returning to university could expect "swastikas and other anti-Semitic graffiti all over campus."

Before we're lulled into the notion of the Harper government as "moderate," we should consider what role it's played in creating the climate for this sort of poisonous slur against Canadian universities – all because they've allowed student voices to harshly criticize the Israeli government. Just as Goldstone does in his UN report.

WAKE UP PEOPLE! IS THIS WHAT YOU REALLY WANT?

Where Were You in 1989? I know Where Michael and Stevie Were

I came across this old video of current Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff, when he hosted a segment for BBC in 1989 called 'Three Minute Culture'. It's kind of silly and dated, but fun nonetheless.

The techno age had just moved into full swing and advertisers knew that it wasn't enough to just try to sell us something. They sought to create a 'need' for something they wanted us to buy, and used the new technologies to do it.

So we know in part what Michael Ignatieff was up to in 1989, but what was Stephen Harper doing at that time?

He was engaged in writing policy for the Reform Party, most of it apparently cribbed from the National Citizens Coalition Handbook.

He was an apt follower of 'White Nationalist' Peter Brimelow. In fact he was so enthralled with his book that he went out and bought ten copies for friends.

But more importantly, he was one of the founding members of the Northern Foundation, a group described as 'Extreme Right-Wing'. A vanguard for right-wing ideology, it became an umbrella group for race scientists, anglo-supremacists and neo-nazis. Harper was certainly not a neo-nazi but definitely extreme right-wing.

His passion appeared to be immigration issues and opposition to special privileges for Quebec, and while he claimed to have been kicked out of the group in 1991, I question why he would ever want to help start up such an organization in the first place.

I also don't believe he was as innocent as he claims. When it was revealed in the media that there were neo-nazis in the Reform Party, Harper and Preston Manning feigned surprise and immediately removed them. However, all verify that both men knew exactly who they were and what they stood for; a claim Harper denied.

One of the men evicted was Wolgang Droege. Seen in the photo leading a group of young people, he was leader of the Heritage Front.

The Front was one of the organizations under the Northern Foundation umbrella. I've actually created a timeline from a variety of newspaper accounts and books, that I'm going to post separately.

However, it would certainly appear that Stephen Harper knew Wolfgang quite well. In fact according to Frank Dabbs, author of Preston Manning: The Roots of Reform, "...self-described white-supremacist Wolfgang Droege (was) the party's policy chairman in Ontario." Harper was the party's policy chief.

He had to have known.

In researching Droege I found one comment about him rather chilling. It stated that he had a knack for bringing in young people. Look at the face of the boy behind him, who appears to be marching in a goose step. If you ever wondered what hatred looked like, wonder no more.

However, since the Reform Conservatives seem to be intent on drumming up old tapes and things of Mr. Ignatieff, maybe they should have cleaned out their own closet first, because it would appear their leader may have left a few things behind.

I'd rather have silly and dated than the baggage of helping to found the Northern Foundation.

Stephen Harper and the Heritage Front Revisited

The man on the right is Wolfgang Droege, former leader of the Heritage Front, a neo-Nazi group that gained prominence when it was discovered that they were operating within the Reform Party.

Mr. Droege was murdered in 2005, putting an end to an era, but there are still many unanswered questions, at least unanswered to me.

How much did Stephen Harper and Preston Manning know of his activities? Why did it take them so long to react to the infiltration of neo-Nazis into the party? Why was he and the Heritage Front employed to handle security for Preston Manning?

According to Dr. Debra Chin of the Canadian, "Stephen Harper was Reform Party Policy chief, at a time when it had numerous members of the white supremacist group Heritage Front as members. ... Mr. Harper even had Heritage Front members doing security for Preston Manning at Reform Party events in Ontario."

Later reports from CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service), indicate that it was Al Overfield who actually arranged this, at least the first time. "Overfield claims to have been out of politics for 15 years when he decided to become active again. When he joined the Reform Party of Canada he claims to have “let the Reform Party executive know about his political past, and they had no problems with it." Overfield stated that Reform Party member Harry Robertson admitted him to the Party and that future Prime Minister of Canada Stephen Harper was well aware of Overfield’s past involvement in far right groups. ... Harper denied such knowledge. "

According to Paul Fromm: "The attraction of Reform for (Al) Overfield and like-minded persons was that it was strictly white bread, 100 percent white Canadians, really anti-immigration; there was really no difference between those people and them."

When Preston Manning and his father Ernest created the manifesto 'Political Realignment', they knew that they would have to wait to launch the party until they could feed off 'white hot anger'. The only problem with harnessing anger is that you also unleash hatred.

As a result, when he finally did create the Reform Party, it became a perfect draw for these groups. However, I've been studying several of the 'legitimate' organizations now advocating for the Reform-Conservatives, and their rhetoric bears little difference from much that I've read coming from so-called 'hate' groups. Hate is hate, whether it's directed at Jews, ethnic minorities, gays, women, or even Liberals.

I thought that maybe I would do a chronology of events relating to Wolfgang Droege and the Heritage Front, from a variety of sources; in an attempt to make sense of it all. As with the other posts on the subject, I don't believe for even a second that Stephen Harper was ever a skinhead or a neo-Nazi; not that the groups he's currently involved with are any less dangerous.

The Northern Foundation and the Heritage Front

"‘The Northern Foundation was established in 1989, originally as a pro-South Africa group . . . lists among the founding members of the Foundation both William Gairdner and Stephen Harper ... " (Preston Manning and the Reform Party. Author: Murray Dobbin Goodread Biographies/Formac Publishing 1992 ISBN: 0-88780-161-7, pg. 100)

"... the Northern Foundation was the creation of a number of generally extreme right-wing conservatives, including Anne Hartmann (a director of REAL Women), Geoffrey Wasteneys (A long-standing member of the Alliance for the Preservation of English in Canada), George Potter (also a member of the Alliance for the Preservation of English in Canada), author Peter Brimelow, Link Byfield (son of Ted Byfield and himself publisher/president of Alberta Report), and Stephen Harper." (Of Passionate Intensity: Right-Wing Populism and the Reform Party of Canada. Author: Trevor Harrison Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995. ISBN: 0-8020-7204-6, Pg. 121)

"Back home, Droege held low-key meetings with his new group in his apartment. They discussed their plans for their new group, and they discussed a name: the Heritage Front. One man, James Scott Dawson, registered the name; another Gerry Lincoln, designed a logo and some letterhead. Then, in November 1989, the Heritage Front went public. Droege, Lincoln and a few others travelled to Ottawa for the founding conference of the Northern Foundation. Droege had chosen a good place for his coming-out party." (Web of Hate: Inside Canada's Far Right Network - Author: Warren Kinsella Toronto : Harper Collins, pg 263-264)

"In late February 1991, Bill Dunphy exposed in the Sun the fact that Droege and four other Heritage Front activists maintained memberships in Toronto area Reform Party riding associations. Immediately thereafter, Reform Party leader Preston Manning ordered the group expelled." (Kinsella, 1994, pg. 243)

What is odd though is the fact that if Bill Dunphy exposed the Heritage Front's involvement in the Reform Party in February 1991, why did Droege provide security for a Reform rally in Mississauga in June of the same year: "The Source said that a few days before the Mississauga rally, Droege had said to Grant Bristow (the CSIS operative): "I need your help to do security for the Reform Party . Just prior to the Mississauga rally, on June 10, 1991, it was learned that Overfield was one of the Directors of the Beaches- Woodbine Reform Party riding association. Overfield had stated that he had a couple of men who were going to handle (i.e., protect) Manning because the police were refusing to give any assistance.... Droege too was to later say to the Review Committee that "their (Heritage Front) involvement, however, was not questioned by the Reform Party; the HF was 'not an issue', even though we were one of the main organizers". (Report to the Solicitor General of Canada Security Intelligence Review Committee December 9, 1994)

"The expulsion enraged the Heritage Front, which saw the Reform Party's policies as very similar to, if not indistinguishable from, its own. How could a party that went on record opposing immigration policies that "radically alter" Canada's ethnic make-up turn around and shun a group like the Heritage Front, Droege asked, when the Heritage Front supports the very same approach? Privately, spokesmen for B'nai Brith and the Canadian Jewish Congress admitted that Droege had a good point." (Kinsella, 1994, Pg. 243-44)

"The Heritage Front - This Ontario group is led by Wolfgang Droege, a forty-one-year-old naturalized Canadian from Germany who recently served two years in jail for plotting to overthrow the government of Dominica. His front claims a membership of 300 people. It has distributed its literature, calling for an all-white Canada, in various Toronto locations, including public schools. The Canadian Jewish Congress has lodged hate literature charges against the Front. Droege denies being racist, but does see Canada's immigration policy as a threat to whites, 'the most precious force on this planet ... we believe that eventually white people will become a minority in this country because of our immigration policies ... We are racial nationalists working for the interest of whites everywhere." Droege has given the Reform Party his seal of approval. 'They have given us some hope,' says the Heritage Front leader." (Rosie DiManno, Toronto Star, June 19, 1991)

"... an anti-Semitic column by former Texas KKK Grand Dragon Louis Beam Jr. (in one of the neo-nazi publications) the August 1992 issue carried a lengthy account of Wolfgang Droege's involvement with the Reform party.

Mr. Droege's comments are not unlike those of Reform Party member Doug Collins in his book Immigration. The Destruction of English Canada. When this became public, it was an embarrassment for the reform Party and they immediately demanded an investigation, suggesting that it was the Progressive Conservative party behind it. However the report indicated that the PCs had nothing to with it, but in fact stated that the party had been warned prior to the revelations.

I'm looking into it a little deeper, because this is important, especially if there are still links to the Reform-Conservatives. Wolfgang Droege may be dead, but intolerance within this party is still very much alive.

Time to Jump In: Stephen Harper and the Neo-Nazis

So I guess it's time to jump right in, to a topic I've been skirting around, not sure exactly what to do with.

However, the evidence is a little overwhelming, so I think that Canadians have a right to know what Stephen Harper was up to when forming his Reform/Alliance Party (now calling themselves Conservatives).

I'm not going to make any assumptions, I'm just going to share what I've read from reliable sources and you can be the judge.

Apparently the revelations were discovered several years ago, but Conrad Black, the media mogul, was able to silence his journalists.

In an attempt to remake Mr. Harper and his party from being ultra right, into a fabricated image of a non-threatening "moderately conservative" party.... “He [Mr. Harper] had little trouble doing so, as the media had been largely muffled by one fact: press baron Conrad Black, then reaching the height of his powers was also a member of the Northern Foundation and equally shy about having it publicly known. ... Journalists feared incurring his wrath as he employed many of them at the time, and was a potential employer for those whom he didn’t employ. Had they made the membership list public, Mr. Black would have been exposed." (Trevor Harrison - Passionate Intensity) (Conrad Black was also a member of the National Citizens Coalition)

I have no idea what is silencing them today, and why no one is going after this, but here goes.

Stephen Harper - The Northern Foundation and the Heritage Front:

I've already mentioned that the Reform Party emerged from the old Social Credit Party, with many of it's policies and original members.

Ernest Manning, father of Preston Manning, was the Social Credit Premier of Alberta from 1943 and 1968, and was the only Social Credit senator in Canadian history.

Stockwell Day's father was also involved in the Social Credit party and once ran against Tommy Douglas NDP.

James Keegstra was an activist for Social Credit and his lawyer, Doug Christie was a close personal friend of Stockwell Day Sr.

We also know from Mr. Harrison's book that the Reform Party adopted a motion at it's inception, to allow Right Wing fringe groups to join them, including Doug Christie's Western Canada Concept, a separatist party. (Of Passionate Intensity - Harrison - 1995, pg. 115-116)

And we know that Stephen Harper was writing policy for the party at the time, much of it, according to former National Citizens Coalition president, David Somerville; cribbed from their handbook. However, the bible, as it were, for the party was apparently William Gairdner's The Trouble With Canada. (Of Passionate Intensity - Harrison - 1995, pg 171 )

1. Preston Manning and the Reform Party. Author: Murray Dobbin Goodread Biographies/Formac Publishing 1992 ISBN: 0-88780-161-7

‘The Northern Foundation was established in 1989, originally as a pro-South Africa group . . . lists among the founding members of the Foundation both William Gairdner and Stephen Harper ... "

2. Web of Hate: Inside Canada's Far Right Network - Author: Warren Kinsella Toronto : Harper Collins, 1994 and 2001.

"Back home, Droege held low-key meetings with his new group in his apartment. They discussed their plans for their new group, and they discussed a name: the Heritage Front. One man, James Scott Dawson, registered the name; another Gerry Lincoln, designed a logo and some letterhead. Then, in November 1989, the Heritage Front went public. Droege, Lincoln and a few others travelled to Ottawa for the founding conference of the Northern Foundation. Droege had chosen a good place for his coming-out party."

The Northern Foundation's president was Rita Ann Hartmann, widow of former Western Guard activist Paul Hartmann. Hartmann had moved to Ottawa in 1987 with her six children, two of whom were skinheads who would go on to recruit on behalf of the Heritage Front in the national capital.

The Hartmann family lived in a huge home at 25 Delaware Avenue, in the well-to-do Golden Triangle neighbourhood. From there, Hartmann maintained connections with Neo-Nazi groups across North America. In March 1990, for example, she wrote to the ultra-violent Confederate Hammerskins of Tulsa, Oklahoma, using an alias she favours, Eleanor Cameron. Out of the same address, Ann Hartmann busied herself with REAL Women of Canada.

Hartmann, who has a law degree from the University of Toronto, provides legal advice to REAL Women. In April 1989, for example, she gave an anti-abortion speech to a REAL Women conference at the Radisson Hotel in Ottawa. Not all of the Northern Foundation's members were neo-Nazis. Along with the Heritage Front, the group's inaugural conference was attended by a well-known Conservative MP; a founder of Alberta Report magazine;a senior representative of the Alliance for the Preservation of English in Canada; and a columnist for the Toronto Sun.

Yet many of those associated with the Northern Foundation would go on to play keyroles in the Heritage Front, among them Steve Dumas, the foundation's research officer, who would write a regular column in the Front's Up Front publication under the pseudonym Steve Baker; Geoff Lupton, who had made an unsuccessful attempt in 1989 to establish a Nationalist Party club at Carleton University and who used the pseudonym Geoff Edwards when working on behalf of the Heritage Front; and Eric (Stilts) Hartmann, son of Paul and Ann, who was moved to pen an anti-abortion editorial for Droege.

"The Northern Foundation Conference was the start of it all for the Heritage Front," recalls Droege. "From that point on, things really took off.
(pg 263-264)

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

"After leaving Tory MP Jim Hawkes' office in 1986, Harper had enrolled in the University of Calgary's master's program. At the same time, he had continued to "network" with some of the conservative think-tanks, such as the National Citizens' Coalition and the Fraser Institute, trying 'to mobilize some of the conservative resources,' and also helped to establish a right-wing organization, the Northern Foundation." (pg. 110)

"A number of organizations continued to arise, moreover, which threatened to splinter the Tory's right-wing support in the belief that Mulroney's government was not going far enough or fast enough in reversing the policies of the previous Liberal regime. One of these organizations - a kind of umbrella organization for many of the other single-issue, right-wing groups - deserves particular mention because of its links to the Reform party: the Northern Foundation.

The Foundation's own literature describes its history and purpose:

"The Northern Foundation was started in 1988 by individuals who were concerned and angered by the continuing deterioration of their country. In Canada, common sense had been drowned out while unprincipled politicians, arrogant bureaucrats, and leftist media elites did all the talking -- and thinking -- on behalf of everybody? ... There was no party, movement or organization to fight for the needs and aspirations of the majority of Canadians who were common-sense, small-'c' conservatives in both the social and economic sense.

In short, the Northern Foundation portrays itself as a kind of 'radical vanguard' for the dissemination of social and economic conservative ideas.

Complaining of socialist/progressive thinking, and a media/political system controlled by 'lib/left' elites, who had been 'able to impose their agenda on the Canadian people because small-'c' conservatives had been divided, the Northern Foundation was the creation of a number of generally extreme right-wing conservatives, including Anne Hartmann (a director of REAL Women), Geoffrey Wasteneys (A long-standing member of the Alliance for the Preservation of English in Canada), George Potter (also a member of the Alliance for the Preservation of English in Canada), author Peter Brimelow, Link Byfield (son of Ted Byfield and himself publisher/president of Alberta Report), and Stephen Harper.

The roster of conservative adherents speaking at foundation conferences in 1989, 1990 and 1992 is equally instructive. Among speakers were Dr Walter Block (the Fraser Institute), Ed Vanwoudenberg (leader of the Christian Heritage party), Lubor Zink (an extreme right-wing columnist with the Sun chain), Dr. John Whitehall (of the Canadian Christian Anti-Communist Crusade), Ron Leitch (president of the Alliance for the Preservation of English in Canada), Gwen Landolt (founder of REAL Women), Ken Campbell (founder of Renaissance Canada), Paul Fromm (former member of the Western Guard, a neo-fascist group, and later of CFAR), and author William Gairdner.

The foundation's quarterly tract, The Northern Voice, regularly provides advertising space for these same individuals, their ideas, and their organizations. Ostensibly, therefore, the Northern Foundation is a vehicle for bringing together several disparate right-wing groups and otherwise disseminating an extreme conservative ideology.

Significantly, it also has substantial connections to the Reform Party. (pg. 121-122)

----------------------------------
Later it was discovered by CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service) that several radical right-wing groups had infiltrated the Reform Party. (Remember at their first convention they voted to allow them in), and that the Heritage Front actually provided security for Preston Manning when he visited Ontario. Several websites claim that Harper himself arranged for this, but I don't think so.

I've yet to find evidence of that but according to the Canadian: "Stephen Harper was Reform Party Policy chief, at a time when it had numerous members of the white supremacist group Heritage Front as members. Trevor Harrison, further documents that Mr. Harper even had Heritage Front members doing security for Preston Manning at Reform Party events in Ontario." I've read the book and couldn't find that quote, though he does say that "The links between the Heritage Front and the Reform Party need to be fully examined" (Pg. 295), so maybe it appeared in a later version of the book. Mine was published in 1995 and looks to be the first printing.

Another interesting side note in this story deals with Ms Hartmann, former president of the Northern Foundation, and co-founder along with Stephen Harper. Apparently, after everything died down, she moved to Eugene Oregon where she opened a spa. In 2002, a local resident found the information about her past and posted in a local forum (still available). Ms Hartmann responded by saying "I was active in a movement to impeach a former Canadian Prime Minister. The Canadian Government smeared me, my late husband, and even my children - and many other people in the impeachment movement - and continues to do so. End of story"

This just keeps getting better. The PM she'd be referring to was Brian Mulroney. I guess I'm going to take Mr. Harrison's advice and examine more fully the "the links between the Heritage Front and the Reform Party" and of course Stephen Harper.

I'll keep you posted. If the Conservatives think it's a good idea to cherry pick Michael Ignatieff's lectures and books, going back decades, I guess they've given me permission to do the same.