From Forlorn to Forbearing: Feminism Never Stood a Chance

I Burned my Bra For This? REAL Women of Canada and the Men Behind Them

We all remember the scene in When Harry Met Sally, when Meg Ryan shows Billy Crystal how easy it is for a woman to fake an orgasm, and another patron declares "I'll have what she's having".

It was probably the funniest scene in the movie, but not everyone was laughing.

Two years before the movie's release, in November of 1987, Shere Hite published the last installment of her national survey on sexuality and relationships, Women and Love: A Cultural Revolution in Progress, and the reaction from the male population was immediate.

The media, unable to dispute the findings, since they were testimonials from flesh and blood women, instead attacked Hite personally, as a man hating flake.

I doubt many read all 922 pages, representing the views of 4,500 women, so instead thumbed through the summaries, questioning the numbers.

They also accused Hite of only distributing her questionnaires through women's rights groups, but that was not the case. Hite sent her surveys through a wide range of women's groups, including church societies, social clubs, and senior citizens' centers. And while their views were dismissed as "man-bashing diatribes", they sounded more forlorn than vengeful.

So why the uproar?

Says Susan Faludi, in her book Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women: "the overheated denunciations of Hite's book suggest an emotion closer to fear than fury."

Hite revealed that women were more likely to experience orgasm through masturbation than intercourse, and panic set in. Test-tube babies were already a reality, so the fear for some men would be that they might be deemed to be obsolete.

A ridiculous assumption, but one shared by many just the same. Canadian neoconservative Link Byfield, spoke at a REAL Women of Canada conference, relating his fears"

To populate the nation, society has implemented the ideas set out in Aldous Huxley's book, "Brave New World." For example, we are increasingly playing with providing babies in nurseries without mothers and fathers and families, just as predicted by Mr. Huxley ...

Fortunately, most men don't really feel that way, enjoying more intimacy in an equal partnership, but it helps to reveal some of the fears, neocon males have of "radical feminists".

If women can support themselves, pleasure themselves, have and raise children themselves, where do they fit in? Will they have to audition for a place in society that they were once guaranteed, simply because of their maleness?

The Strange Case of Srully Blotnick

Eventually Shere Hite was forced to leave the United States and become a German citizen, she was so vilified.

And yet another expert on women, who was releasing the results of his survey, was glorified by the media. Srully Blotnick, a columnist for Forbes Magazine.

Blotnick asserted that his twenty-five-year study of 3,466 women proved that achieving career women are likely to end up without love, and their spinsterly misery would eventually undermine their careers as well. "In fact," he wrote, "we found that the anxiety, which steadily grows, is the single greatest underlying cause of firing for women in the age range of thirty-five to fifty-five." He took some swipes at the women's movement, too, which he called a "smoke screen behind which most of those who were afraid of being labeled egomaniacally grasping and ambitious hid."

Dr. Blotnick appeared everywhere and was quoted often. And his testimonials were not deemed to be female-bashing diatribes, but legitimate views of working women.

And Forbes magazine paid him hundreds of thousands of dollars to produce still more studies about these "anxiety-ridden careerists". But there was a problem.

First off, if Blotnick had really been compiling his data for 25 years, using interviews with women, as he claimed; it would have meant that he had began when he was only 17. How many women are going to open up to a 17-year-old boy, about their anxieties over working outside the home, while still being expected to perform 80% of the domestic duties.

Or about their sexuality?

The biggest problem, however, was that Dr. Blotnick was not a doctor at all. His degree had been acquired through a correspondence course, and was not recognized anywhere. When the news broke, Forbes had him remove the "Dr." from his byline, but continued to print his columns.

And the media continued to quote him everywhere.

Why Was Forbes so Interested?

Eventually Forbes magazine did fire Blotnick, after a criminal investigation for practicing psychology in New York, without a license.

But why was a business rag so concerned with women's rights, that they poured so much money into this man's "research"? Keeping him on even after learning that he had lied about his credentials?

To understand the motivation of Forbes magazine is to understand it's editor-in-chief, Steve Forbes, a card carrying member of the Neoconservative movement.

Grandson of the magazine's founder, Forbes used the publication to endorse Ronald Reagan, and when Reagan became president, he brought Forbes into his administration as head of the Board of International Broadcasting.

Steve Forbes took a run at the presidency on his own, but failed. However, he continued to work behind the scenes, in many think tanks and AstroTurf groups, the most famous being the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy

Alykhan Velshi, Jason Kenney's former puppet master, was plucked from there to help put words into Kenney's mouth, and keep the boys in the backroom "election ready". However, now that Harper has a majority, Velshi has left, his work here apparently done.

AEI also helped to draft the "Clash of Civilizations" foreign policy, which according to Lawrence Martin in his book Harperland, is something that Stephen Harper has embraced.

The American Right has been the driving force behind Canada's movement for decades.

In fact, Steve Forbes was key adviser to Christie Todd Whitman's 1993 run for New Jersey governor, transforming her from "plain old Christie Whitman to a Christian Coalition Republican" (CNN Crossfire, January 20, 2000).

He brought on board some Republican heavyweights, including strategist Mike Murphy, who drafted a "common sense" revolution, with the promise of a 30 percent cut in New Jersey's income tax. As a result she beat out the incumbent Governor James Florio.

So successful was the campaign that the Neocons decided to replicate it, transforming plain old Mike Harris into "a *Christian Coalition Republican".

Whitman defeated a popular Democratic incumbent, Jim Florio, primarily on the basis of a Murphy-inspired campaign using a "common sense" slogan and pledging a 30 per cent tax cut. Since her victory, the activities of her government in implementing this plan had been carefully charted by Harris aide Bill King. In March 1994, Harris actually travelled to New Jersey to meet Whitman and discuss strategy. Two months later, the "Common Sense Revolution" with its 30 per cent tax cut was unveiled. (Hard Right Turn: The New Face of Neo-Conservatism in Canada, Brooke Jeffrey, Harper-Collins, 1999, ISBN: 0-00 255762-2 4, Pg. 166)

The Undeclared War Against American Women, is now the well documented War Against Canadian Women.

And the American neoconservative movement has expanded it's mandate, making Canada Chapter Twenty-two of The Shock Doctrine.

They didn't need a bloody coup to achieve their goals, only a willing partner, and no one was more willing than Stephen Harper.

When is our media going to wake up? The evidence is so overwhelming, that it is hitting them between the eyes, knocking them on the head and kicking them in the groin. Yet they still choose to ignore it, preferring instead to believe that Harper was sprinkled with happy powder and instantly turned into a "Tory".

A miracle only rivalled by those witnessed at Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré.

Another man behind REAL Women of Canada was the late Ted Byfield. When Harper cancelled the Court Challenges program, Byfield wrote under the headline: Canadian Tories pull rug from feminist-gay revolution (World News Net, September 30, 2006)

Whether the challenges program is gone for good is, of course, still in doubt. It survived its last demise under Mulroney, [Lorne] Gunter recalls, by kicking up such a squawk that even the Tories themselves promised to revive it if returned to office. But the Conservatives of those days were the so-called "Red Tories," a species to which Harper & Co. do not belong.

Moreover, the conservative lobby groups are now considerably better organized. The SOW had barely got started in its mass-mailing campaign against the Harper axe when Gwen Landolt of the conservative REAL Women organization, pounced on them for using government funds to influence government policy. Her swift response was typical. It has been REAL Women, totally self-financed by thousands of members, which more than any other group finally put the boots to these detestable agencies. May they stay dead.

There is no argument that we've "had the boots put to us", but the question is: When are we going to start kicking back?

Footnotes:

*Later brought to Canada by Jason Kenney and company. Kenney would also use his Canadian Taxpayers Federation to endorse Mike Harris.

The More Things Stay the Same, the More They Stay the Same

The blueprint for Canada's neoconservatism movement was created several decades ago, and while much of it was inspired by the Religious Right south of the border, a good deal was homegrown.

In fact in some areas, we inspired them.

However, the move to legislate Canadian morality began, or was renewed, in 1963, when the Anglican Congress sought out Pierre Berton, to write a book on Christianity in Canada. Under Pope John XXIII, Vatican II, sought to modernize the Catholic faith, to meet the challenges of a changing society*, and the Congress was hoping to do the same for protestants.

I have Berton's little book: The Comfortable Pew, and have read it. They couldn't have chosen anyone better. But not everyone saw it that way, and one man raised, pardon the pun, 'Holy Hell'. Ted Byfield, one of the founding fathers of the Reform Party, would call it blasphemy and suggest that the government should start to legislate morality.

We now have that government.

Byfield would go on to help create the Civitas Society, thought to be the policy arm of the Harper regime.

They list as their Founding Directors: Janet Ajzenstat, Ted Byfield, Michael Coren, Jacques Dufresne, Tom Flanagan, David Frum, William Gairdner, Jason Kenney, Gwen Landolt [REAL Women of Canada, an anti-women group], Ezra Levant, Tom Long, Mark Magner, William Robson, David E.Smerville [National Citizens Coalition], Michael Walker [Fraser Institute]. A few names I'm sure you'll recognize.

David Frum, in outlining the new conservatism, suggests that one determination in establishing policy, is that "it must eliminate incentives to personal misconduct..." and that government should never offer protection "against the miseries caused by idleness and addiction." (1)

Brian Lilley, one of the characters on Fox News North, applies this theory to the decision by Stephen Harper to fight against the continued life of Insite in Vancouver.

He writes that Deciding on InSite is a moral judgment

There has been snickering among my critics on the left who think giving junkies a good place to shoot up is an honourable thing. It turns out that I committed the sin of questioning heroin injection sites, labeling them clearly (they are not safe) and pointing out that just because it is backed up by peer-reviewed literature doesn’t mean it is the right thing to do.

But Dan Gardner reminds us that it is indeed the right thing do, even on moral grounds.

A long list of scientific research papers published in prestigious peer-reviewed medical journals showed that Insite had done exactly what it was designed to do. Overdose deaths down. Rates of HIV and hepatitis C infection down.

And yet:

From the moment the Conservatives came to power in 2006, they insisted that the decision on Insite's future would not be guided by politics or ideology. The evidence would settle it. But as the evidence of Insite's effectiveness steadily mounted, the Conservatives' hostility to the facility never wavered. They wanted to close it then. They want to close it now.

That's because as usual, they care nothing for the evidence, but base all decisions on the need to legislate morality.

Their version of morality, where killing human beings in war is fine but saving lives through a program they disapprove of, is deemed immoral.

Expect more of this. Much more, as Harper will implement an agenda drafted at least a half century ago. Or perhaps as one of Jason Kenney's teachers once said, "not the 1950s, but the 1550s."

Footnotes:

*Jason Kenney attended St Ignatius Jesuit school in San Francisco, which was created to refute Vatican II. An old video surfaced recently of Jason Kenney from his time at St. Ignatius, along with an article he had written then, comparing Planned Parenthood to the Ku Klux Klan. He had started a petition demanding that all Catholic universities in the U.S. remove the word 'Catholic' from their name if they promoted this. A former teacher claimed that Kenney was trying to take the Church back to the 50's "I do not mean the 1950s, I mean the 1550s: Obedience, obedience, obedience."

Sources:

1. What's Right: The New Conservatism and What it Means for Canada, By David Frum, Vintage Canada, 1996, ISBN: 0-679-30858-X, Pg. 12-13

Stephen Harper's Social Contract. Are we Really Prepared For This?

In June of 2004, when it looked like Stephen Harper's newly formed 'Conservative' Party might win the upcoming election, journalist Frances Russell asked her readers, if voters were really prepared to give this party a mandate for radical change.

Are voters so angry they are prepared to relive the trauma of decades-old searing national debates on a woman's right to control her own body and the death penalty? Are voters so determined to get "change" they are willing to jeopardize the Charter of Rights and Freedoms?

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper and his spin doctors are working overtime to convince Canadians he and his party are mainstream. But you don't need the Liberal attack website to measure the paradigm shift the Harper Conservatives plan for Canada.(1)

Indeed it was his party's attack on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, that resulted in their losing the election.

Mr. Harper's antagonism to the charter is fundamental and well-documented. He said this week he would propose for the top bench only candidates who agree courts must defer to Parliament. "The role of the court is not to invent rights that are not in the Charter."

He was on record many, many times opposing the Charter and the judiciary:

"1 share many of the concerns of my colleagues and allies about biased 'judicial activism' and its extremes. I agree that serious flaws exist in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms." (Globe and Mail June 13, 2000)

"I consider the notwithstanding clause a valid part of the Constitution." (Canadian Press March 15, 2004)

"Right from the beginning, the charter has been controversial. There were a large number of politicians who did not support that approach to civil liberties. They prefer the traditional approach of common law and parliamentary supremacy." (Kitchener-Waterloo Record Sept. 29, 1994)

Just because he no longer speaks of these things, does not mean that he does not still hold those views. And as Russell stated: "Consider how all this would play out with the possible reinstatement of capital punishment by a Conservative government. The high court would almost certainly strike it down as unconstitutional, inviting the use of the notwithstanding clause." Ultimate power to a government of one.

There is an excellent new book, written by Christian Nadeau, Rogue in Power, that will serve well as an election primar. It does not contain ad hoc statements like 'Harper is an idiot' (guilty as charged), but is just a practical, yet fundamental assessment of this movement. And it is a movement, as confirmed recently by Conservative MP Rob Anders.

This is something that every Canadian should be concerned with, even Conservative supporters. Are we ready for this?

In his now famous 2003 Civitas Society speech, he outlined his plan.

Harper distinguished between two versions of conservatism. The first, economic conservatism, attaches vital importance to individual freedom, and therefore promotes private enterprise, free trade, religious tolerance, and legal limits on government action. The other type of conservatism, inspired by Edmund Burke, argues for respect for customs and traditions, especially religious traditions. To achieve this goal, unbalanced moral standards and misconduct need to be corrected through moral and legal sanctions.(2)

In other words, he would like to legislate morality.

This comes as no surprise. One of the founding members of the Civitas Society was the late Ted Byfield, who was also one of the founding members of the Reform Party. Byfield once claimed that the only thing the government should legislate is morality.

This was a deliberate move away from the Libertarian principles of individual freedom. You are only free if you do as you're told.

Stephen Harper is an ideologue, who believes that if we go back to the 1950's and search for the lives portrayed by shows like Father Knows Best or Leave it to Beaver, then everyone will be happy. We won't sin, we won't commit crimes, and if we do we will not be rehabilitated, but severely punished.

- We will rise out of poverty through hard work.
- We will become better citizens if we all convert to Christian fundamentalism.
- We will no longer "choose" to be gay, but can be cured.
- Women will stay home, stay married, and look after their own children.

And perhaps more importantly women will have those children.

They've defunded family planning, so the only plan is for "married couples" to have very large families. But as Gloria Steinham said recently, the Right's belief is that "life begins at conception but ends at birth". Don't be expecting no government hand outs.

This is social engineering.

Tom Flanagan in his book Harper's Team, admits that Canada is not a right-wing conservative country, but that "it can be governed by conservatives as long as they know what they are doing".

Hence Flanagan has formulated a series of precepts aimed at gaining power (the Ten Commandments of Conservative Campaigning), which he describes in his book. According to him, the Conservative Party must avoid useless internal arguments and instead seek unity, which implies moderating its political objectives and directing its actions towards making slow but sure progress. The caution is only strategic, as the party's political ambitions can and should be set quite high. When the Conservatives do form the government, says Flanagan, a hard line is required. (2)

And whether we want to admit it or not, in the five years that Harper has held power, he has radically changed how we do business. We have lost our standing in the world as evidenced by our loss of the UN Security seat, for the first time in our history.

And if you need further evidence of how he has undermined our democracy and time-honoured institutions, you can pick up an Australian newspaper. They know.

The good news is that we are no longer boring. The bad news is that until then, the Australians are singing "Oh Canada, we cry our hearts for thee."

So again I ask: Are we really prepared to give this man another mandate? Or more importantly, are we prepared for the consequences?

Sources:

1. Harper Hides His Social Agenda, By Frances Russell, Winnipeg Free Press, June 11, 2004

2. Rogue in Power: Why Stephen Harper is remaking Canada by Stealth, By Christian Nadeau, Lorimer Press, 2010, ISBN: 978-1-55277-730-5

A Just Society: Oil, Americans and Mythology

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

"In the course of the conflict between the Reagan administration and Ottawa, we Albertans are expected as loyal Canadians to cheer for the victory of Mr. Trudeau and his thug government. Some of us will find this very hard. We will wave the flag, of course. But deep in our hearts we will be hoping that the Americans whip the hell out of him." - Ted Byfield, founding Reform Party member (1)

Carl Olof Nickle (1914 - 1990) was an editor, publisher, oil baron, soldier and federal politician, representing a Calgary riding. He would retire from politics in 1957 and focus instead on the Alberta oil and gas industry.

As early as 1956 he had been discussing that industry and the Middle East. During one lecture he said:

I would like to comment on the outlook for expansion of markets for our Western Canadian crude oil a matter of particular importance to all Calgarians because of the effect it has had, and will have in the future on our growth as "Canada's Oil Capital". The recent and continuing crisis in the Middle East, where about two thirds of the world's presently proved oil reserves are located, has further emphasized the importance to Canada, this continent and to the Free World of the proved reserves plus the far vaster undiscovered reserves of the Western Hemisphere, including those of our Western Canada.

The longer term outlook is a confused one, in which the one fact most apparent is that the Middle East cannot be banked on as a secure supply of oil for Free World needs. The military might of Russia poses a constant threat. Even if there is no attempt by Russia to seize the Middle East by force which would almost certainly involve the Western World in a war for survival of its oilfed economy we face the prospect of interruptions to oil supply caused by the combination of Soviet propaganda and Arab nationalism. (2)

He speaks of the possible involvement of the Western World in a "war for survival of its oilfed economy". He also speaks of the threat of a "combination of Soviet propaganda and Arab nationalism."

This is not unlike the lecture given by American General Thomas Metz when he spoke to a group of senior Canadian military officers, soldiers, defence analysts and lobbyists in Toronto in 2006.

He ... shows a chart depicting the military challenges America faces, measured in terms of level of danger and level of likelihood. At the very apex—the most dangerous and the most likely—sits just one: radical Islamic terrorism. "Radical Islam wants to reestablish the Caliphate," says Metz. "Just as Hitler wrote Mein Kampf, you can read what they want to do." (3)

A Caliphate is a union of the Muslim world. It was the first political philosophy that adopted the notion of using their natural resources to look after their people. It wasn't communism, or socialism, it was just a belief in something bigger than they were. God or Allah, and they believed that this is what he wanted them to do. But nationalizing their natural resources (oil) runs contra to the West's goals of exploitation. Metz continues:

In his southern drawl, the general notes how much oil the U.S. consumes—roughly 25 per cent of the world's consumption, even though Americans make up only 5 per cent of the world's population—and how central this is to the country's high standard of living ... The connection between America's voracious oil consumption and the dangers of radical Islamic terrorism are never explicitly stated by Lt.-Gen. Metz; he simply notes that the Islamic world has a lot of oil and what happens there has an impact on energy markets. But an important element has clearly been added to the picture: the U.S. needs what lies under the ground in the Islamic world if Americans are to go on living the bounteous life that lies at the heart of the American dream—a life that has them devouring the lion's share of the world's energy. (3)

Not unlike 50 years ago when Carl Nickle raised the possibility of "the Western World in a war for survival of its oilfed economy."

So when Russia invaded Afghanistan, Reagan, the product of American corporatism, went into action, working with a group of "Terrorists" to secure the oil for American interests. And this is why Albertans, like Ted Byfield, hoped that Americans would whip the hell out of Pierre Trudeau, because he worked to secure our oil for the benefit of Canadians first. A home grown, non-religious caliphate.

I've written before about the National Energy Program that has taken on mystical proportions, through good PR. Even Westerners not born at the time, will raise it as an argument for their feelings of "alienation".

But the NEP did not destroy Alberta, nor was it an attempt to destroy Alberta. It was a battle between the Government of Canada and (mostly American) corporate interests. And it was not about oil so much as it was about taxes and regulations that hampered the Americans from getting richer at our expense.

The Red Flag Budget

When Joe Clark's government fell after only a few months in power, and Pierre Trudeau returned with a majority, the western provinces were concerned with the direction the government would now be going. Clark had attempted to reduce or reverse some of the programs and policies of the previous six years, including the elimination of Petro-Canada's role in national energy matters and, if possible, the privatization of the company. (4)

But he was gone, and Trudeau instead took an interventionist approach, deemed necessary to protect Canadians. As oil prices were rising, Alberta grew richer, and as this meant that equalization payments to the other provinces would increase, he would need extra revenue to ensure that the cheques didn't bounce.

Eventually Trudeau and Premier Peter Lougheed reached a suitable arrangement, and appeared on the front page of newspapers across the country, sipping champagne.

But this did nothing to appease the oil industry which was mostly American. You can see from the following chart that in 1980 only 26.1% of the Petroleum industry was Canadian owned and 18.7% Canadian controlled. And though Ontario had been forced for many years to pay higher than the market rate for their oil, to prop up the industry, the West now rose up in anger that they might have to start paying back.

And the most vocal among them was Carl Nickle:

The most outspoken of these critics was Carl Nickle, a prominent oilfield executive and former Tory MP, who publicly condemned the entire budget outright as discriminatory and repressive. "I believe short term political gain for central Canada will foster more alienation, possible [sic] even lead to splitting the nation apart." (1)

But what they were the most upset about was the new tax structure in finance minister Alan McEachern's budget, that would eliminate many deductions, the corporate sector had enjoyed.

When Allan MacEachen was appointed finance minister in 1980 big business requested that government examine the tax system with a view to making changes. But MacEachen's senior advisers soon focused his attention on how billions of dollars were being lost yearly to scores of dubious corporate tax breaks. Finance officials put together a tax reform package designed, among other things, to eliminate 165 of the most costly and counter-productive tax expenditure measures and in the process increase revenue by close to $3 billion. When he introduced the legislation it caused a firestorm of protest from the corporate elite.

Neil Brooks, now professor of tax law at Osgoode Hall Law School, was working for the finance department on the tax reform package and has recalled the tactics of the large corporations. "It's almost a classic example of what's called a capital strike. I mean, business simply said to the government that if you go ahead with these measures we will stop investing in Canada." The development industry reacted instantly. "Literally the next day they were closing jobs down and . . . pulling cranes off construction jobs." (5)

This was because of taxes, not the NEP, but if the corporate world was going to create an AstroTurf, "grassroots" movement they couldn't very well say that they were upset that they would have to start paying their fair share. So instead they sold it as being an attack by Ottawa on the West, and with the help of Ted Byfield, an early Reform Party mentor, they shifted public sentiment from one of Canadian nationalism to Western regionalism, and it almost broke up the country, as several separatist movements exploded on the scene.

"In the months and years that followed, Byfield's Alberta Report continued to mythologize the intent and the impact of the NEP" (1) and it would culminate in the creation of a new party, with the help of Stephen Harper: the Reform Party of Canada, now calling itself the Conservative Party of Canada, headed up by the same Stephen Harper. It was Byfield who gave the party their original battle cry: "The West wants in".

And that same Stephen Harper is helping "the Western World in a war for survival of its oilfed economy" (not fighting radical Islam) by committing our soldiers to three more years of war. And he is continuing his program of tax reduction for our wealthiest citizens, meaning that the rest of us will have to absorb the costs of those three more years of war.

Forget 'Western alienation'. This is the alienation of Canadian citizens and we want in dammit.

Sources:

1. Of Passionate Intensity: Right-Wing Populism and the Reform Party of Canada, By Trevor Harrison, University of Toronto Press, 1995. ISBN: 0-8020-7204-6, Pg. 60-65

2. Nickle Forecasts Expanded Role For Canadian Oil Stimulated By Middle East Crisis, Oil Patch History, November 17, 1956

3. Holding the Bully's Coat, Canada and the U.S. Empire, By Linda McQuaig, Doubleday Canada, 2007, ISBN 978-0-385-66012-9, pg. 67-69

4. Towards a Just Society: The Trudeau Years, Edited by Thomas S. Axworthy and Pierre Elliot Trudeau, Viking Press, 1990, ISBN: 0-670-83015-1, Pg. 60

5. The Myth of the Good Corporate Citizen: Canada and Democracy in the Age of Globalization, By Murray Dobbin, James Lorimer & Company, 2003, ISBN: 1-55028-785-0, Pg. 168

Redefining Populism and a Battle for Religion

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

In 1963, The Anglican Congress sought out Pierre Berton, to write a book on Christianity in Canada.

Inspired by Vatican II, a modernizing of the Catholic faith, they wanted to also change focus, and become a "listening" church, "hearing" things the world around them was saying. (1)

They chose Berton because he was an agnostic. They didn't want another religious text, but an articulate and honest account of the Church at the time.

And Berton delivered. The resulting book; The Comfortable Pew became a best-seller and a topic of conversation for some time.

But not everyone was impressed.

Ted Byfield and the Opposition of Fundamentalists

Ted Byfield was a controversial journalist, publisher and author, perhaps best known for his cult-like disciplinary school, the Company of the Cross. He was responsible for the gruelling canoe trip that resulted in the deaths of twelve boys and one instructor in 1978.

When Berton's book hit the shelves, Byfield, then an Anglican, was outraged. In response, he wrote his own book: Just Think Mr. Berton (A Little Harder).

A die-hard fundamentalist, Byfield was opposed to any modernization of the Anglican Church. Sin was sin. You can't modernize that.

“If adultery or homosexuality is wrong in the sight of God, then all the task forces in Christendom aren’t going to make it right. If God is timeless and changeless, then human conduct considered wrong in the eighth century is just as wrong in the twentieth” (2)

And if Berton's book was a call for the Church to become socially relevant, Byfield's was the exact opposite, and he became a man on a mission.

The book defended traditional religious morality and practice and denounced the increasing attempts of Christian churches to become socially 'relevant.' This foray into journalism reawakened Byfield's appetite for the news business, and in 1973 he convinced the other members of the Genesee board to begin publishing a weekly newsmagazine, St. John's Edmonton Report. Edmonton Report was followed into production four years later by St. John's Calgary Report. In 1979 both magazines were merged into Alberta Report. By 1986 an identical but renamed version of Alberta Report ...

Articulate and controversial, the Alberta Report has been, since its inception, western Canada's most prominent and consistent organ for the dissemination of conservative values. In articles and, more especially, editorials and columns (written by Ted and, in recent years, his son Link and other guest writers), the magazine has stood firmly for corporal and capital punishment, the teaching of fundamentalist Christian religion in schools, the rights of the family (that is, the parents), and free enterprise, while espousing an often virulent hatred of metrification, pro-choice advocates, feminism in general, public school curriculums and methods of discipline, divorce, human rights commissions, 'mainstream' Christianity, homosexuality, penal reform, sex education, unions, public ownership, teachers' associations, and rock music. (3)

And the Alberta Report would help to launch the Reform movement.

The Merging of Ideas

After two years of Brian Mulroney, the West was once again ready to rise up. Ted Byfield was part of a group discussing a new party, where the only thing the government would legislate was morality. Another group of wealthy oilmen wanted to remove any impediments to their industry, and Preston Manning really wanted to be prime minister. He felt that the time may finally be right to launch the party that he and his father had envisioned in their Political Realignment.

A socially conservative party.

The oilmen provided the capital, Manning the political platform and Byfield the propaganda, by writing a series of articles calling for the need of a new party to represent the west. In fact it was Byfield who came up with the party slogan: "The West Wants in".

He also provided free advertising for any party events, making sure he attracted the "right" people. Those who read his magazine and shared his views. They provided the much needed "populist" base, for an AstroTurf party representing corporate interests.

Sources:

1. The Comfortable Pew Revisited, By Michael Creal, Catholic New Times, January 16, 2005

2. The Wisdom of Ted Byfield, The Van Maren Traditionalist Views, December 22, 2009

3. Of Passionate Intensity: Right-Wing Populism and the Reform Party of Canada. By Trevor Harrison Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995. ISBN: 0-8020-7204-6, pg. 50-51

Ted Byfield and the Company of the Cross

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

In June of 2003, little more than a year after winning the leadership of the Alliance Party of Canada, Stephen Harper told members of the Civitas Society that he would now be embracing the support of the Christian right in Canada. Looking on with approval was long time mentor, and a founding member of the Reform Party, Ted Byfield.

He had been there in the early days when Harper was first cutting his political teeth and was in attendance when he delivered his "Achieving Economic Justice in Confederation" speech at the opening assembly of the Reform party on October 1, 1987.

In his presentation, Harper recited a litany of western grievances, from Macdonald's National Policy to 'the unlimited appetite of the Welfare State for tax grabs' and 'the special treatment accorded the Province of Quebec' in the form of transfer payments 'paid exclusively by Western Canada.' He then stated his reasons for believing that the existing political parties were incapable of correcting these injustices ... But Harper's comments regarding the Conservative party were the most telling, revealing implicitly where the new party believed its greatest potential support lay:

"... the Mulroney government has shown itself far too willing to back down on the issues that matter to its political base. We must serve notice to the Red Tory leadership that we will provide its Western supporters an option they can desert to en masse should they, for any reason, fail to successfully deliver on [free trade] or any other major initiative of importance to Western Canada. (1)

Manning would call his throwing down of the gauntlet speech the best of the weekend and Stephen Harper would then be named the head of Reform policy, and would serve as Manning's lieutenant. The same role that father Ernest Manning had played for William Aberhart, decades before.

Ted Byfeld had played an integral role in the formation of the party, through his Alberta Report magazine. He not only advertised their conventions and assemblies but before it's formation, he began running columns suggesting that it was time for a new Western party. The seed was planted and bore fruit on that fateful weekend in Winnipeg.

Things could have gone quite differently for Ted Byfield after a tragedy and controversy that continued to rage for several years after. It ended on a lake in Ontario but began several years before.

Company of the Cross and the St. John's Schools

Ted Byfield was a journalist who began his career as a copy boy for the Washington Post. Returning to Canada in 1948, he wrote for the Ottawa Journal, the Timmins Daily Press and later the Winnipeg Free Press. In the 1950s, he underwent a religious conversion after reading books by C.S. Lewis and G. K. Chesterton.

Inspired, he joined the Anglican Church and working through them opened a private Christian school; Saint John's Cathedral Boys' School, and in 1962 left journalism to teach there full time. In 1968 he opened another near Edmonton and later a third in Ontario.

The schools were said to be cult like, run by a lay religious order, the Company of the Cross, who lived in a communal apartment building, and were paid a mere dollar a day. When Byfield started his magazine in 1973, he used the same group to create and deliver the publications, which regaled against things like homosexuality, abortion, the public education system, crime and prostitution.

The students at his schools didn't fare much better than the staff. They did all the janitorial work, cooking and serving food, cleaning the kennels of the sled dogs they raised, and even making and selling processed meat products door-to-door for fundraising (hopefully not from the sled dogs they raised). Byfield and co-founder of the schools, Frank Wiens, believed that boys were not challenged by the education system or by society in general, so pushed them to their breaking points to "build character", and if they didn't toe the line, they were dealt with a "flat stick across the seat of the pants."

In 1974 the National Film Board produced a glowing documentary about the schools:

St. John's Cathedral Boys' School, at Selkirk, Manitoba, is the most demanding outdoor school in North America, but it cannot accommodate all the students who would like to enroll. Boys of thirteen to fifteen begin with an initiation tougher than they have ever faced: paddling canoes through some five hundred kilometers of wilderness in two weeks, portaging and camping all the way, learning not only outdoor lore but cooperation and self-confidence as well.

But then in 1978 a gruelling canoe trip turned deadly for the Ontario campus. "The tragedy occurred after a group of 27 boys, aged between 10 and 15, and four instructors from St. John's School of Ontario, in Claremont, northeast of Toronto, began canoeing up Lake Timiskaming, about 370 kilometres northwest of Ottawa." Twelve boys between the ages of 12 and 14 and one instructor were drowned. (3)

There had been storm warnings earlier in the day that had either been ignored or missed.

James Raffan wrote a book about the tragedy, and took issue with the schools, that he stated were little more than sweatshops. He also expressed surprise with the attitudes of the parents and staff after the deaths. They seemed to be very defensive of the school's program, and unwilling to cast or share blame. (4)

However a law suit filed years later revealed the horrendous details of life at one of the schools.

A private Christian boys residential school near Edmonton, renowned for its tough discipline, has been sued by a former student for alleged physical and mental torture during and after a wilderness trip more than a quarter-century ago ... in the 14-page document he "was forcefully exposed to experiences on the trip that put his life, health and safety at risk."

The 10-day trip, which began on Sept. 2, 1976 -- the day after the then 13-year-old boy arrived at the school near Stony Plain, 30 kilometres west of Edmonton -- was comprised of a 100-kilometre hike through steep mountain passes and a 500-kilometre canoe trip through some of the most treacherous parts of the North Saskatchewan River.

"The plaintiff states that the defendant's putting his life at risk by forcing him as a 13-year-old boy, untrained, unprepared and unsuitable to participate in the dangerous and unsafe physical activities of the wilderness trip, such as the long and arduous canoe trip often through treacherous waters, as well as its other conduct and treatment of him, amounted to a callous and wanton disregard of his safety and well-being and of his civil rights and a betrayal of his trust," the claim alleges.

The claim says the school's staff picked on and encouraged other students to pick on the weak, subjecting Birkin to "public ridicule, contempt, humiliation, degradation and sadistic and verbal abuse." Birkin spent 10 days in Stony Plain Hospital following the trip, suffering from ulcers on his feet and legs and blistering on his thighs. According to hospital records, the claim says, when Birkin was admitted he had a large bruised area and linear marks on his buttocks which he told a doctor had come from being beaten with a stick to make him hike faster.

He claims that while he was on the canoe portion of the trip, when he was exhausted and unable to keep up with the five other student paddlers, he was
repeatedly struck in the lower back with a heavy wooden paddle. ... It is not the first major claim of negligence against Saint John's School, which has an enrolment of about 130 students and 30 staff and is located on 110 hectares of bush, park and farmland.

A 15-year-old boy, Matt Riddel, sued the school for $1.7 million in 1996 after he lost nine toes to frostbite on a winter camping trip. He sustained his injuries during a four-day, 50-kilometre snowshoe and dogsled expedition, under the supervision of the school's teachers, in which temperatures dropped to -28 C.

The schools are all closed now and his magazines defunct, but Byfield has moved on to other things. Besides being a founder of the Civitas Society, he also helped to found the Canadian Christian Coalition, based on the American counterpart, after attending a Washington Convention in 1995. Jason Kenney is also a founder of CCC and a founding member of Civitas.

Sources:

1. Right-Wing Populism and the Reform Party of Canada. By Trevor Harrison Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995. ISBN: 0-8020-7204-6, pg. 116

2. Harrison, 1995, Pg. 60

3. Ville Marie, QB Canoe Accidents, Winnipeg Free Press Manitoba , June 14, 1978

4. Deep Waters: Courage, Character and the Lake Timiskaming Canoeing Tragedy, By James Raffan, Harper Collins, 2002

5. School sued after 26 years, By Daryl Slade, Calgary Herald, February 08, 2003

6. The Christian Coalition Comes to Canada, by Kim Goldberg, The Albion Monitor, May 5, 1996