Monday, October 22, 2012
Dismembering Canada
by Robin Mathews
Dismembering Canada.
To Save It From Stephen Harper Fascism
The Stephen Harper forces are putting the torch to Canada, to the rule
of law in Canada, to Canadian freedom of expression, to Canadian electoral
integrity, to Parliamentary legitimacy … and more … every day. Their Mein Kampf-style plans become clearer
with every hour. Having won majority power by what appears more and more to be
major election fraud, their imposition of “junta rule” in Canada grows.
The Opposition parties flail into the increasingly fiery air, refusing
to undertake direct, personal, constituency-by-constituency, on-the-ground
appeal and organization of people in Canada to reject the Harper program. The Opposition parties appear to fear the
task of directly organizing the Canadian people more than they fear the
increasingly fascist moves of the Harper forces. Perhaps the Opposition parties are simply
confused….
Maybe. But an increasingly large
number of Canadians are not confused.
One of the latest, gross invasions of Canadian democracy by the Stephen
Harper forces is a treaty with China, called The Canada-China Foreign
Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (FIPPA). To put the matter briefly: “the Canada-China
treaty effectively concedes legislative and judicial elements of our
sovereignty…” to, in fact, Chinese agencies. (quoted from Gus Van Harten,
Osgoode Law Professor, letter to Stephen Harper).
The implications of the treaty for the destruction of Canadian
democracy and independence are enormous.
The treaty was never formally considered by the representatives of
Canadians in the House of Commons. It
was never discussed in presentation to Parliament. There was not a moment of debate about its
intent, its construction, its implications, its effect - in the House of
Commons or any of the provincial legislatures.
The treaty was created by the Harper Junta, in secrecy and in private
with Chinese agencies working in the same way.
Only one of the aspects of the treaty destroys democratic rule in
British Columbia. If British Columbia’s government acts against the imposition
of the Gateway Pipeline, the results are almost unbelievable. The Chinese interests may act against British
Columbia in secret (laughable) courts (or arbitration panels), not recognized
by Canadians, outside of Canada, which may – in fact – overrule the government
elected by Canadians in British Columbia.
The “arbitrators under the Canada-China treaty operate outside of the
authority of the Canadian legal system and Canadian courts [and so] the treaty
appears to contravene the judicature provisions of the Constitution concerning
the role of the superior courts.” “Notably, the arbitrators may make
non–monetary orders against states as well as issue damages awards for
potentially massive amounts.” [Gus Van
Harten, letter to Stephen Harper.]
That kind of behaviour applies to any economic activity in British
Columbia (and the rest of Canada) owned by Chinese interests or in which
Chinese interests have only a very small part.
We remember Stephen Harper undertaking another violation of democracy
in relation to British Columbia. Almost
certainly in concert with Gordon Campbell (who Harper paid off with the
position of Canadian High Commissioner in London) the two appear to have
arranged a surprise imposition of the infamous HST in B.C. Gordon Campbell (in
collusion with Stephen Harper, we may be sure) declared he would not impose the
HST in British Columbia. A few weeks
after re-winning election, he did so … to Stephen Harper’s delight. It was a
minor coup, but only child’s play compared to The Canada-China Foreign
Investment and Promotion and Protection Agreement (FIPPA).
But the HST coup, you will remember, lasted a very short time.
And it did so because British Columbians rose up and forced the Gordon
Campbell/Christy Clark Harperites, by referendum, to withdraw the HST. Democracy prevailed despite a Harper/Campbell
attempt at Junta Rule and at an anti-democratic coup.
At the time of the victory celebration Chris Delaney, referendum activist
said “we know the referendum works, we know it has a legitimate place in our
society, our democracy now. The people
have endorsed it overwhelmingly.”
There is nothing to stop British Columbians using referendum again in
this hugely more vicious and destructive attack on democracy in Canada and in
the province of British Columbia – an attack undertaken by the Stephen Harper
government in collusion with the government of China and its corporations.
[Gus Van Harten suggests the treaty with China may violate Canada’s
Constitution. A constitutional challenge
to the treaty, therefore, might be undertaken. But that cannot be the only
route of challenge, because of the time it takes – and especially since the
Harper Junta is undermining the rule of law in Canada every day, the police
forces, and the courts. Even (after a long passage of time) a win in the
Supreme Court of Canada wouldn’t stop the Harper Junta from signing just such a
treaty again (and even during Supreme Court hearings) and working on many other
ways to destroy democracy in British Columbia and the rest of Canada.]
The wording of such a British Columbia referendum,
therefore, would have to be narrow,
direct, and clear. It could not,
effectively, request or demand anything from the federal government. The B.C. referendum process has no power
outside of British Columbia. Stephen
Harper could simply laugh at a referendum - even overwhelmingly carried – asking him to change Junta law and policy.
Nothing British Columbians could do to sway the Harper Junta could work –
through referendum.
And so the people of British Columbia are driven to a simple question,
within their own powers to ask and then to act upon. It must be a question that
erases the power of the Stephen Harper Junta to impose fascist, oppressive,
democracy-destroying laws upon British Columbians (and other Canadians).
The question must ask British Columbians if they wish to leave
Confederation, to separate from Canada, and to set up (in whatever
sovereignty-association status they wish to have in relation to the federal
government), a democracy that cannot be forced by Ottawa to erase itself and
accept totalitarian domination by Ottawa, by any foreign power, or by any
combination of the two.
[Such a referendum could be sponsored or supported by the B.C.
government – or like the referendum against the HST could be conducted
legitimately against the wishes of the presiding provincial government.
Government can refuse to act on the outcome of a referendum in most provinces …
but a referendum with this kind of question would be hard to refuse if a strong
percentage vote supported it.]
The situation in Canada is dire and the threat to democracy in British
Columbia and Canada is real as a result of the nefarious actions of the Stephen
Harper forces and especially of the Stephen Harper Junta/Canada-China Foreign
Investment and Promotion Agreement (FIPPA). I suggest British Columbians begin,
now, to create a referendum organization.
It must begin removing British Columbia from the reach of the corrupt
and rapacious hands of Stephen Harper and his global corporate companions in
thievery.
[Referendum legislation exists in most other provinces in Canada. People in those provinces should be urged to
move immediately, also, to set up referendum organizations with the same
purpose in mind. Later they might “re-Confederate” in a Canada that couldn’t
rob them of democracy in the service of global thieves and looters.]
What is the Council of Canadians?
A little over a week ago I received the following essay by Robin Mathews after I had been away from the keyboard and the intertoobz for a couple days. By the time I found this in my e-mail it had already been posted at Grant G's Straight Goods for a day or two, so I just kept a copy on my hard drive. This morning I received another good piece from Robin concerning the "Harper Junta" and the damage they are inflicting on Canada and Canadians, apparently to a great extent to satisfy his Chinese masters, which I will be posting here shortly. I thought it would be appropriate to put this here also now, for archival purposes and because it does relate to the upcoming post Dismembering Canada. (kootcoot)
What is the Council of Canadians? (COC)
by Robin Mathews
The Council of Canadians – whatever else it may be – is a living and
breathing declaration of the failure of the parliamentary system in Canada,
and, especially, the failure of Canadian political parties in that system.
Let us say at the beginning that Maude Barlow, voluntary chair of the
Council of Canadians, is an upstanding, excellent, principled, competent,
dedicated, and devoted servant of the organization. Let us say, too, that the organization does
work of genuine importance in Canadian life and society. Let us say – Canadian things being in the
parlous state they are – that we are far better off having the Council of
Canadians than not having it.
The Council of Canadians is holding a major conference in Nanaimo, B.C.
from October 26 to 28, 2012, called “Making Waves: Sinking the Harper
Agenda”. Clearly the purpose is a
political one. Clearly the event is
intended to be an occasion of Political Opposition.
The questions that follow have to be ones like: “Where is the
parliamentary political opposition?” “Where is it – whether in Ottawa or in the
capitals of the provinces?” “Why isn’t it holding such events?” “Why aren’t the
political Opposition parties in Canada acting among and with the people of Canada
in open public spheres to educate, to inform, to act, to lead, to concentrate
attention on the sell-out of the country?”
“Why is a political non-party necessary in Canada?” “Where has this
Council of Canadians come from?”
Begin there – answering the last question – and much is answered.
The fact is that the Council of Canadians is the bastard child of
several forces which were coming to realize (a) the Canadian parliamentary
system was collapsing, and (b) the “Party System” in Canada was betraying both
Parliament and Canadians.
Strangely, the beginning happened within a Party. In 1969, a group of (mostly young)
progressives were convinced that the New Democratic Party was going to the
Right, was forsaking its roots, was becoming a collaborator with the sell-out
forces in Canada, and that the NDP was betraying Canadians in its parliamentary
role. Those (mostly) young people created a left rump in the NDP which came to
be known as “the Waffle movement in the NDP” with a slogan “Independence and Socialism”.
The Waffle had very high profile for a few years until driven out of
the Party by the Lewis family, the U.S. unions, and their allies. Its
importance (to this discussion) was that it focused attention on many
independence issues that were not being addressed by the parliamentary Parties.
It gathered real sympathy in the NDP and in both the Liberal and Progressive
Conservative Parties of the time.
A few scholars have claimed that because of the Waffle’s effectiveness
certain progressive Liberals felt left out, and they believed the Liberal
government of the day, as well, was not addressing key political questions, was
betraying Canadians in its parliamentary role.
And so what might be called “the Walter Gordon group” – the nationalist
wing of the Liberal Party (with some sympathetic Progressive Conservatives) -
created in 1970 an “independent” organization called The Committee for an
Independent Canada. It was not (as the
Waffle was inside the NDP) inside the Liberal Party or any other.
That allowed people who believed in its work to be members – people who
had membership in any party, or none.
The fact is that the Waffle attracted people of the Left and the
Committee for an Independent Canada mostly attracted Liberals and Progressive
Conservatives, though there was cross-over.
That was the next step toward the Council of Canadians – making a
political group that was not attached to a Party but which had, primarily, a
political role – to bring about legislation, to affect political thought, and to
press for various kinds of change.
All the developments were indications that our parliamentary democracy
operating through political parties was failing.
The Waffle Movement in the NDP angered “the Lewis family” – David
Lewis, Stephen Lewis, and their allies. In 1972 in the Orange Hall in Orillia,
the great vote was held to decide if the “Waffle” could stay a part of the
NDP. At the time, about 51 per cent of
constituencies wanted the Waffle in.
Into the Orange Hall paraded the non-elected, appointed delegates from
U.S. Unions in Canada – and they provided the majority necessary to the Lewis
family and their allies to drive the Waffle out of the NDP.
The Waffle slowly died. As an
independent Party it couldn’t muster the force to remain afloat.
The Committee for an Independent Canada went on working. Its publicity is that it influenced major
legislation, and I believe it did so. I believe the principal people in the CIC
grew tired of the work. In 1981 they
dissolved the Committee for an Independent Canada saying it had done the work
it set out to do – which was simply not true.
The connection and the continuity of concern from then to now is
dramatic. Today, resistance forces
outside the House of Commons and legislatures across the country are fighting
the Harper intention to sell ownership of Canadian raw (fossil fuel) resources
to China (CNOOC’s $15 billion bid for
Nexen Oil). They are up in arms about
the secretly concluded Canada-China Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection
Act which gives China, in fact,
legislating power in Canada and greater
power than Canadian legislatures in the exploitation of Canadian resource
wealth.
One of the major battles of the Waffle and the Committee for an
Independent Canada was the battle about foreign ownership of the Canadian
economy. Major leader of the Waffle
Movement in the NDP, Mel Watkins, cut his teeth as head of the first government
appointed major Task Force on foreign ownership. From 1967 to 1972 three major Reports were
issued on the subject – the Watkins Report, The Wahn Report, and the Gray
Report.
Chief founder and organizer of the Committee for an Independent Canada
was Liberal ex-finance minister Walter Gordon who spent his years in parliament
tenaciously fighting foreign takeover.
With the arrival of Brian Mulroney as prime minister in 1984, all knew
the slight advances made to preserve Canadian independence would be scuttled.
And they were….
It is no accident that a year after Brian Mulroney became prime
minister of Canada, a meeting was held in Toronto in 1985 of many, many of the
activists involved in the struggle for Canadian independence – meeting to
revive a non-political-party resistance.
Mel Hurtig was one of the chief organizers of the meeting which was
addressed by Walter Gordon who rose from his sick bed to speak to and encourage
the group. All of the people at the
meeting were aware that Canadian independence was being destroyed with the
assistance of the parliamentary parties … and that something needed to be done.
The Council of Canadians was formed.
Mel Hurtig led the Council of Canadians in the beginning. At that time, the Council held a national
meeting of members every two years who acclaimed the Chair or voted in
another. With time, apparently, that
practice seemed too cumbersome and elections of the Chair ended. Search as I might, I can’t find a simple
history of the foundation and early years of the Council of Canadians. Having been at the founding Toronto meeting,
having been on the first National Board, I see gaping holes in “the story”.
Observing with dismay after 1975 that opposition to sell-out by the
politicians in the federal and provincial legislatures was weakening, two
National Party of Canada parties were formed, one after the other. The first was formed in 1979 in hopes of
bringing together the divided forces –
old Waffle Movement people and other independentist groups – to
concentrate on the real political needs in the country. That National Party lasted about five years,
ran a few candidates in two federal elections, in Ontario only (though it was a
national Party wanting to offer candidates nationally), and then it faded. It
couldn’t manage to bring the real opposition forces into alliance.
In the early 1990s Mel Hurtig (chief founder of the second National
Party of Canada) phoned the leader of the former Party of that name to ask if
the Party being newly created could have the name. The former leader of the first National Party
of Canada gave the name and his blessing to the Hurtig challenge. That Party ran in the 1993 election with
considerable success, and had the real possibility of becoming a force in
Canadian politics.
But a fierce battle over financial accounts in the second National
Party of Canada burst into view and was loudly conducted for a few years. Case
after case was taken to court, and the Party was split into fragments; and
finally was de-listed by Elections Canada. As an observer, I still cannot
decide if the wrecking of the second National Party of Canada came about because
of its obvious success and potential future or because there were real,
demonstrable failures of accountability in the Party.
Clearly, the founders of the first National Party of Canada and the
founders of the second one believed Canada needed a political force as a
political party in Parliament to address the needs of Canadians. The first National Party of Canada was
winding down as the Council of Canadians was being formed. The second National Party of Canada came into
existence eight years after the formation of the Council of Canadians,
believing, obviously, in the need for a political party in parliament to do the
kind of work the Council was trying to do outside of the political structures
of the country.
The failure of the parties forming the political opposition in Canada’s
national parliament and in provincial legislatures to shape the kind of work
the Council of Canadians does is a disgrace.
Those opposition parties fail to hold major democratic conferences,
public rallies, and public actions, They fail nationally and from constituency
to constituency to resist sell-out and to inform and educate Canadians. Their failure condemns them to all the
disapproval that Canadians can muster.
The opposition parties act as silent partners of sell-out. The work of the Council of Canadians throws
into highlight the huge failure of the political opposition parties in Canada,
both in provincial legislatures and in the national Parliament … and outside of
them.
Wise observers have stated, over and over, that no “movement”
organization, like the Council of Canadians, can ever transform itself into a
political party. The reasons are very
many … and they are very convincing.
One can only hope, however, that the example of the Council of
Canadians inspires Canadians – young and old – to reject all the Mainstream
Parties as they present themselves today. One can only hope that Canadians,
young and old, found a new party to save Canada from the exploiters holding
political power in Canada today, and from the fat parasites, called the
Opposition parties, doing very little for Canada and living off the almost
totally corrupted system. We think of
that system as The Guardian of Canadian Freedom – our parliamentary system
based upon conflicting and competing political parties possessing different
visions of the best ways to serve the Canadian people.
To the degree that the Council of Canadians fills the need of Canadians
to feel that a meaningful resistance to the destruction of Canada exists – to
that degree the Council of Canadians is a negative force. For it can never
become more than a movement looking in at the forces shaping Canada’s future –
the forces we call the political parties in the national Parliament and in the
legislatures of the provinces of Canada.
To the degree that the Council of Canadians alerts Canadians to the
terrible failure of political parties in Canada and shows the desperate need
for a new, people-empowered, responsible, and responsive Party – and helps to
have such a new Party come about – to that degree the Council of Canadians is
and will be a heroic part of Canadian history.
The Council of Canadians is, strangely, a living statement that real
concern for the future of Canada is forbidden in the national Parliament and in
the provincial legislatures of the country.
It must also be the forerunner of new, militant, dedicated groups who
form the Party or Parties required to overthrow the corrupt Parties of the day,
to rebuild a destroyed Parliament, and to replace the old, cynical,
time-serving, morally corrupt, self-indulgent Parties with a Party or Parties
determined to serve Canada and Canadians and to save the future of the country
for the generations to follow us.
If that doesn’t happen, then the chances for the formation of what may
be called “revolutionary resistance” groups will grow. What shape they will take cannot be guessed
at now. But real, in the streets,
physical resistance to the destruction of Canadian democracy seems almost fated
unless a new kind of democratic political party appears determined that Canada
will be independent and will survive as a democracy.
