Monday, October 22, 2012
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.
Comments:
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First they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.
Then they came for the socialists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.
Then they came for the socialists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.
# posted by 
: October 30, 2012 at 4:42 a.m.
: October 30, 2012 at 4:42 a.m.
About the second National Party, I was the media director on the board of the Vancouver Centre constituency and to my discredit and over-timidity didn't use my position to speak up within the typically-chaotic meetings that ensued after I joined. Why? Because of the vitriol being thrown around with such zeal, without any evidence of any wrongdoing at all. Just allegations of conspiracy and financial connivance. And hatred, hatred, hatred....having not quite survived the founding of the Green Party in 1983-84 and having seen much the same kind of behaviour, I was too burned by my former experience to want to speak. A few articulate press releases might have put the discord in its place, but I knew the hatred would be turned on by me.
My own feeling about it is that the agitators were indignant and righteous enough, but that they had been fed discord, and perhaps funds or at least encouragement and some circumstantial "facts" to persuade them they were in their rights....by the candidate, whose name I should remember and sadly don't, was a very principled and articulate young arhitect from Point Grey. Like Green candidates and office volunteers had been before him, he was accused of being a plant by one of the major parties or some other kind of operative; when this was not the case at all.
Agents provocateurs whether sent in by the by NDP, Liberals, Tories or the RCMP/CSIS are fairly recognizable; most do not know that's what they are; the real operative or "control" may seem like a bystander, the mouthpieces rarely know they are being used.
I'm of the opinion now that new parties are not a solution; complete overhaul of the constitution and the political system is what's needed, and as in Iceland the indictment and jailing of politicians and their corporate co-conspirators. But do Canadians have enough spine to stand up? Are they politically astute enough to recognize the agents provocateurs who would throw into chaos a "Canadian spring"? I don't think so, sad to say.....
if it WERE posssible, the manifestation of a new sovereignty, separate from the "stability" the CRown is supposed to afford us, migth be the only way to repudiate the China treaty and others like it, and also to bring those guilty of abusing the powers of the Crown, that is to say the mandate of the people, to justice.
But if Canadians want to take their country back, first they have to realize it's been stolen from them. And for THAT lack of knowledge, we all know the media is part of the campaign to hide the truth from them. Can we break them of the mainstream dailies and the nightly newscasts? Be nice to think so, but so far no luck, despite the reach of the facts and the power of the internet....
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My own feeling about it is that the agitators were indignant and righteous enough, but that they had been fed discord, and perhaps funds or at least encouragement and some circumstantial "facts" to persuade them they were in their rights....by the candidate, whose name I should remember and sadly don't, was a very principled and articulate young arhitect from Point Grey. Like Green candidates and office volunteers had been before him, he was accused of being a plant by one of the major parties or some other kind of operative; when this was not the case at all.
Agents provocateurs whether sent in by the by NDP, Liberals, Tories or the RCMP/CSIS are fairly recognizable; most do not know that's what they are; the real operative or "control" may seem like a bystander, the mouthpieces rarely know they are being used.
I'm of the opinion now that new parties are not a solution; complete overhaul of the constitution and the political system is what's needed, and as in Iceland the indictment and jailing of politicians and their corporate co-conspirators. But do Canadians have enough spine to stand up? Are they politically astute enough to recognize the agents provocateurs who would throw into chaos a "Canadian spring"? I don't think so, sad to say.....
if it WERE posssible, the manifestation of a new sovereignty, separate from the "stability" the CRown is supposed to afford us, migth be the only way to repudiate the China treaty and others like it, and also to bring those guilty of abusing the powers of the Crown, that is to say the mandate of the people, to justice.
But if Canadians want to take their country back, first they have to realize it's been stolen from them. And for THAT lack of knowledge, we all know the media is part of the campaign to hide the truth from them. Can we break them of the mainstream dailies and the nightly newscasts? Be nice to think so, but so far no luck, despite the reach of the facts and the power of the internet....
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