How much reliance would you place upon a 65-year-old automobile? Would you depend your life on it? Would you use it for personal or national security?
Both of the leading political parties in the current election have led off their advertising campaigns with obnoxious and/or misleading attack ads, and neither party is positively promoting a realistic agenda. But these ads were deliberately and consciously chosen; there is a reason for the specifics of these ads, and I want to examine some of that background.
The Liberal lead-off is an attack on the military spending proposed in the Conservative budget. During World War Two, Canada established an international reputation as a country that could be counted on, that was capable of packing a punch, that could effect a severe blow --- that we meant what we said and would back it up appropriately. Thus we became – by merit and proven honour -- one of the five nations that sat at the table directing the War. This was completely out of proportion to the small percentage which our population represented to the entire Allied population, and on a per capita basis, Canadians became the biggest contributors to the Allied effort. We gained international respect.
Since the War, successive Liberal administrations have neglected our military, and our national defence capabilities have declined dramatically. Much of our equipment is still of World War Two vintage. It now requires 18 hours of repair and maintenance time for ONE hour of operational time. To get to Afghanistan, our troops are hitchhiking rides on American military cargo flights which leave the Fort Drum, NY staging base for Iraq on a daily basis, and we are tying up American troops who provide us overland escort to our Afghan staging area. Because most of our aircraft can’t fly that far. Our Allies, when we are engaged in joint operations, tear out their hair trying to find for us some unimportant task that we are capable of performing to meet our treaty obligations. We are an international laughing-stock. We are driving a 65-year-old automobile. Canadian soldiers are dieing in Afghanistan because their equipment is obsolete. Ironically, Liberal campaign literature openly admits that Canada’s international reputation has been lost!!! What chutzpah! What gall! [It reminds me of God’s complaint through the mouth of Jeremiah, that after having committed adultery, Israel wanted to be God’s bride again. They must have been Liberals!]
Mr. Ignatieff is spitting on the blood of all those Canadians who have shed that blood on behalf of their country, and the fine men and women who are still prepared to shed their blood now. Mr. Ignatieff’s complaint about the proposed $20 billion expenditure should be that it is not enough – we should be spending at least $100 billion to remedy half-a-century of Liberal neglect! This includes Liberal waste such as the $500 million penalty [which became $880 million actually paid out, after interest was added, and including the legal, personnel and other secondary costs associated with trying to evade payment of the penalty; plus the over $2 billion cost of 12,000 man-years of lost jobs that came with that; plus the $540 million lost income tax that would have been generated by those lost jobs; plus the continued 18-to-1 repair costs which would have disappeared from the other side of the ledger, etc., etc.; total cost over $5 billion] when Liberals cancelled the Conservative helicopter-renewal contract.
During this election campaign, Mr. Ignatieff could profit by taking a look at his fellow-Liberal Stephane Dion’s bad example, and fellow-Liberal Brian Tobin’s good example.
Mr. Dion is the only Liberal Leader in the 15-decade history of the Whigs who never served (even briefly, like John Turner) as Prime Minister. [Ignatieff will be the second.] Mr. Dion’s resounding electoral defeat was fueled by four factors. Canadians overwhelmingly supported Mr. Dion’s environmental concerns in principle, and he, aware of that, tried to make it the central issue of his campaign. He was, however, unable to translate his academic and theoretical ideas into practical, understandable policy. His figures never had the benefit of perusal by a chartered accountant; they didn’t add up. Mr. Dion constantly contradicted himself on the details of implementation, and had absolutely no idea of the costs involved, or how he would finance them. By the second week of the campaign he just looked like a fool. Mr. Ignatieff has the same academic and theoretical talent as Mr. Dion, and the same absence of dollars and sense. When he speaks against a $20 billion expenditure, he is speaking for a $15 billion dollar bubble gum and BandAid ® 18-to-1 repair bill, and, like Mr. Dion, can’t do the math of looking at both sides of the ledger, to see a net outgo of only $5 billion. As a matter of fact, there is only one person in the current Liberal team who does understand dollars and sense – Mr. Bob Rae – but he is determined to take us to hell in spite of the facts he understands so well, as he proved while he was the NDP Premier of Ontario. I respected and liked Mr. Ignatieff when he was a book reviewer [see http://nebirucrossing.blogspot.com/2011/03/review-dear-m-letters-from-gentleman-of.html ]but he’s way out of that league in his Liberal leadership role.
Secondly, on six occasions as he criss-crossed the country, Mr. Dion spoke on regional issues and made election promises to fulfill the desires of local public opinion. But on these six occasions, he was speaking on issues which are not within the constitutional mandate of the federal government. Mr. Harper, questioned by reporters on these issues had a standard reply: “I will seek to have the issue placed on the agenda of the next First Ministers meeting”; i.e., he would discuss the issue with the provincial Premiers who have the constitutional authority to deal with them. Education, including at the post-secondary level, is under the constitutional mandate of the Provinces, but Mr. Ignatieff, on the pro-active side of his platform has chosen to lead-off with promises in the field of education. He can do nothing in the field of education without the prior permission of the Provinces, and he must demonstrate that he has the support of the Premiers before he proceeds any further. In Mr. Dion’s and Mr. Ignatieff’s defence, I must state that since the Pearson Technique was developed, there has been considerable federal encroachment upon provincial affairs. In Mr. Dion’s case, the cool Harper correction, issued six times, merely added to the public assessment of Mr. Dion’s incompetence.
Let’s sidetrack to that issue, for a moment. Mr. Pearson was our first explicitly New World Order Prime Minister, with a belief in supreme centralization of government. He reversed Sir Wilfred Laurier’s traditional liberal and Liberal policy of a limited federal government with strong Provinces [Laurier was our best Liberal PM, Trudeau the worst; Diefenbaker the best Conservative PM, Mulroney the worst; Caouette the best 3rd party Leader, David Lewis the worst.] Mr. Pearson led a minority government and was kept in power by the two Social Credit parties in Opposition: French-language Caouette’s party with 32 seats in Quebec, and the English-language party with 26 seats in B.C. and the Prairies. [Footnote: when Social Credit disappeared in the late 1970s, the Anglophile Socreds re-emerged a decade later as Reform, and the bulk of the Francophile Creditistes joined in forming the Bloc, which is a misunderstood nationalist party, rather than a separatist party – these are people who are proud of themselves and their culture, and will fight to retain it. Most of the sensible words spoken in the House during the 40th Parliament, on all issues, came from the Bloc. End footnote.] The two Social Credit parties sat together on the Opposition benches and had five joint-demands (all implemented) to keep Mr. Pearson in power, beginning with a new flag more acceptable to French-Canadians (implemented February 15, 1965). The main demand was medi-care, but health care is under provincial constitutional jurisdiction. The first major use of the Pearson Technique therefore was to breach that constitutional barrier in order to keep Pearson’s Social Credit support in the House of Commons. When the legislation was first passed, the Provinces could opt in on a voluntary basis, and only the have-not Atlantic Provinces first did so, resulting in a severe drain on the federal treasury. It was imperative to get Ontario, the industrial and commercial heart of the country – the bankroller --, to join. In March, 1968, a survey in Ontario showed that 96.7% of Ontarians were covered by private health insurance, which was generally sold 30% below cost as a loss-leader by life insurance companies. In other words, all buyers of whole-life insurance were subsidizing health insurance. Many Ontarians were covered by group plans where the employer bore most of the cost. The 3.3 % of the population that was too old, too sick or too poor to have health insurance did have limited but unsatisfactory means-test coverage through various social services. What was needed was some form of upgrade for that 3.3 %, which could have been organized through private philanthropy and voluntarily donated services from within the health-care field. In April, 1969, Ontario Premier Robarts, based on these facts before him, was still making speeches denouncing medi-care as ‘a Machiavellian fraud’. But in order to cover the drain of money to the Atlantic Provinces, Mr. Pearson had added a 3% health surcharge to income taxes, immediately to be added to the amounts withheld by employers. Any province that opted in would immediately receive via Federal-to-Provincial transfer 100% of the surcharge collected in their Province. By the end of August of 1969, sufficient Ontarians were angry at 18 months of smaller pay cheques, and sufficient millions of dollars had accumulated available for transfer to Ontario, to prompt Robarts to accept the bribe by calling the Legislature back from summer recess, having first, second and third readings back-to-back, invoking closure, and having medi-care signed into law by the Lieutenant-Governor less than 200 minutes after the ramming started. That was the first use of the Pearson Technique, conceived by Mr. Pearson and delivered by Mr. Trudeau throughout the next decade with massive centralization and encroachment on the Provinces with such nonsensical programs as the Equalization payments and the Regional Economic Disparity payments, major inroads on provincial responsibility for education and on and on and on. Evidently, Mr. Dion and Mr. Ignatieff, feathers of the Pearson/Trudeau stork, plan to deliver more such children.
Before we look at Mr. Dion’s two other bad examples and Mr. Tobin’s one good example, we need to step back and take a look at the context of how this unnecessary election was called.
Seats on House of Commons’ committees are apportioned according to party representation in the House. In a minority Parliament, the Opposition always controls the committees. On March 25, 2011, an opposition-loaded committee found Mr. Harper’s Government in contempt of Parliament, and that was used by Mr. Ignatieff to bring down the government. This was not an objective ruling by an impartial judicial proceeding; it was a blatant subjective dishonest political ploy, based on lingering Liberal anger over Mr. Harper’s prorogue of Parliament.
The usual motive to prorogue is mere routine: the governing party feels that it has completed or exhausted the agenda which previously received the assent of Parliament, and a short break is required to formulate a fresh agenda. Upon resumption of Session, the government presents that agenda to Parliament in the form of a Budget or a Throne Speech (which Mr. Harper did do). Every prorogue is accompanied by windbagging and political rhetoric, and a judgment as to its legitimacy cannot be made at the time of the announcement. That judgment is always made in hindsight. The standard of judgment is: did the government present a fresh agenda in the form of Budget or Throne Speech? If the government continues with the previous agenda, or presents a Budget or Throne Speech which merely re-states the previous, then the legitimacy is questionable. To date, there have been 78 such occasions where Parliament resumed without a fresh agenda, but most of those occasions were nevertheless legitimate for acceptable reasons other than parliamentary routine. On two occasions of those 78, governing Conservatives prorogued as a courtesy to the Official Opposition: twice, the Liberal Party has been permitted to conduct a leadership convention without Members being required to attend to parliamentary duties. Subsequent to twice receiving this favour, Liberals have had three opportunities to be honourable gentlemen and return it, but have not done so. This is characteristic of the Liberal rudeness and unsportsmanlike conduct which has been a hallmark of Liberals ever since Pierre Trudeau told Parliament to “fuck off”. On several of the 78 occasions, Parliament has prorogued to provide a cooling off period where Canadians were sharply divided on major issues. Examples would include the prorogues of 1885 (the hanging of Louis Riel), 1941 (Conscription crisis), and 1956 (the Suez controversy). Several times, the prorogue has been celebratory in nature: 1945 (end of World War Two), 1967 (opening of Expo 67 and Centennial celebrations), 2010 (Vancouver Olympics. Here Prime Minister Harper is merely following the precedent established by Liberal Prime Ministers King and Pearson). In Canada’s first century, i.e., before Trudeau, the prorogue was used for purely political motives only eight times, all of them by Liberal Prime Ministers: Laurier twice, King thrice, St.Laurent once, Pearson twice.
From 1948 to 1962, Pierre Trudeau was a leader of the communist Ralliement, making no secret of his contempt for Canadian and British traditions, including Parliament. In numerous articles, lectures, columns and books he set out an agenda to radically alter Canadian society. Towards the end of that 14-year period, he flirted briefly with the CCF (which became the NDP) before taking his own advice “to plant the seed of radical socialism within the established political parties” by joining the Liberals in 1962. Less than three years later (1965) he was able to inaugurate implementation of his agenda as Minister of Justice, introducing the Omnibus Bill which first allowed young offenders to go unpunished, permitted the murder of the unborn, dissolved the vows of matrimony, and challenged freedom of worship and freedom of speech. After he became Prime Minister in 1968, he perfected the prorogue as a purely political technique, using it more often than all his predecessors combined -- eleven times (twelve if you count his proclamation of the War Measures Act as a prorogue by other means).
Jean Chretien followed Trudeau’s lead four times. The only Conservative Prime Minister to emulate Trudeau to date has been Brian Mulroney. The score on clearly illegitimate prorogues since Confederation is: by Liberals, 28; by Conservatives, 8.
This election has been called to justify Mr. Ignatieff’s deliberate misrepresentation of the historical facts, and his failure to use the accepted standard of judgment: did the Government, upon resumption of Session, present a Budget or Throne Speech? Yes, Mr. Harper did.
In their campaign literature, Liberals are making hay of the fact that this is the first time in the history of the Commonwealth that a Government has been found in contempt of Parliament. By whom? Well, Mr. Pearson was the last Liberal leader who was an honourable gentleman. Every Liberal leader since Trudeau’s “fuck off” has displayed bad manners, unsportsmanlike conduct, disdain, scorn and contempt of Parliament, and has not acted like an honourable gentleman. A contempt finding (by a meaningless committee of Liberal lackeys) has never happened before because no previous leader has been willing to stoop as low as Mr. Ignatieff. Shame on Mr. Ignatieff! Parliament represents all Canadians; every action in Parliament is directed towards all Canadians. It is Mr. Ignatieff who, by his acts as a dishonourable gentleman, is demonstrating contempt and disrespect for all Canadians.
Which brings me to the third point concerning Mr. Dion: twice during his campaign he displayed the Liberal inability to behave in a civilized manner, and publicly lost his temper at reporters who were perhaps a little too pressing in trying to make order out of his environmental chaos. Mr. Ignatieff just walks away [see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROt-iUGysOU&feature=channel_video_title ] which is a little less stressful, but just as uncivilized. Mr. Ignatieff, it turns out, is just another version of Stephane Dion, less personable, less presentable, but dishonest rather than impetuous.
Our society is largely governed or manipulated based on statistics. Almost everything can be accurately predicted or orchestrated because most people have no idea of the extent to which they are influenced by the thoughts and actions of others. Our lives are based on numbers. Much of the predictability has commercial value. For example, when I operated a pizza franchise during the 1980s, I was advised by head office that of every 100 flyers I distributed which contained a $3 off coupon, I would have two coupons cashed within 48 hours, another two coupons cashed in the final three days before the expiry date, and from one to three telephone orders from callers who mentioned the coupon but did not actually cash it. This was right-on-target advice. We have surveys and statistics on every conceivable subject, so that we can quite accurately predict human behaviour [plus or minus 2%, 19 times out of 20, lol]. The participation rate for a religious rally is said to be seven-tenths of one per cent; for a political rally, two-tenths of one per cent. This means that each person who shows up at the religious rally represents 142 other people from that group’s constituency who feel just as strongly on that issue. At the political rally, each person represents 499 other people who feel just as strongly. I haven’t been able to find a statistical probability participation rate for a nationalist or patriotic event, but I would guess it to be within that political to religious range. So when 15,000 people stand on the bridges over the 401 to honour our dead soldiers being returned from Afghanistan, they represent at least 2 million Canadians in Ontario who strongly support our troops.
Those two million Ontario residents were highly offended by Mr. Dion’s fourth mistake – trying to make political gain out of the funerals of our soldiers. It was the deciding factor which cost him the election. Mr. Ignatieff, committing the same error, has already assured that he will win only 30 seats. It is a major offence for a politician to attend a funeral, or make public comments about a funeral, during an election campaign, unless the deceased is a relative or a close personal friend where that relationship has been publicly well-known in advance of such death. Mr. Dion was the first politician in Canadian history to demonstrate such contempt or ignorance – and show once again that Liberals are not honourable gentlemen.
Mr. Ignatieff’s 30 seats will be concentrated in Vancouver, Brampton, Toronto and Montreal wherein we find the 16 constituencies which StatsCan reported in 2006 contain voters of whom over 60% have been Canadian citizens less than ten years; and are therefore the people who have been coerced into believing another Liberal historical lie, i.e., that the Liberals are the party representing immigrants. Yet even before Confederation, it was the Upper Canada Tories who invited the United Empire refugees from the American Revolution. It was the Upper Canada Tories who, four decades later, sponsored the massive humanitarian immigration from the Irish Potato Famine. Shortly after Confederation, our first Conservative Prime Minister consummated the largest real estate transaction in world history, purchasing over one-third of North America from The Hudson’s Bay Company for 300,000 pounds sterling, and sponsored massive immigration from Scandinavia and the Baltics to begin filling the West. Between the World Wars, Conservative Prime Ministers Sir Robert Borden, Arthur Meighen and R.B. Bennett sponsored first refugees from the Russian Revolution and then other south-east Europeans. Conservative Prime Minister Diefenbaker sponsored the late 50s immigration from the defeated Axis countries. All Conservative Prime Ministers continuously urged immigration from Britain and America and other Christian countries.
I was 19 months and 11 days old when I arrived in Canada. I applied for citizenship (with parental approval, of course) when I was 10 years old, and received it when I was 15. Under the rules in those days, you had to wait five years from the date of application, not from the date of arrival. Upon application, you were given four text books covering Canadian history, culture, geography and other points of interest, and covering our political and judicial systems, and the responsibilities (first) and entitlements (second) of Canadian citizenship. After the five-year waiting period, there were two examinations before a Citizenship Court judge. The first exam was an oral exam where the applicant had to establish conversational ability in an Official Language. If you passed that, the second exam was a written exam to establish that you had grasped the contents of the textbooks you had studied for five years. [I still have them.] Then I received a firm handshake from both the Citizenship Judge and the Lieutenant-Governor of Alberta, who formally and officially welcomed me to citizenship in Her Majesty’s name. Then we had the first official raising of the new Canadian flag in Alberta. I happened to become a citizen on the same day that the new flag became law.
Three years after I became a citizen, we arrive at Mr. Trudeau, the only Liberal Prime Minister who has actively supported immigration. But Mr. Trudeau’s objective, as he wrote in Cite Libre, was to disrupt the social and cultural fabric, and to introduce conflict to divide society to make the population more malleable to socialist control. The rules have changed: the waiting period is only two years, and there are no tests. You don’t need to speak our language or know anything about our culture and laws. Just come and take; its free. Its better than free; we’ll pay you!
Mr. Brian Tobin became a national hero on March 9, 1996, received the nickname Captain Canada, and shot to a national popularity which reached quadruple that of the Prime Minister. The popularity continued in his home province of Newfoundland and Labrador, catapulting him to the provincial Premiership shortly afterwards. The issue was the Turbot War. Mr. Tobin authorized the arrest and seizure of a European Union (Spanish) fishing trawler which had violated Canada’s sovereignity. [Those who wish to refresh their memory on the details can visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbot_War .]
I have cited this incident as a good example for Mr. Ignatieff’s consideration because it is the only post-War live action by a Liberal of which I am aware, and because it generated the same enormous out-pouring of support which we see on the bridges over the 401. Mr. Ignatieff chose to target military spending only because he could not identify a special interest group whose votes he’d lose, and because he could not identify any economic interests that would suffer immediate harm leading to, at least, demurral. No, Mr. Ignatieff, you’ve not harmed any little narrow-minded special interest group – you have attacked ALL CANADIANS!!
Nevertheless, the Turbot War incident is flawed. It required 90 days of planning before enforcement was attempted, revealing our inability to patrol our seas. A Fisheries aircraft was used to spot the target because a military aircraft was not available. An armed Fisheries vessel, Cape Roger, was first to arrive on scene, to commence hot pursuit for one hour, and then to fire the warning machine gun shot which stopped the offender. A Coast Guard vessel, Sir Wilfred Grenville, was the second to arrive, and used strategically directed high-pressure fire hoses to keep blowing the helmsmen of three other Spanish fishing boats which were trying to get between the enforcement vessels and the target, off their posts, leaving their boats uncontrollable. One warning shot with a machine gun, and about ten squirts from a fire hose – to defend our national sovereignity! The naval gunboat missed the show and finally arrived about an hour after Cape Roger had the Estai in tow.
TO BE CONTINUED:
[I’m only about halfway through what I had projected to say here, but I’ve been at it for hours, with constant reference to a clutter of about 50 books and journals on my desk, and it is past my bedtime. I’ve completed the first-year survey course portion of this item, and it is time to get to the actual discussion of the issue placed on the table by Mr. Ignatieff, although it is not imperative that it be done now because Ignatieff is going to lose his own seat as well as the election. So, on with it, and if I nod off, tomorrow is another day.]
BLUE PAPER SKETCH OF WHAT NEEDS FURTHER DISCUSSION:
1]the legitimacy of nations (the error of hierarchy/materialist necessity/the possession engram/one world order)
2]the purpose of government (it is your enemy/sovereign free men on the dry land/Law of the Admiralty/one choice at a time)
3]a philosophy of war
a]All aggressive war is wrong, immoral, illegal; I am fully in agreement with:
b]Nevertheless, retaliatory capability is essential:
"In a civilized society, force may be used only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use. If some 'pacifist' society renounced the retaliatory use of force, it would be left helplessly at the mercy of the first thug who decided to be immoral. Such a society would achieve the opposite of its intention: instead of abolishing evil, it would encourage and reward it." – Ayn Rand
c]a rational policy for Canada
d]funding and implementing that policy
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