On November 19th, 2004, The Honourable Madam Justice
Heneghan found Mr. Kingsley, The Chief Electoral Officer
"erred in law" by registering the merger on December
7th, 2003. She declined to grant the necessary order
quashing the merger. That is now under appeal and
hopefully the appropriate quashing order will be
granted.
To date (subject to the aforesaid court review) Mr.
Harper has been able to lead what is called The
Conservative Party of Canada and to act as Leader of the
Opposition in the House of Commons.
Now, working with The Bloc Québécois, he is
threatening an election.
Some say Mr. Harper has a hidden agenda.
I disagree.
He has a very clear agenda.
For some reason however, most people, including
mainline media, do not want to believe Mr. Harper means
what he says.
Here are the facts.
He has two masters. The National Citizen's Coalition
of some 40,000 members and he has what is often referred
to as The Calgary School including his confident, Tom
Flanagan and Ted Morton.
Speaking to a meeting of the National Citizen’s
Coalition in Hamilton on May 24th, 1994, Mr. Harper
said, "Whether Canada ends up as one national government
or two national governments or several national
governments, or some other kind of arrangement is, quite
frankly, secondary in my opinion."
That was the year before the 1995 Separatist
Referendum in Quebec and he was an M.P. at the time.
Later in the speech he said, "whether Canada ends up
with one national government or two governments or ten
governments, the Canadian people will require less
government no matter what the constitutional status or
arrangements of any future country may be."
I write to you as you have experienced his tactics
during his coup of the Progressive Conservative Party.
In his mind that was a necessary step to achieve his
ultimate objective. He will stop at nothing.
In 1997, he and his confident Tom Flanagan, in their
Next City magazine, suggested coalitions were the only
route to Conservatives seizing national power. They
suggested an alliance with The Bloc Québécois "would not
be out of place. The Bloc are nationalist for much the
same reason that Albertans are populist – they care
about their local identity... and they see the Federal
Government as a threat to their way of life," they
stated.
In 2001, Harper was the Leader of a group who
proposed "a firewall around Alberta." I can e-mail you a
copy of this "Alberta Agenda" or you can pull it up on
The National Citizens Coalition web page.
In October 2004, Harper made his "Belgian waffle"
speech in Québec City where he suggested Canada should
become a North American version of Belgium which has
multiple factions each with their own autonomy. In short
he felt this "national autonomy" status should be
considered sympathetically because "Québécois never
wanted to be an overwhelmed province in a centralized
Canada."
This is background.
The most disturbing thing is what he has done and
said so recently.
He has been honest to his commitment to The National
Citizens Coalition of which he was President for several
years.
Here is an extract from the NCC National Overview
Magazine, Summer 2003.
It begins:
"The following is taken from a speech former National
Citizens Coalition President and current Canadian
Alliance Leader, Stephen Harper, made on November 21,
2002. That was the night the NCC presented him with the
Colin M. Brown Freedom Medal."
Mr. Harper said, "It was not easy to officially leave
this organization. But I feared that if I did not do
this, the NCC would find itself again alone or at least
without any allies in the Parliament of Canada. For
reasons that I can’t fully explain, the major political
party that had come to embrace the federal political
hopes of most NCC members, the Canadian Alliance, seemed
on the verge of collapse."
"So we took the party back, and now we are building
on a foundation of real conservatism and a real
conservative option in this country."
He continued, "Health care has long been a concern of
the National Citizens Coalition. There needs to be
fundamental reform, not just to rely on tax dollars but
to harness private investment and bring that into
publicly insured services."
"And when it comes to the United States, we as a
country should stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the
Americans," he stated.
"I hope that I will be able to merit your pride and
your allegiance in the future," he concluded.
After the apparent merger of our P.C. Party with the
Alliance under the name Conservative Party, the NCC
changed the name of their magazine to the Canadian
Conservative Review.
Speaking as keynote speaker to The Conservative
Convention in Montreal in March, this year, Mr. Harper
said. "I also know very well – the pride and solidarity
of Québecers. I know they will never let the autonomy
and the dignity of Québec be undermined. But they also
want to be partners in the future of Canada. And they
will be – once again – with the new Conservative Party
of Canada."
Mr. Harper made that comment after referring to The
Bloc Québécois eight times.
"The policy of The Bloc is the strategy of the empty
chair," Mr. Harper concluded.
Then the Conservative Leader delivered the punch
line, "We, the Conservatives, are the only real vehicle
of change, here in Québec and throughout Canada. The
Bloc will never make a single positive change. In Québec
as everywhere in Canada the only vehicle of change is
the Conservative Party of Canada."
In effect he says he and his Conservative Party will
fill the "empty chair."
When Mr. Harper states he could do better than The
Bloc has done. What is he saying? Is he saying it is all
in the mind? Separation is more a question of what you
call it and how you sell it.
He knows if you wither the federal government
eventually you have de facto separation of the provinces
and you don’t even need a referendum to do it.
Let us put it into context. What does his partner,
Mr. Gilles Duceppe, Leader of The Bloc, say in English
speaking CANADA on this point.
Speaking to the Economic Club of Toronto last
November, Mr. Gilles Duceppe, Leader of The Bloc said,
"I am a Québec sovereigntist… in the sovereign Québec I
have in mind, Canada is a privileged partner. Obtaining
a partnership with Canada is not a mandatory condition
for Québec on its path to sovereignty. It is, however,
desirable both for Canada as well as for Quebec."
With Mr. Harper's thinking so in line with Mr.
Duceppe's, it is clear Mr. Harper will, if necessary,
make a coalition with The Bloc. He has already
acknowledged that as a possibility.
But there is more.
With little mainstream news comment Harper, the day
after his keynote speech slipped a new Part D into the
Conservative Policy paper passed in Montreal.
It is a shocker.
It is the first time in Canadian history that a
National political party has embraced a provincial
rights agenda.
Part D binds the Party and every Conservative member
to:
1. "Restore the constitutional balance between the
federal and provincial and territorial governments."
2. "Ensure that the use of the federal spending power
in provincial jurisdictions is limited, authorizing the
provinces to use the opting out formula with full
compensation if they want to opt out of a new or
modified federal program, in areas of shared or
exclusive jurisdiction."
3. "Consider reforming Canadian federalism, taking
into account:
(a) the need to consolidate Québec's position within
the Canadian federation;
(b) the need to alleviate the alienation felt by the
citizens of the West."
4. "Fix in collaboration with the provinces, the
problem of fiscal imbalance by increasing the amounts
allocated to provincial transfers, by reducing taxes, or
by transferring tax points to the province."
It is a tragedy that this should be happening at a
time when the Liberal Party is living with a scandal
that came out of their efforts to preserve the unity of
Canada which Mr. Harper would weaken.
While it is perfectly acceptable for a political
leader to take the government to task for such
incompetence and scandals, it's quite another to
blatantly fan the flames of separatism and to offer hope
and inspiration to the separatists and de centralizers.
But even this is not enough for the NCC. In their
current issue of their Freedom Watch they state "The
Alberta Agenda, first proposed by former NCC president,
Stephen Harper, is a series of measures that, if
adopted, would enable Albertans to better protect their
economy and their prosperity."
They then direct you to their web page to review that
Agenda. Here are some of the points:
- Withdraw from the Canada Pension Plan.
- Collect our own revenue from personal income tax.
- Start preparing now to let the contract with the
RCMP run out in 2012 and create an Alberta Provincial
Police Force.
- Resume provincial responsibility for health-care
policy.
- Use Section 88 of the Supreme Court’s decision in
the Quebec Secession Reference to force Senate reform
back onto the national agenda.
I hope you will not support Mr. Harper working with
The Bloc Québécois. This is the first time in history
that a federal leader that wants to be Prime Minister
has openly conspired with the separatists to bring about
a new regime that will bring about de facto separation
of our provinces.
CANADA is at a crossroad.
We never have had a Prime Minister who believes in
deconfederation.
The Meech Lake Accord was an attempt to relieve
certain frictions but Brian Mulroney was always a
federalist.
Likewise the Charlottetown Accord was mainly handled
by Joe Clark who always believed in a strong federal
government.
Both these approaches failed.
Now, if Mr. Harper has his way and becomes Prime
Minister we would have in that office a person who
believes and his close advisors believe in an "OPEN
FEDERALISM" as he says in the Party's Policy paper. Most
funding and jurisdiction would be delegated to the
provinces with only symbolic matters being left to the
federal level for international reasons.
Already we are a much less centralized country than
the U.S.A. and other federal states.
Without someone to fight for CANADA and to speak for
CANADA at the federal level, Harper would administer the
coup de grace to CANADA and we would all be the poorer.
We have the best country in the World.
Let us save it.
Sinclair M. Stevens
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