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Harper's "new" Confederation
The Demise of Canada
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AN OPEN LETTER : By
Sinclair Stevens
May 6th, 2005
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 sovereignist……..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 main stream 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 de confederation.
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.
SMS/ap
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