Artificial Nations

Recently, in the National Post, Lawrence Solomon wrote a very interesting article in which he criticized the two alternatives of withdrawing from any involvement in the Middle East and simply rewarding our friends and punishing our enemies as he put it. His third alternative was apparently to assist in the creation of smaller, ethnically homogenous states as I understand it. But a sentence leaped off the page that resonated in my mind as a much broader perception of the hundred year period from 1850 to 1950.

He said “the Western world has got to take responsibility for the artificial nations it has created.” He was speaking, of course, of the renunciation of colonialism that created such nations as Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine, and Libya. In each of these entities, he correctly identified that diverse and obviously hostile ethnic groups were confined within the same borders, and ultimately caused a form of radicalization and detachment from tradition and stability, which today is manifest in a strident anti-Americanism. He could equally have said that the creations of Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and the division and transfer of Prussia to Poland and to Russia, likewise created ethnic tensions which have never really been resolved.

It occurred to me that these perceptions cover a period of time from approximately 1850 to 1950, during which period the European powers abandoned the entities which they had amalgamated and administered as colonies. From a Western Canadian perspective, this particularly applied to the creation of Canada. It was, after all, the amalgamation of vast, diverse areas with conflicting interests, ideologies, languages, and cultures into one country which has emerged as a multicultural polyglot. Today, it reflects the modern version of United Nations chaos. It has, in fact, no identity, no culture, no common language, no flag that reflects any value whatsoever, but compromise, compromise, compromise.

As long as these entities, created artificially and completely without reference to ethnic identity, tradition, language, or culture, are involved in a period of relative prosperity, conflict does not appear to occur, but the Middle East is a perfect example of what in the long run will happen to every multicultural nation.

Canada is, today, an institution created by 19th Century thinking, by a group of colonial officials in London who wished to divest themselves of a vast, administrative nightmare, where for over 4000 miles of territory, they lacked sufficient resources to either police, control, or alternatively benefit. They made the practical decision of delegating all their authority to something “Canadian.” There never was, in actual fact, an entity known as Canada. In the same sense that today’s Syria is made up of conflicting groups, Alawites, Kurds, Sunni, and Shi’ite Muslim interests, there is an overwhelming tendency to impose authority by force, currently demonstrated by Hafez Assad, and in Libya for the same reason previously imposed by the Gadhafi family.

The West, in hope of its stability, had subsidized, supported, and in fact funded dictators like Saddam Hussein, Hafez Assad, and Gadhafi, all of whom they could deal with, much as they did with Egypt’s president, Mubarak, by giving them money. That whole system is coming unravelled today and the biggest area of stability appears to be the absolutely monarchy of Saudi Arabia and the rather polyglot nation of India. Pakistan, it appears, is lapsing into a form of narco-political anarchy.

All of these concerns demonstrate the fragility and lack of stable traditional harmony which a nation deserves and which a nation can achieve.

Mr. Solomon pointed out the success of the South Sudan separation from the north of Sudan. The latter is stridently Muslim and extremely hostile to the West and South Sudan is a proud ally of the West.

In the same way, Canada could be divided into the regions of Ontario, Quebec, and the Maritimes, being three separate entities, the four western provinces being one country with a common language and a common interest in resource production. Only over time could a common culture emerge, by a closer identification with the essential interests of the people living in the region. Canada today is a unique bastion of stability in a world of economic, debt-ridden chaos. Ireland, Europe, the United States, all former areas of wealth and prosperity, are sinking into debt depravity. Canada, on the other hand, supporting its economy essentially by the export of Western Canadian resources, is relatively stable with the continuing ignorance of Western Canadians that the wealth of Canada is being borne on their backs with the taxation they provide being used to subsidize such wasteful enterprise as the perpetual education at minimal cost of Quebec university students.

Gradually, Western Canadians are waking up, and much as the South Sudanese became much better off when they were free and independent, Western Canadians will soon learn the same salutary lesson. The essential ingredients of Western Separatism therefore are as follows:

1.) A realization of the colonial arrangement that created Canada.

2.) A realization of the costs of Confederation to Western Canada.

3.) The political will to do what is legally possible, ratified by the Clarity Act, and upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada, which is conduct a referendum for independence in each province of Western Canada, and amalgamate a nation from the provinces so choosing, with a regionally-elected Senate, a common language, common economic policy, smaller government, and constitutional rights of referendum, initiative, and recall.

The foregoing formula will rectify the irresponsible transfer of authority to the government of Canada of 1867, which once done was never possible to correct, change, or rectify, because of the fact its constitution became and was at that time, un-amendable and impossibly complicated.

Our job in the Western Block is to create a new wave of understanding, and a hope for the future by the recognition of the hundred years of irresponsibility that produced chaos around the world from 1850 to 1950, and from India to the Middle East to Canada, set up countries that had no right or benefit to their existence.

The Coming Police State

Recently, while watching an American television program called “Law & Order,” I heard a statement presented as an introduction to the program which truly shocked: “The criminal justice system has two parts, the police who apprehend criminals and the prosecutors who present evidence of their crimes in court.” To a vast audience of the young, naïve, and perhaps unsophisticated, this is all there is. I thought this might be just an American view, but then I began to think of my experience.

I thought of W. T.’s case, where the police seized my client’s sailboat which was his only home, $47,000 in cash which he held in trust from investors in his boat during repairs, and then they took his car. He was left with a bicycle and a hotel bill. His crime? He has never been convicted of any drug crime since 1994, when he was fined $400 for cultivating marijuana. He is not charged with any crime now, nor are any criminal charges pending against him. No need of proof, no need of evidence of crime, just seizure by Canada Border Agency and Civil Forfeiture. Why bother with courts? Just take what you want if you carry a gun.

I thought of Bruce Montague, a former gunsmith who because he objects to the gun registry, refuses to obtain licenses or registration of his vast gun collection. He securely hides them in a secret sealed room so even the police can’t find them. After a trial in which the myriad of complex gun laws are presented to a confused jury by a self-assured prosecutor, they convict him of unsafe storage, improper storage, and unlawful possession, and in 120 counts damn him for keeping his own property, safely. Unsatisfied with that, the government wants forfeiture of all the guns, ammunition, and other items seized. The court partly agrees. The province wants civil forfeiture of his log house, which he and his family built with their own hands from scratch. In that action, they have no right to remain silent, no right to a jury, no right to the presumption of innocence, and no right to proof beyond a reasonable doubt. The state needs only prove a balance of probabilities.

There are many more examples I could give, but I shall stop with these two examples. The first statement at the beginning of “Law & Order” reveals the premise of all the rest. There is no person ever wrongly accused, no need of a defence counsel, no need of an impartial judge, no need of a trial really. Just take the money, property, savings, and home of the alleged criminal. Crime pays – the State. Thus, a police state arrives with no dictatorial revolution. Why is this? There are three main reasons…

1. Firstly, the average Canadian wants to be nice and sees police as nice, so to be accepted as Canadian, they help police. This is supposed to be the way to prove patriotism in the minds of many. Police are well paid, respected, privileged, and trusted to carry guns, so they must be right. This is an impression based on prestige and the desire to be acceptable.

2. Secondly, the average Canadian can see what has happened to those who stand up to authority, to either question or reject (or as authorities would say “to defy”) authority. They can see what happens to those on the disapproval side of authority and they are very afraid it might happen to them. This is a very powerful impression based on fear, subtle unstated but effective fear.

3. Thirdly, there is a strong sense of conformity in society and an inherent belief in all groups that their leadership must be nice and benevolent. This permeates society because to believe otherwise creates discomfort, alienation, and among moral beings (to which category most ordinary people belong) a strong obligation to do something about it. Much easier to just believe in the system and if some G8 protester gets locked up without trial or charge, he or she must have done something wrong. This group delusion is based on the herd instinct, conformity, laziness, and comfort in the status quo. Put another way, change is uncomfortable and inertia prevents it.

What is the Remedy?

The police state is really the last phase of a decadent culture, in denial of its founding premises. It really appeals to all the worst features of an entrenched elite, to which everybody struggles to conform and to belong. This is precisely where Canada is now. The elite owns and controls the media, and elects the politicians, who appoint the judges, who impose the desires of the State with absolute unquestioning obedience. Canada has left power in the hands of a Central Canadian Mafia since 1867 and left the West and the Maritimes as useless appendages, of no consequence unless the opinions of the Ontario and Quebec mafia appear to disagree. In that case, the election is actually decided with votes from Western Canada.

So to restore true democracy, a Triple-E Senate, referendum, initiative, and recall, to re-establish a vision of liberty throughout our land, we must free the West. Change in Canada in a positive sense is impossible. Those who wanted a Triple-E Senate discovered this when they attempted to amend the constitution and ran head first into the wall of opposition in Ontario and Upper Canada. Improvement in a positive sense in Western Canada is inevitable and desirable. What can we in the West have? The essential alternative between a growing, intrusive, burdensome police state, ramming their way into our lives, or Independence and a whole new way of self-government where our voices really count. The bitterness of many at the growing police state requires a return to a peaceful referendum to avoid violence. Violence of any individual merely legitimizes much more effective violence by the state against the individual. Thus, we see our final goal of Independence as the only way for positive, constructive change and to sideline forever all talk of violence. Ordinary people need to join and support our movement for positive change.

The Story of Imre Finta

The attached article, written in Hungarian for those who speak or read that language, is a fairly accurate account of the Finta trial, which is sort of being reproduced now for a 97-year-old Hungarian in Hungary. The important difference is that under Hungarian law, he doesn't have the right to remain silent, the presumption of innocence, or the right to a jury trial as was extended to Imre Finta.

As soon as the Finta case resulted in an acquittal on all eight counts, the government of Canada, under the advice and direction of Irwin Cotler, changed the law so that it was no longer possible to have a jury trial, the right to remain silent was taken away, and the presumption of innocence was replaced by a burden of proof upon the accused to, in effect, prove his innocence on a balance of probabilities. This was accomplished by changing the law into an immigration fraud case, pretending it was a civil matter. That's how the court in Canada under the Immigration Act, under the direction of Mr. Justice O'Reilly, tried Michael Seifert both in Italy and in Canada. This, of course, resulted in an acquittal of Michael Seifert, but by that time he had already been extradited to Italy, where he died some years later in an agonizing circumstance in an Italian jail.

The battle for justice continues and will never cease as long as there are those among us who are treated unjustly, and those others among us who are willing to fight that they be fairly and justly treated.

Why Indeed Does Canada Still Have a Hate Speech Law?

In further response to Andrew Coyne’s article of July 9, why indeed does Canada still have a hate speech law?

The United States, the largest and longest standing democracy in the world does not think it is necessary in their free and democratic society. Why should it be necessary in ours? Are we, therefore, to be viewed as somewhat less capable of making intelligent decisions than our American cousin?

The hate speech in Canada puts upon an accused an impossible burden of proving the proof of many opinions about history, for which there is no presently existing evidence, but upon which many people have legitimate differing views. The necessity for the accused to prove truth of a statement which is not necessarily damaging to anyone in particular is a bizarre state of law that could never be justified in a free and democratic society.

Racism is a natural reaction of people to being overrun by cultures of a different moral and ethnic character. It is not necessarily based upon hatred at all, and may very well be based upon a desire for perpetuation of one’s own identity, which is never considered inappropriate if you happen to be a visible minority.

The hypocrisy involved in hate speech laws is an amazing thing to behold, and those of us who desire to see those laws abolished have many good reasons, too extensive to be set out here in their entirety, but upon which a full and thorough debate should be taking place.

Andrew Coyne’s article published in the National Post, of Tuesday July 10 was a useful and important beginning. I hope to hear more in that regard.

Friends of Freedom in the Media

Whenever a major media personality like Andrew Coyne writes an article in favour of free speech and against 319(2) of the Criminal Code, one should be grateful, and particularly when it comes from a columnist of such considerable intelligence as Andrew Coyne. Reading the front page of the National Post on July 10, I was delighted to see his article, and I agree that the ban is worse than any imaginary bite.

He makes the very profound point that it’s not just because freedom of speech is limited in other ways, such as libel and fraud and threats. Those exceptions to the general rule that freedom of speech should be absolute have clear justifications in demonstrable harm to the individual, to an identified person. Having read the front page and those being the final conclusions on the front page, I thought it would be an excellent article, but turning to page 2, I observed that he seemed to meander.

I thoroughly agree that “speech is not merely used for debating political ideas. It is innate to us as human beings, built into our very thought processes: to prevent us from speaking is the next thing to preventing us from thinking.” In my own words, there is no point in having freedom to think if you have not freedom to express your thoughts, and clearly though there are defences of truth, fair comment, honest religious opinion, and the exception of removing hatred from some other identifiable group, these high-flown concepts have very little meaning in reality when the burden of proving them falls upon an accused in a Section 319(2) charge. For instance, in regard to historical truth, no one can verify an opinion through actual proof. It’s all a matter of opinion. So the defence of a charge under Section 319(2), even if that must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, is never very easy.

Section 319(2) has none of what Mr. Coyne requires, being a rigorous justification of this intrusion upon the liberty of a person, because in fact the harm asserted by the alleged defamed group is both subjective and vague. There’s no need to prove it. It simply raises the question of whether the emotion might be promoted. What emotion? The emotion of hatred. What is hatred? Mr. Justice Dickson in Keegstra defined it as “intense dislike”. How can such a term be judged by any objective criterion except the horrified reaction of the politically correct, which of course in most cases includes the average person?

Hate and dislike are emotions which unfortunately are permeating most persons in society for one thing or another. There’s always something we intensely dislike, or one group, or one form of conduct, or thought, or belief, or opinion.

But generally in other sections of the Criminal Code, there must be an identifiable harm to an identifiable person. Section 319(2) requires only that the harm which is the “likely” not “actual” promotion of hatred be measured by no empirical referent whatsoever, but the subjective perception of the trier of fact, be it a judge or a jury. The actual promotion of hatred never needs to be proven under this section. How do you prove it was unlikely if no evidence of it was ever required? Unfortunately, when you introduce the element of emotion to a judicial process, judges are nothing more than human. They have the onerous task of deciding if, measured against their own emotions, intense dislike would be likely created against an identifiable group. Too often, this boils down to whether the emotion of hatred is likely promoted in them of what the accused says.

Even if hatred was promoted, why is hatred of an identifiable group a crime at all? In this regard, as Mr. Coyne quotes Jeremy Waldron in his book, “The Harm in Hatred Speech”, which he says robs target groups of the “implicit assurance that society owes to all citizens that they are accepted as members of that society.” I suggest that’s a premise for which there is no moral or philosophical justification. No group is automatically entitled to be accepted as members of society, unless and until they demonstrate by actions and argument that as a group they are worthy of recognition and acceptance in society. Acceptance in society for an individual is not automatic. We have to earn respect in our society. The natural first reaction to a stranger is not automatic acceptance, but a skeptical and measured inquiry into the performance, the character, and the associations of the individual. The same should be true of every group. No society should automatically accept any group without a careful analysis of the type and the character of the group being accepted. They could be tolerated, but acceptance is more than toleration. It is, in fact, affirmation. The full participation in society or any community needs to be earned and should never be automatic.

Finally, at the end of his article, Mr. Coyne seems to stray into the realm of popularity and numeric assessment to determine whether one should have free speech. He assures us that a handful of neo-Nazis can be tolerated because they are a handful, and if there was a capability of the few to become the many, that would justify the imposition of laws restricting the few. But has it ever been demonstrated in the past that the few could become the many without rational argument persuading people, and to which the many could respond with appropriate, reasoned arguments. Mr. Coyne sidesteps that issue.

Various groups that advocate these laws have taken this issue head on and said that because of the example of Nazi Germany, we can no longer trust society to eliminate with argument, reason, persuasion, and democracy those who promote hatred. These advocates of censorship (because that’s what they are) fail to mention or recall that in the Weimar Republic, stringent anti-hate speech laws that banned speeches by Adolf Hitler and others did not silence or defeat the National Socialist movement of which he was the spokesman.

Mr. Coyne does make the good point that dictatorships are usually the best breeding ground of hatred of minorities. It could be rationally demonstrated that the ascendency of hate groups is never possible with rational human beings, unless and until there is a factual foundation to persuade them. If such was not the presumption upon which we base the entirety of democracy, how could we trust the majority to vote for anybody? Hatred, of course, is legitimately promoted in politics against your opponent, provided you don’t mention race, religion, ethnicity, etc. We still believe that in democracy, after a full and thorough debating process, the hatred promoted by one party against the other is quite legitimate to determine who is in fact the more virtuous, and during an election by subtle means and sometimes not so subtle means, hatred is promoted. We maintain, and have for hundreds of years, the premise that in democracy and with free debate, and even the promotion of hatred against your opponent, free speech results in people making the right choice. Once the people have chosen in a democracy, it is deemed to be the right choice.

In addition, of course, there has to be consideration to the fact that in a free and democratic society, the groups which are more powerful and more prolific have the ability to defend themselves in a free and open manner, and to demonstrate that the hatred promoted against them in unjustified on the facts. We, in a free and democratic society, are supposed to believe and do believe in all other matters, with that degree of discussion, only truth could possibly promote hatred, and truth will always overcome irrational unjustified hatred. To believe otherwise is to deny the common intelligence of mankind upon which rests the belief in universal suffrage, democratic elections, and representation by population.

For this reason, truth is a defence under Section 319(2), just as it is to the accusation of defamation of an individual, and it’s in the court of public opinion, not a court of law, that these major issues should be debated. Even Nazis have a right to participate in that. After all, they’re well and truly vilified and demonized in the liberal press. I guess it’s okay to promote hatred against them, white supremacists as they are. So obviously, it depends on whose ox is gored as to whether hatred is accepted or not, and it is clear that Section 319(2) gives the legal upper hand to the majority to crush and criminalize the minority, hardly a demonstration of tolerance.

Secret Euthanasia Practiced in Canada

Hospitals in Canada are routinely causing premature death in elderly and infirm patients, probably in a desire to free up beds, or in the alternative to reduce health care costs at the end of life. This is, in fact, contrary to the Criminal Code (section 215), because there is a duty to provide necessaries of life.

Recently in the United Kingdom, a prominent doctor has revealed that approximately 170,000 people under the National Health Service have been prematurely euthanized using something called the “Liverpool Care Path,” which is the withholding of food and water, resulting in death within approximately three days. The necessaries of life include food and water.

In circumstances of which I am aware, an elderly patient who had suffered a stroke signified to his friends that he wished to receive food and water. The friends brought water and Ensure, a liquid food supplement which he eagerly accepted and drank. The hospital authorities refused to allow the friends readmission to see the patient and he was denied intravenous and his friends were told he was not allowed to have food or water. He died shortly thereafter. The friends, including a Power of Attorney, were prevented from visiting this friend during this period because a near relative was alleged to be in charge of determining what degree of medical care he would receive.

In my view at least, regardless of any relative, friend, Power of Attorney, or anyone else, the necessaries of life cannot be withheld from a person willing and able to receive them. In this case, it would appear that was the only inference that I personally could observe from the facts of which I was informed. Similar troubling circumstances are now being brought to my attention in a hospital in Ontario, where even a wife with a Power of Attorney is being denied access to her husband.

Somewhere along the line it appears that the authorities in charge of hospitals are taking steps to accomplish the premature death of people, who although in the end death may be inevitable for them, and indeed for all of us at some point, would not have happened but for the intervention of this form of care, which in my view at least is not care at all but deliberate euthanasia.

With abortion being generally recognized, and people demanding the right to have “assisted suicide,” I hope the difference between assisted suicide and euthanasia does not become obscured so that hospitals and health care professionals take in upon themselves to decide who “wants to die,” and terminate their lives at a more and more rapid pace to eliminate troublesome people and perhaps those who are near death anyway. I believe in the right of natural death and the end of life being the result not of withholding of necessaries, but the natural consequence of the divine plan for the life of man, which does not involve anyone withholding food and water from another living human being who wants it.

I’m extremely troubled by the information that I’ve been provided and post this blog in the hope that it will stimulate discussion on what I think at the moment is a tacit and somewhat secret program, all too frequently reported to me at least by people who are intimately involved with their loved ones. I have no doubt that if this trend continues unimpeded, the “Liverpool Care Path” will be one upon which more and more baby boomers are going to be delivered or pushed depending on how you look at it.

27% of Albertans Support Alberta Separation!

Today's front page article in the National Post divulges the recent poll result that 27% of Albertans support Alberta separation:

Quebec separation meets ambivalence as more Canadians say they ‘don’t really care’: John Ivison | Full Comment | National Post

This amazing development is a recognition that our work as Western Separatists since 1974 has been effective. Everyday from bilingualism on West Jet to frustration with Ottawa taxation, to realization that Harper has to represent Ontario and Quebec, Albertans are waking up to the reality that they are surrendering their freedom and prosperity to a government they can't control, whose goal is to plunder them.

This reality has been the same since the beginning. The realization has not. Reform and all its false promises has been explored fully and exhausted. Time has now demonstrated Alberta and the West have no alternative but independence for survival and prosperity.

In some small way, I am proud to have contributed to this awakening! No surrender. Free the West!

Free to be offensive: My Appearance on Ezra Levant's Show

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Thoughts on Canada, the IMF, the Banking Crisis, Censorship, and the Common Thread: Socialism

Mulcair in Alberta:

Mr. Mulcair in Alberta, after flying over the “tar sands” as he calls them and being suitably impressed by their “awesome nature,” has stated that we have “internalized environmental costs.” This, I think means that we should raise prices by introducing environmental levies, depress resource markets by inflating prices, and thereby help out Ontario’s manufacturing industries.

Mulcair’s careful insult to Alberta and the resource sectors of Alberta and Saskatchewan is a brilliant political strategy. He needs to impress half the voters of Ontario and three quarters of the voters or Quebec who already agree with him. They resent Alberta even though Quebec receives billions of dollars in equalization every year.

Canadian Equalization:

On the subject of equalization, the National Post is running an interesting series on the costs of nature of equalization payments between the provinces. Some of the columnists have suggested that equalization could be made more equitable to stimulate resource production in places like Quebec, which probably deliberately suppresses its resource revenues, particularly from hydroelectric power, in order to continue to qualify for equalization. But what is the political incentive to do so? There is none. Equalization is a government-subsidized welfare scheme to take from the hard working middle class taxpayers of rich provinces like Alberta, Saskatchewan, and BC, and distribute to the wealthy bureaucratic elites of the so called “poor” provinces who make themselves deliberately poor, and which are encouraged to remain recipients of equalization.

International Equalization:

Looking at the situation in Europe, the European community is asking the International Monetary Fund for more than the $320 billion in additional funding it has already provided to assist in rescuing Greece. It wants $400 billion more. This again is international equalization from the middle class taxpayers of rich countries like Canada to the pampered bureaucrats of the artificially poor socialist countries of Europe who have overextended socialism beyond their productive means. This, of course, is typical of Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain. The internationalist elite of all political stripes have recently been revealed as close buddies. While Mr. Mulcair was in Alberta checking out the oil sands, the Premier of Alberta was at the Bilderberg conference in Virginia and couldn’t meet him. (The leader of the opposition is less important than the Bilderberg conference.)

Canadian / Quebec Elite: Socialists All:

This was further demonstrated recently by the leaking of videotaped coverage of the 2008 birthday party for Mrs. Power Corporation Desmarais, which took place at their luxurious estate in Quebec. In attendance were George H. W. Bush, Jean Chrétien, Brian Mulroney, and Adrienne Clarkson. Interesting to note that all the Canadian political elite, be they Liberal, Conservative, or just establishment like Clarkson, basically all came from and to the province of Quebec for this occasion.

Quebec: The Spoiled Child:

Quebec, the spoiled child of confederation, recipient of billions of dollars in equalization, demonstrates once again that the political elite favour socialism, and socialism favours the political elite. It was designed and explained to people as a way to distribute wealth from the rich to the poor, but ultimately it distributes wealth from the middle class taxpayers to the super-rich elite who make deals with government, much the way that Howard Hughes made deals with the military industrial complex in the United States.

Socialism: The Common Thread:

To top this all off, we see that socialism via Mulcair or via the international community represented by the Bilderbergs or the IMF all amounts to basically the same thing: a birthday party for the super-rich and an increased bureaucratic control which eventually will result in a police state where the biggest crime of all is tax evasion. The government never ceases to delight in telling people how they must pay “their taxes.” The government’s taxes never cease to increase one way or another, as does the strength, power, and authority of the state, diminishing the liberty, initiative, and creativity of the individual.

The United Nations: A Socialist Institution:

Those of us who understand this phenomenon are not surprised by the push to give power to control free speech and the internet to the United Nations. Can you imagine a United Nations bureaucrat, even further removed from any concept of free speech than the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal or various provincial tribunals, and how little power or authority one would have when the costs of representing yourself before such an international tribunal was simply beyond the capacity of anyone. Self-censorship has become the norm here in Canada where people go to jail for writing letters critical of certain groups, and even to question things like the Holocaust as a historical phenomenon results in extensive legal persecution and lengthy criminal and Human Rights Tribunal hearings.

All of this demonstrates that if we take the easy road, run from controversy, pay our taxes, and carry on with the political system we have rather than by a referendum peacefully move to one we prefer, we will eventually end up in a form of individual and political slavery from which there is no peaceful escape.

Independence: The Only Option:

Faced with this reality, Western Canada has no option but independence, to in effect restore the balance between the state and the individual so that the individual, their creative capacity, and their spontaneity and enjoyment of life does not become, as George Orwell predicted in the book 1984, a victim of Big Brother, always at war somewhere in the world, constantly taking away more freedom because of the alleged power of a mysterious foreign terrorist. In the case of “1984”, the terrorist was ironically called Goldstein, and in 2012 although Bin Laden is dead, there remains this nebulous international shifting force against which all liberty must be surrendered in the interests of security.

By the right of democratic referendum, initiative, and recall, Western Canada has the means of prosperity, freedom, and control of the vast territories of Western Canada of, for, and by Western Canadians. It was for the same reason that Americans in 1776 and thereafter decided to separate from the British Empire, which was becoming, as Canada is now, a centralized bureaucratic extracting force, willing to take whatever it needed from its various colonies, much as Ottawa takes and equalizes from its various provinces.

If we don’t create our own media, address these issues in a rational, constructive, peaceful, and democratic way, our adversaries will have the capacity to isolate, alienate, and criminalize each of us. We must stand together or we’ll all hang separately. Let freedom and truth prevail, where truth and error are free in rational discourse to refute each other. Political change is essential for the vital function of the state, which is to protect and preserve the liberty, property, and dignity of the individual. Free the West!

Debate Regarding Western Separatism

There is an interesting argument between someone called "Da Bear" and me on a fascinating forum called Puget Sound Radio. You might want to take part in this discussion which is still going on. Click here to visit Puget Sound Radio and follow this discussion.

A National Energy Policy?

The National Post, on Saturday the 26th of May, 2012, at the beginning of the Financial Post section, had a large article by Claudia Cattaneo regarding “The Trouble with Resetting Canada’s Energy Spine”. TransCanada Pipeline was looking to raise rates or even switch its namesake pipeline from gas to oil, which may create a huge controversy.

I read the article carefully, and as far as I can see, what it amounts to is offloading the costs of shipping western oil east onto Western Canadian consumers. I quote the article, as follows:

“After years of unsuccessful negotiation, TransCanada presented a restructuring proposal to the NEB (National Energy Board) in the fall it says achieves ‘the greatest good for the greatest number’ – but that doesn’t seem to make anyone happy. It’s the reason the proposal has landed before the NEB for a ruling.”

My comment is that the greatest good for the greatest number generally means the greatest good for the people of Ontario and Quebec where this pipeline will end.

Quoting further, the article says:

“Western Canadian gas producers find many of TransCanada’s arguments outrageous and its restructuring proposal a way of transferring Western Canadian wealth to the East.”

This, to my mind, is exactly what has happened all too often in the transfer of wealth from the energy sector to the consumers of Eastern Canada, so they can have cheap gas and oil. It is, in effect, requiring Western Canadians to pay and subsidize the main line to Central Canada. The article goes on to say:

“Western Canadians find it ‘very offensive’ that the regional carrier, NGTL, might subsidize the Mainline, said Nikol Schultz, vice president for pipeline regulation and general counsel at the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, which will represent producers interests at the hearings.”

The article concludes with the suggestion that probably it would be better for Eastern Canada to pay the world price for oil and gas, relying on the shale gas production from the Eastern United States, rather than having it shipped all the way from Alberta on a “Canada Mainline.” The article in its final paragraph says:

“Whether it’s in the business of shipping oil or gas, producers believe it’s time for TransCanada, as the owner of the mainline to start bearing the risk of its choices, rather than shifting it to others.”

In my opinion, shifting it others (Western Canadian gas consumers) is exactly what the NEB and TransCanada are likeliest to do. In the present political climate, no Western Canadian Prime Minister is ever going to rock this boat when it would cost him the votes of Ontario and Quebec.

Therefore, I find this whole controversy another strong argument why Western Canada should not be trying to ship its gas and oil to the consumers of Eastern Canada, but rather should be shipping it to the port of Prince Rupert, from where it can be sold at the highest possible price to the consumers of Korea, China, Japan, and probably in the future, India and Indonesia.

There is no long term benefit from a pipeline that ships oil and gas from Alberta to the consumers of Quebec so that they can have cheap energy at the expense of Western Canadian consumers or oil and gas producers. Let the revenues from the resources remain in the land where the resources come from and you will see a developing industry, secondary manufacturing, and a reduction in the costs of living and taxation that Western Canada has every right to expect from retaining the ownership, use, and profit from the resources located here for the long term benefit of Western Canadians.

This is something Ottawa can never do for us, and the National Energy Board as they call it will simply do the political thing again, and make the people of the West subservient providers to the consumers of the East in the interests of the political survival of whatever party happens to be in power in Ottawa.

"Quebec and the Fairy Godmother"

Some time ago, Lisa Corbella, the editorial page editor of the Calgary Herald, published an article entitled “Quebec and the Fairy Godmother.” I quote from it, almost completely, as follows:

Quebec and the Fairy Godmother

Today, let’s have some fun and play Fairy Godmother to Quebec. Let’s grand the province the wish it articulated in Copenhagen. Wave the magic wand and poof, wish granted. Shut down Alberta’s oilsands, except, since it’s Quebec making the wish, we have to call it tarsands, even though it’s not tar they use to run their Bombardier planes, trains and Skidoos.

Ah, at last! The blight on Canada’s reputation shut down. All those dastardly workers from across Canada living in Fort McMurray, Calgary and Edmonton out of jobs, including those waitresses, truck drivers, nurses, teachers, doctors, pilots, engineers etc. They can all go on Employment insurance like Ontario autoworkers and Quebec parts makers!

Closing down Alberta’s oil industry would immediately stop the production of 1.8 million barrels of oil a day. Supply and demand being what it is, oil prices will go up and therefore the cost at the pump will go up, too, increasing the cost of everything else.

…

The 530-square-kilometre piece of land currently disturbed by the oilsands (which is smaller than the John F. Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Fla. At 570 square kilometres) must be reclaimed by law and will return to Alberta’s 381,000 square kilometres of boreal forest, a huge carbon sink…

Quebec, of course, has clean hydro power, but more than 13,000 square kilometres were drowned for the James Bay hydroelectric project, permanently removing that forest from acting as a carbon sink.

…

Quebec hasn’t made a net contribution to the rest of Canada for a very long time. This is not to be critical (after all, Fairy Godmothers never criticize), it’s just a fact. In 2009, Albertans paid $40.46 billion in income, corporate and other taxes to the federal government and received back just $19.35 billion in services and goods from the feds. That means the rest of Canada got $21.1 billion from Albertans or $5,742 for each and every Alberta man, woman and child. In 2007 (the last year national figures are available), Alberta sent a net contribution of $19.49 billion to the ROC or $5,443 per Albertan – more than three times what every Ontarian contributes at $1,757. Quebecers, on the other hand, each received $627 net or a total of $8 billion, money which was designed to help “equalize” social programs across the country.

…

The July 2009 Canadian Energy Research Institute (CERI) report states that between 2008 and 2032, the oilsands will account for 172,000 person-years or employment in Ontario during the construction phase, plus 640,000 for operations over the 25-year period. For Quebec, the oilsands will account for 84,000 person-years of employment during the construction phase, plus 292,000 for operations over the 25-year period.

…

The dream of many Quebecers to form their own nation and separate from Canada has died at last. Alas, in Alberta, separatist sentiment has risen dramatically, citizens vote to separate and the oil and gas industry returns.

Albertans start to pocket that almost $6,000 for each person that used to get sent elsewhere and now their kids get free tuition. Fairy Godmother’s work is done. Wish granted. Quebecers must now sign up for foreign worker visas to work in Alberta to send their cheques back home so junior can start saving up to pay for college.

My comments are as follows:

1.) If, in 2009, Alberta surrendered a loss of $21-billion to subsidize the rest of Canada, which in the hands of Quebecers is now being used to subsidize their university education, and if as quite correctly alleged, the oil sands will generate 170,000 person-years of employment in Ontario and 84,000 person-years of employment in Quebec, why should this money and these jobs go to Ontario and Quebec when they could provide for the people in Western Canada who live here?

2.) Why should we continue to subsidize a bankrupt government in Ottawa that annually goes deeper in debt, while a Western Canadian government could be self-supporting with all our government services paid for with reduced taxation?

3.) Why should Western Canadians continue to cater to the Ontario preference for a multicultural society with bilingualism everywhere, while we in Western Canada have to listen to bilingual announcements on WestJet airlines?

4.) Why should Western Canadians in Fort McMurray, Prince Rupert, or anywhere else, be held to ransom by foreign-subsidized “environmental groups” receiving vast sums of donations from American corporate entities while Western Canadian jobs are held to ransom by an Ottawa-based decision making process?

5.) Why shouldn’t Western Canadians have their own country, with their own Parliament, with a regionally-elected Senate, and the rights of referendum, initiative, and recall, which would give all Western Canadians a feeling of participation in their own government for a change?

6.) Why shouldn’t lower taxation be translated into greater respect for private property and perhaps a constitutional entrenchment of that right, which the Ottawa government has not and will not give us?

7.) Why should Western Canadians continue to allow decisions to be made where the decision makers are primarily elected in Quebec and Ontario, where the Supreme Court of Canada is appointed primarily from Quebec and Ontario with six of the nine judges coming from those provinces, and the Senate and central Canadian media, owned, operated and dominated from Quebec and Ontario? Why is this good for us and why should we continue to pay for it?

8.) What is the reason and benefit behind all the wonderful analysis of Lisa Corbella if it doesn’t provide a positive alternative in a Western Canadian independence that makes all the economic sense in the world?

9.) Why does Lisa Corbella have to address the subject as if she was a “fairy godmother,” knowing full well that the changes that will be inflicted on Western Canada in the name of environmentalism and by the transfer process will inevitably kill the oil sands and the pipeline to deliver to the hungry consumers of China, India, and the Pacific Rim?

10.) Why do we need a fairy godmother to pretend when actually Western Canadians could, if they chose in a referendum, make these wishes which were always tongue-in-cheek less likely to be a reality?

11.) If we need a fairy godmother, why wouldn’t we want one that would give us our wishes and not accomplish the dire and destructive preferences of the central Canadian establishment, who have one sole goal – that is to keep Western Canada as a captive audience for provision, at less than world market price if possible, of oil, natural gas, fresh water, fishery, forestry, mining, and agriculture, to the rapacious spendthrift governments of Ontario and Quebec? Why should we continue to put up with this?

These are questions that Lisa Corbella and those who only complain about the problem, never really ask. It seems it’s so much easier to pretend than deal with the real world and do something about it. At least with the Western Block, Western Canada Concept, and my efforts since 1974, there was a clear alternative provided and an answer that would make Western Canada a better alternative.

Multiculturalism vs. Religious Freedom

How many times have I tried to explain that official multiculturalism should never be allowed to trump individual rights to freedom of religion or expression? I argued this in the Keegstra case, in the Zundel case, in the Malcolm Ross case, and in various human rights cases as recent as the case of Terry Tremaine. The Human Rights laws have so far reigned supreme in the name of tolerance.

The contrary argument goes that the goal of religious, racial, and ethnic harmony supersedes the rights of free speech and freedom of religion because if free speech or freedom of religion were superior individual rights they could cause intolerance. Of course they could. Of course they will. Speech and religion will inevitably express views advocating the superiority of one culture, race, religion, or sexual orientation over another. True tolerance is the tolerance given to one person by another to say A is right and B is wrong. The great questions of morality, ethnicity, culture, language, or philosophy to the extent they are important at all will inevitably claim one is right and the other is wrong. When we ask if we should allow this, the first and more important question to ask first is which is true.

To the liberal, the answer is nothing is true or false, because all truths are merely opinions and they are equal and must be tolerated. This is where the liberal and the believer part company. So far, the liberal has been able to silence the believer by force of law using the trump card of multiculturalism, which criminalizes the believer in any religious, racial, moral, or ethnic superiority. Multiculturalism is a state religion, and religious belief of any other kind cannot peacefully co-exist.

Multiculturalism is the new totalitarianism which the Canadian state has enshrined as a state religion. The place of the inquisition has been taken by the Human Rights Tribunals. Nothing could more clearly demonstrate this than the new Alberta Education Act, which incorporates the Human Rights Act. The combination will make it illegal for a school, public or private, to teach the correctness of any religion over another or that homosexuality is wrong.

The Human Rights Act in every classroom will make it illegal for a teacher to tell any unpleasant truth about a race, religion, or sexual practice which might cause discrimination. This, 30 years after the fact, seems to point at the Keegstra case.

Quebec’s new “ethnic and religious culture” curriculum aims to teach religious tolerance by teaching that religious differences don’t matter. As Father Raymond de Souza put it: “If you are a Muslim parent who wants to teach your child that Islam is superior to being an atheist or being a witch, the education system will teach the opposite.” There are no exemptions. All children must go to these classes. The Supreme Court of Canada, the ultimate authority in Canada in these matters agrees. Parents have no right to disagree with the State religion.

Similarly in Ontario, the government demands schools teach homosexuality is right and proper under the guise of defeating bullying. They are not satisfied to stop bullying by punishing the bullies. They demand a moral affirmation of homosexuality as well.

So everyone is free to teach their children one set of morals, religious values, or cultural beliefs at home, so long as they surrender their children to the State to be taught the opposite in many cases. It is the State’s version upon which they will be tested and if they disagree, they will be marked down and held up to scorn and ridicule by or in front of their peers. That, the State teaches, is teaching tolerance.

The Libyan Experience & Western Canada

In Libya, we managed using force from 40,000 feet to kill Moamar Gaddafi and now separatism is breaking out. The region of Cyrenaica (an old Roman province) from Ras Lanuf on the Mediterranean to the Egyptian border, and from the Mediterranean to Chad contains three quarters of Libya’s oil reserves and desires to separate. What was their grievance?

They claim under Gaddafi, this oil rich eastern province was marginalized and exploited to support the dictator’s popularity in the densely populated areas of Tripolitania and Fezzan. This sounds very familiar.

How ironic that Nato has achieved the hiving off of the oil rich region which no doubt will be more than willing to sell oil at a reasonable price in exchange for independence. The residents of this area will no doubt be better off individually, freer as a people, and better able to preserve their democratic rights and legal and cultural identity than subordinated to the Libyan version of Ontario which Moamar Gaddafi had so carefully manipulated.

Everywhere in the world, small nations are emerging from resource-based economies, which are better able to reflect the democratic will of the people in the land where they live. Usually this is by force of arms. Here in Canada, we have a legal method – The Clarity Act – whereby this can be achieved by the peaceful means of a democratic referendum. Why should we blindly surrender to the Ontario dictatorship and more than Cyrenaica did the Gaddafi dictatorship? They had to fight for their freedom. All we have to do is wake up, organize, and vote!

Some Thoughts on a Jail Visit

When I arrived here, I was told by control that because my clients “A” and “B” were in segregation and there was a program running (i.e. the general population inmates were in the yard), A and B could not be brought through the yard to the visitation area. Thus, all my plans of a 45-minute visit were tossed out the door.

“Control” told me I could leave or I would wait 25 minutes to speak to my clients. This is so typical of the prison in which we are all being gradually required to live. The authorities create conflicts which they alone can mediate, solve, and harmonize. Thus, the elites acquire special significance and justification by bringing law and order to a chaotic world, a chaos they themselves created. How similar this is to the growing body of complex laws which only benefit the bureaucrats, the lawyers, the police, the judges, the elite, while it lays up heavier and heavier burdens on the lives and increases the taxes for ordinary people.

In fact, over the last 40 years of visits to prisons in my country, I have developed an insight into the general direction of society as a whole as it grows progressively more restrictive, controlling, authoritarian, intrusive, and complex. So few people are able to see the big picture. We are developing into a massive prison or police state, and nobody seems to notice. Politicians of all stripes and all parties compete with each other, promising to develop more and more rules, regulations, and punishments to gradually impose on society a prohibition on anything fun, anything profitable, anything original, anything which builds bridges between the various isolated special interests and islands of special rights which the state has done its best to isolate and alienate from one another.

The State seeks to be the arbiter of all conflict which the State has encouraged and arranged between its various competing special interest groups. Pretty soon, they will have us all in a form of protective custody where no one can talk to anyone else. By such a means, communication at the personal level, on anything important that they understand, is eliminated in favour of the rule of and by control. No wonder Chief Justice McLachlin says they have to deal with facebook and Twitter who might not support the justice system. No wonder communication and free speech are the real battlefield. The State must silence all criticism. That is control.

I have waited for 30 minutes and still no clients. If I was being paid at even the rate of a junior lawyer of say $200/hour, who would pay for that? Does society care? I will pay with half an hour of my life. The system makes no exceptions. Control will be obeyed. If you want to see your client, you will wait. This is a jail. You are not entitled to special treatment. The bureaucracy has rules. Nobody contradicts control. More and more, the system has rules. They do not vary. There are no exceptions. You can wait or you can go. Your client, your time, your life means nothing. You have a panic button you can press in an emergency, but God help you if you press it and there is no emergency, only an inconvenience. You will be dealt with.

These thoughts run through my mind as I wait and consider the prison as a microcosm of society. I must share these thoughts as a word of warning to the Western World. If these words sound familiar, I am aware of the writer who originally chose them. Very apt they truly are.

Thoughts on The Iron Lady

Having recently seen the movie, The Iron Lady, and read the reviews previous to that, I can understand why many left wing reviewers dislike this movie.

It demonstrates, above and beyond all other possible examples, that one man of courage, or in this case a woman, constitutes a majority. The vast majority of so-called conservatives are nothing but imitation socialists of a more moderate persuasion. The irony of Margaret Thatcher's life is that as an individual, she triumphed over a collectivist mentality within her own party but only for a time.

As age advances, it becomes inevitable that the majority of those who prefer mediocrity to perfection or anything close to it, and compromise as opposed to truth or justice, will bring down those individuals who rise above the herd.

Gratitude

I took a walk on Dallas Road, today, February 7th, 2012, after completing one-half my cancer treatments.

Free Speech the Modern Battlefield

I remember being wakened on the morning of January 23, 2012 by a radio announcer attributing words to Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin in a speech to students at Carleton University. It was stated “she wondered whether fairness and accuracy might be lost in the world of Facebook, Tweets, and instant messaging,” and the justice system must learn to deal with social media such as Twitter and Facebook. These remarks, I thought, must surely misrepresent her views and are probably taken out of context, as I have seen the media do so often with me.

So I decided to wait until I could see the media coverage in more detail. I finally obtained the Globe and Mail article of January 23 which revealed even more startling statements.

The title of the article read “Chief Justice muses about the impact of Twitter, Facebook on Canadian justice,” which caused me to observe on later examination of the articles that judges shouldn’t “muse.”

The premise that immediately leapt out at me was the assertion attributed to the Chief Justice that “the media in general are essential to building trust in the administration of Justice.” Really? I thought the duty of the 5th Estate was to criticize, hold accountable, and question the administration of justice. How much would have had an unjust result if the media viewed its job as building public trust? It was books critical of the justice system which finally reversed the Truscott decision. Too often the public trust built by the media in the justice system gives us a Milgaard case where 25 years too late, an innocent man is released from a false allegation, only by someone who writes and for good cause, undermines trust in the administration of justice when that administration is clearly wrong. But the clarity of the wrong is never clear at the beginning. For 25 years, the system said Truscott, Milgaard, Sophenow, Morin, and many others were guilty, when they really were not. Does the Chief Justice think these injustices only occur in first degree murder cases? Should there always be public trust in the administration of justice? What if the courts are wrong? Why shouldn’t the media point this out? Why should the judiciary be above criticism? I say the media need to criticize the administration of justice.

So why does the Chief Justice require media trust building? Because she is now the authority. Authority always demands protection for itself and it has the means to achieve it.

Chief Justice McLachlin also wondered whether fairness and accuracy might be lost in the world of Facebook, tweets, and instant messaging.

One might equally wonder whether people in conversation are fair and accurate, but should it matter? Where should regulation stop? Don’t we want people to discuss the justice system in their own words, or should they just agree? Should the justice system co-opt and regulate the media of modern discussion: the internet.

As one who is frequently misquoted, misrepresented, and vilified in the media, I would say the media are already unfair and inaccurate. She only has a different view because given her position of power and prestige; the media are always deferential, respectful, and solicitous. The mainstream media and the establishment go hand in hand. The mainstream media have the guile to slant the news to make the establishment look good if they know what’s good for them and they do.

Imagine the attitude of someone who says “Some bloggers will be professionals and academics providing thoughtful commentary and knowledge. Others will fall short of basic journalistic standards.” What a series of fallacies and false assumptions are inherent in these two statements. First, the fallacy of authority, as if academics and professionals are not biased and have no evil intent, but only objectively present analysis. Some do and some don’t. Academia and the professions are rife with political motives, intrigue, and self-serving cliques. I well remember the Milgaard case was seen as so exemplary it was in our evidence text in the late 1960s. Secondly, basic journalistic standards are a problematic assertion. What are they? My experience is that there aren’t any if you are unpopular, and if you are popular or powerful like the Chief Justice of Canada, you just have to mention those words and heads nod in agreement as they do to most of your statements.

Finally, how can “Twitter inform the public accurately or adequately in 140 characters or less the real gist of a complex constitutional decision?” Here to me we see a series of questionable assumptions. Firstly, what Supreme Court of Canada decision lately even hopes to inform the public, being usually in 140 paragraphs or pages, not characters? The various paragraphs, complex language, and conflicting dissents frequently leave lawyers in doubt. Older decisions of the court 60 years or more ago, before the era of cut and paste, were short, simple, and comprehensible, so where do long decisions lead us? To even longer commentary and confusion as well as an intellectually sterile, incomprehensible, technical language, which is better suited to occult societies than public understanding. The use of terms of art so typical of Supreme Court writing is specifically designed to exclude the public and build the professional monopoly of the elite. If the Supreme Court wants “real gist” (which seldom can be found) to be publicly understood, maybe they should write short, comprehensible, simple, and principled judgements rather than criticize much less ban Twitter.

It’s one thing for judges to decide to regulate their own behaviour, perhaps not musing in public, but it’s another for them to tell the public how they can communicate their observations and opinions about the justice system.

The regulation of online publicity is really impossible if you allow one person to communicate to another, because they will do so about the courts and justice as well. The hardest thing is to lose control of the messages, especially about yourself, as I have come to know from the selective, one-sided, seemingly uncorrectable Wikipedia biography of me. But any public figure knows the alternative is worse. To control what others say about you by force of law is impossible except for blatant false statements of fact, which seldom go unpunished. For the rest – fair comment – which usually isn’t fair, we have to grin and bear it. If we do, why should the courts be any better protected? Or does the Chief Justice really prefer an elite of professionals and academics to decide what we think?

On the Sinking of the Costa Concordia

The captain abandons his ship and claims he fell overboard. This is a metaphor for more than the Italian political scene. All current leadership in the Western World -- Britain, Europe, USA, Canada, Australia -- all are sleep walking to disaster with the same attitude as the Captain of the Costa Concordia who ordered dinner after the ship struck a rock over which he had driven his 3000 passengers, a rock which eviscerated his boat.

The political leaders of all major nations are driving by disastrous shallow waters in the Middle East, Afghanistan, Iraq, and beyond, to waive to the lobby in their domestic political scene. They preen and perform their ritual dances at elections, while enormous unfunded liabilities are increased and they build up burdens on people and powers of oppression in their governments. soon, they will strike a rock.

When they do, you can expect them, like the Italian captain, to blame their circumstances on others and leave no one in charge to handle the disaster they created. They will Schettino us all and scuttle the ship. The collapse of Rome was followed by almost 1,000 years of retrogressive disaster. For example, the bridge over the Danube the Romans had built and abandoned after 450 AD was not replaced until 1840.

The real progress of the last 500 years is in jeopardy from the world's shallow leadership, who dress like a captain but don't really know how to drive the boat or why.

Wikipedia’s Brave Stand

Wikipedia has done no favours for me. In fact, their reports on me are evidhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifently slanted to portray me in a negative way, but I agree with and admire their stand on SOPA and PIPA. The U.S. Congress and legislators around the world are always looking for some altruistic or moral excuse to control the flow of influence and knowledge.

It is vitally important that everyone becomes aware of the inherent danger of allowing any government regulator anywhere to control, regulate, and thus cripple the small independent sources of unofficial information on small websites around the world who can’t afford to fight. In essence, the Congress and Senate in total ignorance (I hope) are sounding more and more like the Communist Party of China. Media control, knowledge control, thought control… stop it now or regret it later!

America has been the last best bastion of freedom. This fight is worth the effort. Congratulations to Wikipedia. I will write the State Department, or better still phone the consulate of the United States where I live.

Equal Rights for All!

The above article, which appeared in the Times Colonist on January 11, 2012, clearly demonstrates the great danger of special rights based on race. The inherrent capacity for convoluted interpretations of these special rights is indicitive of the confusion that will emerge when these rights are gradually expanded, as they appear to be. We as a country have disavowed the concept of discrimination on the basis of race, with the exception of course of all the special status accorded to those who consider themselves "First Nations." The concept of a nation state attributable to a small indiginous band is inherrently falacious and contradicts the importance of equality rights for all citizens. There cannot be a stable, sensible society with concepts of "Indiginous rights" which are distinct from those of the general population. It will, in the end, produce resentment and inequitable distribution of legal rights, which after all should be accorded without distinctions as to race.

It is part of the inherrent nature of Canada, inherited from the British Crown and its declarations of the ancient past (like the Royal Proclamation of 1764) in circumstances vastly different than present day circumstances that these special rights exist.

Western Canada, if independent, would not be a successor government of the government of Canada or of the Imperial Parliament of England. As such, we could define our legal and political rights in a distinct and fair manner. This is impossible under the present constitutional arrangement, as the Supreme Court of Canada has consistently upheld various versions of legal rights based on racial distinctions of supposedly indiginous origin. This is another reason why, unless independence is accomplished for Western Canada, the end result will be a demoralized, chaotic conflict between racial groups and rights based upon racial categories. This is quite the contrary to what everyone claims to espouse in the Canadian political system.

The Futility of Foreign Aid

Canada, I am told, gave $1-billion to Haiti for reconstruction, where I am also told that 500,000 are still homeless.

One wonders if there is actual effective assistance given for this money since so little is achieved, or if the systemic corruption which plagues Haiti is the cause. What value is there to sending money to a broken system like Haiti or Afghanistan?