Vol. XX , No. 9 September 2002
The Western Separatist Papers has been
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or fax us at: 250-479-3294
Once in awhile, if you don't evade it, you have moments of crystalline clarity about the state of this country and why it is that way. This happened to me recently when I was preparing and filing some documents for Doug in a case in the B.C. Court of Appeal, relating to the BC Securities Commission. Doug was out of town on another case, and all I had to do was to type up, format, print the appeal factum (arguments of one side of the dispute) and file it before the deadline. Sounded simple, especially considering that I have done many of these before, in many different courts and cases.
And it would have been simple except that recently the court rules, as in many different jurisdictions, have been revamped with a view to “simplifying” the procedure. I had heard that this change created havoc among the lawyers, their secretaries and legal assistants because it is so nit-picking and conversely, vague, in parts, that grown lawyers have been known to throw their stacks of appeal books on the floor of the court registry and stomp away in disgust and rage because of the power it has given certain bureaucrats to derail cases. I didn't quite believe these stories until I was working with Doug's secretary to get this particular set of books completed.
We started out with lots of time, giving ourselves several days grace. The books were prepared according to what the rules seemed to specify and I sent them downtown to the registry with the fellow who often takes things there to get that precious stamp denoting that they have been accepted by the head registrar, and will therefore make their way through the process to the judges. He called us back right away to say that they had been rejected because the covers were the “wrong shade of buff.” Now I had used the same card stock that previously had been accepted by the courts of appeal in BC, Ontario, Alberta, and New Brunswick, as well as the Supreme Court of Canada. To say that I was shocked at the frivolity of this action, was an understatement.
Our helper therefore had to take the books, together with a sample of the supposedly approved buff cover to a printers and get the whole factum rebound with a slightly different buff-colored cover. He did this the same day, took it back to the registrar and was once more rejected, this time for some unstated non-compliance.
I got the books back that night and sat scrutinizing the rules, searching for our misdemeanours. It appeared that there was one wrong heading on a section. I fixed that in all six copies and prepared to go in the next day myself to attempt to file the copies. As background to this, we have had the advice of the previous registrar for this court, who has gone out into the private sector with a business to actually prepare these books for the process, charging lawyers for his assistance. Perhaps the new registrar resents his knowledge and common sense approach, and the fact that he's making a thriving business out of doing something that lawyers and their secretaries previously had done for themselves quite easily. What amazed me initially was the attitudes of everyone who has had anything to do with getting things filed, that they figured there was no way they could do it right the first time, that they accepted the proposition that the registrar should be able to reject things without telling us why she was rejecting them. On the one hand she's there to interpret the rules enough to stamp or not stamp our documents, but on the other hand she says she's “not there to interpret the rules” for us! Is this not the epitome of bureaucratic dominion? I came naively and innocently to the slaughter!
Taking my two children, we went to the courthouse the next day with the stack of books. We had to leave and come back later since the registrar herself was out and it was obviously not good enough to deal with an underling. When we came back to confront her with our books, she took one brief glance at them and told me they were rejected. I must admit that at this point I raised my voice loud enough so that the rest of the registry staff as well as others in the line-up could hear me request that she put in writing specifically why she was rejecting them. The trick is that they usually take you to the side and tell you quietly to go back and do it again. Instead, I went with her, page by page through the factum, and rule by rule, trying to call her bluff. I told her that the Vancouver registry had laughed when we told them that she had rejected our factum for having the wrong shade of buff, and then claimed not to have done that. I pointed out that our numbers were close enough to the edge of the page, as she had directed, and that other trivial items were properly done.
As it happened though, I was doomed, since there was a vague rule about whether the chronology should be bound on the left or the right. Traditionally, facta are bound on the right with the text to the left so that right-handed judges and counsel can easily make notes on the right hand (blank) page. So two pages were bound on the wrong side! The judges are so helpless, it seems, that they would not be able to find those two pages if they were bound the wrong way. This necessitated another trip back to the office to redo those pages. And a return trip to get them finally filed, which they were later that day. But this entire process took up days of time, involving many people, all for babyish minutiae. The costs of the appeal increase. It is the perfect slave state, where we have no chains, just fear of the bureaucrat's verdict. Of course the exact shade of buff is only a pretext. The real issue is the way concentrating upon such things makes us timid and fearful. As an obviously seasoned warrior of the registry office who was standing in line behind us when we went back for the last time, commented to the children, “They do this to us to beat us down.”
The implementation of form, rather than dealing with the substance of the matter to be decided by the judges, becomes the whole issue. It is as if form is everything now, and legal arguments and justice are only secondary. This is why justice is quite often inaccessible to those who might have a legitimate cause, but who cannot afford the price of all these regulations and their implications. It is why many fine minds abhor the practice of law now, and quit to do something with more productive and predictable results.
The trouble is that when such institutions as the legal system are corrupted everything else suffers.
I am reminded of some businessmen I spoke to recently in Edmonton about the implications of the Kyoto Accord on them. Their view was that since they are involved with information technology, it won't affect them. “We'll work around it,” was their view. Right. – the same old problem with Western Canadians. They don't see that principles affect them all, that harm done to one of their compatriots is harm done to them all. I guess they think that if it hurts the oil and gas industries it won't touch them. Just like the registrar in Victoria.
My experiences there were, as I told her, a revelation as to why this country is in the state that it is, and why it is doomed. Meanwhile, our two children watched carefully, taking note of the way the world really works, lessons not taught in school, but far more valuable.
Keltie Zubko
Totally Disgusting
To the Editor
News that Glen Clark, former Premier, Cabinet Minister and driving force of the NDP for almost ten years wile the NDP was in power, has been found guilty only of an error in judgment in “casino-gate affair” leaves this taxpayer wondering if there's any hope for this province.
Was the fast ferry fiasco – his pet project – an error in judgment as well? Or the cost over-runs on the ALRTs to nowhere? Of Skeena Cellulose? Or the doubling of the provincial debt while he and his cronies were in power?
Give me a break! As far as I'm concerned this man should be in jail on a half dozen counts, and his multi-million dollar pension, seized. Premiers and cabinet ministers are not elected to make “errors in judgment” of this magnitude and frequency, and must be held accountable.
Too bad that our new Premier didn't go ahead with a full judicial enquiry as to where the money went on the Pacificats. Then surely we would have some jail sentences being handed out. But alas, given the unlimited legal assistance afforded ex-MLAs, and the type of judges that keep getting appointed by the self-same MLAs, chances of a conviction there could be slim as well.
And the several million in court costs these Clark affairs have cost the taxpayer could pale by comparison. The lawyers will gain bigtime but the taxpayers lose again.
Talk about accountability in business! Let's start with our provincial politicians first. If leadership is by example, then all we've done is set the stage for more of the same misguided “hanky-panky” and ill-conceived schemes.
Robert Ward
Sidney, B.C.
The Western Separatist Papers welcomes your letters to the editor, including your questions for Doug Christie. Please send them to kzubko@shaw.ca, or WSP, Box 101, 255 Menzies Street, Victoria, B.C. V8V 2G6, or fax them to 250-479-3294.
Views on Kyoto
The following article by Ted Byfield that appeared on September 8, 2002 in The Edmonton Sun (and other papers) conveys some of the major arguments for Independence that Western Canadians should all take to heart.
Kyoto an act of independence
The people of Alberta are about to discover for the second time what kind of a premier they have in Ralph Klein. Has he real guts? Or is he just one more political wimp, talking but not doing, posing but not performing?
What confronts Klein with this crisis is the Kyoto treaty, and the Chretien declaration that he will sign the treaty without Alberta acceptance.
It's important that all Canadians be made to understand what's involved. The treaty will severely damage resource production and development in Alberta, and the fundamental guarantee of Canadian confederation is that the ownership and development of natural resources fall solely under provincial jurisdiction.
This means that when a federal spokesman declares, as many have, that the oil, gas, minerals, forests, hydro potential and lands “belong to all Canadians,” this is a decided misstatement of fact.
They don't “belong to all Canadians.” The hydro potential of Quebec belongs to the people of Quebec. The production potential of the prairie lands of Manitoba and Saskatchewan belongs to the people of those provinces. The oil and gas in Alberta belong to the people of Alberta.
The Canadian Confederation differs here from the American. There, the ownership of natural resources falls to the federal government, not to state governments. Here it falls to the provinces, not to Ottawa. . . . .
When Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau brazenly invaded provincial territory with his national energy program, he was acting as a separatist just as surely as his great rival Rene Levesque with his Parti Quebecois. Trudeau, the supposed champion of Canadian unity, was in fact committing an act of hypocrisy and treason. The West knew this, and that's why they have decisively rejected the federal Liberal party ever since.
Now we have Trudeau's successor in Ottawa doing the same thing, in order to memorialize himself as the “champion of environmentalism.” He is a man without a mandate.
. . . . So what will Klein do?. . . .
But what will he do now? He'll take the Alberta case to the courts, he says. What a laugh. He knows, the courts know, Chretien knows, and most Albertans know that the Supreme Court is the stooge of the federal government. Relying on the court to save the Alberta case amounts to a total capitulation. It signals Ottawa to take what it likes, do what it likes.
But what other option has he? Just this option: If Chretien signs the treaty without Alberta, Klein can correctly take this as an act of separatism by the federal government. He can correctly say that there is now no firm constitutional basis for Alberta's role in Confederation, and that he must govern Alberta on that assumption. To so govern, he needs a new mandate and is calling a provincial election. It would be an election watched by the whole of Canada, in which the gravity of this cavalier Chretien move would become clear. If Klein were returned, which is altogether likely, that would destroy Chretien. Anything less than that will be taken as a clear Ottawa victory and a major defeat for Klein's province.
[end of excerpts]
Commentary:
As so often is the case, only half a solution is offered to a very real and persistent problem. This half-solution is no better than surrender. What does it matter if Ralph Klein were to win a mandate against Ottawa? Once again, commentators are making the defeat of Chretien all that matters. That was the story with Trudeau and the National Energy Policy, and then again with Mulroney. Without a referendum for Independence, supported by Klein, Ottawa will walk all over him with or without a mandate to govern. It's only a mandate to separate which will stop Ottawa plunder and contempt for the West!
The Kyoto accord's hidden menace
by Elizabeth Nickson, National Post, September 10, 2002, excerpts:
Now every conservative knows two things about Kyoto. First that the science is not there. Yes, there is science that indicates we are in a warming trend, however, there is no science that proves conclusively that said warming is the result of human activity. Nor does the science indicate that taking emissions back to pre-1990 levels will have any appreciable effect on that warming, human-caused or otherwise. And in fact, in order to have an appreciable effect on warming, we must go much further to cut back emissions, so far, that it could have a large effect on the GDP of countries like ours -- a cost, per degree saved, on a 50-year horizon, of about 12% of GDP per year. Which means that at least 20% of us would lose our jobs.
Meanwhile, Russia, and other developing countries, who are at present gross offenders as polluters, are allowed to carry on shooting off gunk into the air, while we pay them huge amounts in order to buy their rights to pollute. Income redistribution on a breathtaking scale.
The second thing every thinking human knows about Kyoto is that it will create another vast bureaucracy, which will have the power to invade every corner of commercial life, and much of what people still think of as their private property. Further, this bureaucracy will not answer to Ottawa, finally, it will have some higher, as yet to be determined, tribunal to which it must report. Which means, essentially, that we are relinquishing our rights to the air, water, forests, farms, and minerals of our country to some unnamed, amorphous authority, capable, as we now know, of selling bad science as truth.
[end of excerpts]
Some recommended resources to check out about the Kyoto Accord include the controversial book, The Sceptical Environmentalist by Bjorn Lomborg, and the Website: www.junkscience.com, which contains a great list of books about the environmental issue, and its real effect on the economy and health of the world.
Truth about the Federal Parties
The following excerpts from a column by Diane Francis of the Financial Post, reveal that the process that Western Canadians have long expected from Canadian politics, continues:
Tories once again spurn the West
by Diane Francis, Financial Post, August 27, 2002
Former separatist Premier Lucien Bouchard once said Canada is not a real country. And the old fossils that still run the Tory party are proving him correct.
Once again this weekend, they chose an Alberta-based convention to spurn the West -- a distinct society with its own political proxy that is the Canadian Alliance party, its aspirations and “cultural” values. . . . .
Not only does it guarantee a Liberal victory again (dividing the country, but winning enough seats in Montreal, Toronto and the Maritimes to form a government.) . . . .
Holding the Tory convention in Edmonton was designed to woo the West. Instead, the party insulted westerners. And it is very clear that for the foreseeable future the cleft that truly divides this country -- at the Ontario and Manitoba border -- will widen . . . . .
In other words, Western Canada is a “small a” America -- a heterogeneous place that naturally rejects out of hand government interventions and privileges to groups of any sort. Individualists instead coalesce around shared values -- free enterprise, democracy and justice. And that's what they want their governments to do. To stay out of their way economically and to ensure that freedom and fairness exist.
Meanwhile, the Canada located east of the Ontario-Manitoba border is a “small e” Europe -- tribes who have fought, and looked down on, one another for centuries and vie for privileges and status over one another. . . . .
Joe Clark, John Crosbie and the other dinosaurs this weekend once again disenfranchised the West and those of us who happen to believe that the Canadian Alliance is not the anti-Christ and who disagree that everyone west of Ontario or who votes Alliance is a redneck.
Shame on the Tories. I hope the party is buried for good. And God help Canada.”
[end of article excerpts]
Quebec takes lion's share of sponsorship program
Ottawa – August 27, 2002
Almost 40 per cent of the money awarded through the controversial federal sponsorship program in recent months went to cultural and sporting events in Quebec, by far the largest slice of the pie.
Records released under the Access to Information Act show 149 Quebec projects – from bicycle races to art exhibits – received $5.36 million of the total $13.46 million distributed under the program during the period April through July.
In comparison, $4.12 million was divided among 105 projects in the rest of the nine provinces. . . . The fact almost four of every 10 sponsorship dollars went to Quebec will do nothing to dispel the impression among critics the Chretien Liberals have used the sponsorship program to raise the federal government's profile in the province and secure the allegiance of those who voted Yes in the 1995 sovereignty referendum.” (from Southam newspapers, August 27, 2002, article by Jim Bronskill)
Meanwhile, we hear from Landry that he is giving Quebec 1000 days until sovereignty issue reasserts itself to the benefit of Quebec independence. Must the country continue to pour money down the sinkhole of Quebec, attempting to bribe it into confederation into perpetuity? This is the cost of Confederation.
WCC used as threat once more
A column in the National Post of Tuesday, Sept. 3/02 by Don Martin contained the following. Note the last paragraph.
It appears, with the clock counting down his entry into the history books, Chrétien decided being the nice guy and giving his buddy Klein the promised opportunity to vent was no longer an option.
Besides, if you're going to pick a fight, who better than taking a swing at an Alberta tax haven flirting with debt-free status and posting hefty budget surpluses? It's not expected most Canadians will rally to share their pain.
Now, of course, Klein has a problem of his own. The polls show his voters overwhelmingly support ratifying the climate control treaty despite inflamed warnings of it being a death knell for his provincial economy.
The rub is that the more they understand it, the less they like it. Thus, we're seeing Kyoto enthusiasm derived from ignorance clashing with informed treaty opposition.
So Chrétien may be smart to rush forward without a big consultation blitz lest the implications dawn on the general population and the accord's popularity collapse.
Yet respecting the process, even if consultation will change little in the end, is still important and Alberta has every right to insist a clear promise was violated in the rush to find Chrétien's legacy.
The federal argument that they've endured five years of consultation already is utter hogwash.
Environment Minister David Anderson's department was so lackadaisical about deciphering Kyoto, it wasn't until last May they issued a kaleidoscope of options and implications so fragmented as to be almost meaningless.
Ironically, the most-favoured option was cobbled together in such a hurry, they couldn't wait the six weeks it would take to crunch a credible estimate of its economic impact.
Now, just four months later, Chrétien's declares consultation finished, an incomplete option as his first choice and warns any talk of provincial non-compliance is unconstitutional.
This leaves Canada, a country that puffs out 2% of global gas emissions, saddled with gas reduction targets that were crafted by a prime minister merely to upstage former American president Bill Clinton's plan, a dominant trading partner no longer bound by its provisions.
Kyoto is being imposed via a fast-forwarded process that denies Alberta its right to vent and squeezes debate into a parliamentary timetable where closure on the debate appears inevitable.
Now there's a nasty optic for you. The most invasive international treaty of a generation with potential economic-limiting consequences for Canada's most robust province foisted on Albertans after a limited debate.
Gee, do the words Western Canada Concept ring any bells? They should, `cause the federal bogeyman is back -- and knocking on Alberta's door.
[end of excerpts]
Great innovators and original thinkers and artists attract the wrath of mediocrities as lightning rods draw the flashes.
Theodor Reik
When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.
Edmund Burke
There is no mistake as great as the mistake of not going on.
William Blake
Government is like fire. If it is kept within bounds and under the control of the people, it contributes to the welfare of all. But if it gets out of place, if it gets too big and out of control, it destroys the happiness and even the lives of the people.
Harold E. Stassen
Absolute, arbitrary power over the lives, liberty and property of freemen exists nowhere in a republic, not even in the largest majority.
Kentucky Declaration of Rights - Art. I, Sec. 2 also found in the Wyoming Declaration of Rights Art. I, Sec. 7
It is a perplexing and unpleasant truth that when men already have “something worth fighting for,” they do not feel like fighting.
Eric Hoffer
The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.
Ayn Rand, Author
By Doug Christie
The Kyoto Accord
Once again Jean Chretien is demonstrating how international covenants entered into by some “airy-fairy” bureaucrat and pushed by ideological extremists can become law without debate or legislation. This has happened in regard to so-called human rights, discrimination and 65% of the Communist Manifesto of the international socialists. That is bad enough.
But now Jean Chretien has decided to do with his usual street-fighter guile what Pierre Trudeau did with cold-blooded academic arrogance. He is about to destroy Alberta's economy once again. Albertans have put all their faith back in the system thanks to Preston Manning's “Conform Party” and the “be-knighted alternative” or the “Canadian Compliance Party.” All these were a sandbox for the Western child minds to play in while the Liberals, the perpetual party of Canada made all the decisions.
In 1980 there was a clear and real alternative created by the reasoning power and persuasion of one man, namely myself. That was the separation of Western Canada. I did not come from the Canadian establishment and I had to be stopped. By guile, treachery, and the media power, I was severely hampered. The Western Canada Concept has been a small band of loyal idealists ever since.
But Canada is a socialist country. It was inevitable that it would have to stop the individualistic vitality of Alberta. Where now can Alberta turn for defence of its rights? At least when I advocated separation in 1980 you had a weapon to scare them with! What will you scare them with now? Ralph Klein and Stephen Harper shaking their “notwithstanding” fist to be resolved in the Supreme Court of Canada in favour of the federal government by judges personally appointed by Jean Chretien? What a farce! Stephen Harper hasn't the backbone for separatism.
Now is the time for Albertans to rally once again for separation and demand of their government a referendum with a clear question. I will demonstrate to any reasonable person in one hour there is everything to gain and nothing to lose for Alberta and British Columbia to separate from the slush fund gatherers in Ottawa.
But you, dear reader, will you fight or will you run? Will you support me this time, when the media and others attack, or will you run to the security blanket of the warm clichés that conformists like Preston Manning, Ralph Klein and Stephen Harper have offered in the past? “The West Wants In!” indeed. “The Triple E Senate,” indeed. The only thing Ottawa and all its corrupt politicians and their appointees will give the west is a kick in the teeth until you finally decide its time to leave and mean it, this time.
Farmers going to jail
News Item: The following item appeared in the National Post of September 9, 2002:
Wheat farmers pick jail over paying fines
By Tom Arnold
“A dozen farmers in Alberta are getting ready to go to jail after repeatedly refusing to pay fines imposed following a 1996 demonstration against the Canadian Wheat Board. “We didn't do anything wrong in the first place,” said Ron Duffy, a farmer in Lacombe, Alta. “We just took, in some cases, $8 of wheat into Montana in 1996. I have been in front of 15 judges at this point. We're guilty of taking our own property and selling it to the highest bidder just like absolutely everybody else in the free world can do.”
“Mr. Duffy said he owes $6,500, down from an original penalty of $7,500. He said he took one sack of grain across the border to protest wheat board policies. “It's fish or cut bait time. It's either pay your fine or do your time. They're trying to teach us a lesson: `Do what you're told. You're a peasant farmer. Go back and grow us some more wheat so we can give it away for you.' “
“He said warrants of committal were recently issued by a judge. The farmers have until Oct. 23 to voluntarily show up at jail. The farmers plan to go to Lethbridge in October and turn themselves in. Mr. Duffy said they must serve 16 1/2 days for each $1,000 in fines. His sentence will be 107 days. “I am doing this because the books are absolutely closed [at the Canadian Wheat Board]. There's a secret monopoly. They won't tell us who they sell our grain to, they won't tell us how much they sell it for, they won't tell us what the profit margin is. It is wrong. . . . Why should we be targeted? ... If you're in Ontario, you can sell your grain to anyone you want to. You can do it in British Columbia. The only place you can't do it is Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta.”
“The 12 farmers were convicted and fined in March, 1997, for violating the Canada Customs Act.” [end of article]
Commentary by Doug Christie:
Canada has shown such contempt for Western Canadian wheat producers, it could only be possible if the Western Canadians were such submissive people. Why wouldn't every farmer who goes to jail be a committed separatist? This loyalty to Canada is only based on ignorance. The federal system of judicial hierarchy has ensured that any legal challenge will always be resolved in favour of the federal government who appoint the highest judges. Those who think that the system cares or is capable of self-correction are totally self-deluded. The essence of Canada and its control of Western Canada is reliance on submissive people who will accept whatever tax, regulation or law which issues out of the Ottawa regime.
The sad plight of these Western farmers is made even worse by the realization that very few people understand their plight and even fewer care. The time has come to rise up and build the one and only lawful solution. Separation is legally possible by referendum and is a clear, practical necessity.
Meeting Planned in Edmonton
There will be a meeting of the Western Canada Concept at which Doug Christie will speak on September 20th, 2002 at 7 p.m. at the Ramada Edmonton Inn (by the old Municipal Airport), in the Ridgewood Room. Please come and bring your friends to discuss the implications of the Kyoto Accord on Alberta, and what you can do about it!
Ad for WCC
The following ad is appearing in several papers and Report Magazine. You are encouraged to take the text and get it into your local paper.
ATTENTION WESTERN CANADIANS
Jean Chretien will unilaterally ratify the Kyoto Accord. This takes control of Alberta's oil and gas revenues. Property under the constitution was assigned to the provinces. So what? Chretien runs the trained seals in parliament. Alberta says it will appeal to the Supreme Court in Ottawa. Guess who appointed the majority of Supreme Court Justices? The same Jean Chretien. This is a rip-off like the National Energy Policy! Separation is the only answer capable of building a prosperous free and English-speaking nation.
Join the Western Canada Concept to give Jean Chretien and his Liberals a real fight. We fight for your freedom and our land. Free the West!
Western Canada Concept -- 810 Courtney Street, Victoria, B.C. V8W 1C4, tel (250) 727-3438 fax (250) 479-3294, www.westcan.org