In Answer to My Critics

I know defending Dr. Ahenakew, Mr. Keegstra, Mr. Zundel and others has made me a target for my enemies. It is a lever to trick people into condemning me. But I reasoned that if I did not have the courage to defend the unpopular, free speech would die and Western Canada would be as corrupt and shallow as Canada has become.

Separatism achieves nothing if we don”t have personal freedom. The Ottawa religion seems to have infected minds so deeply that everyone believes it cannot be opposed, much less contradicted. Many people need to be shocked out of this illusion. We are not trying to be like all the politicians of the past.

My character hasn”t changed much since I came to the defense of smaller kids, bullied in the schoolyard of Chapman School in Winnipeg, in the early 50”s. I can”t stand to see an individual attacked by overwhelming power when all they have done is express their opinions, or be themselves. I will always defend such people.

I find bullies repulsive and gang violence most offensive. The one thing I find in common among the thousands of people I”ve defended in the past 35 years as a lawyer, was the fact they needed a defender because they were weak. I became their defender so they would not stand alone against the mob. It seems some people would like leaders who join the mob. Rather like Canada really, isn”t it?

In defending the most unpopular, I have realized what is missing in people, generally. It is simply intellectual courage and principle. To stand for a new nation, at a time when the old one is sinking into the cesspool of discarded ideas, it does no good for people to follow the old patterns and believe the lies of your enemies.

To defend the unpopular is to realize the value of courage and the meaning of discipline. These two lessons are essential to break free of the patterns of the past. I also learned that the most unpopular people are most frequently lied about. To be baited into defending those people might be foolish, the nature of politics being devious, but I believe I have exemplified the high price necessary to pay for freedom and the willingness to pay it.

I could have let the noose of conformity be tightened around all our necks while I quietly pursued my personal political advantage. I could have stayed a Conservative. I could have played the devious games.

But had I done so, by the time I had the popularity to be elected, it would have had no power to change anything. Silence on controversial matters would have been universally imposed by law and conformity to regulations. I concede I have often failed, but have you any idea how much worse for freedom it would have been, if I had not fought?

Stay in the cesspool of organized crime called Canada, reject me, and condemn me, and you just might find out!

It is utterly amazing to hear someone approve of political handlers crafting a policy. Is this the attitude of a separatist or a political opportunist?

If you know anyone more capable — intellectually and morally — to explain, advocate, and defend Western Separatism, I suggest you let us know so we can all follow them. Do you have a name? Is it yourself? What have you done in the last 30 years to make Western Canada a new nation? Do you know someone with the intelligence, moral courage, knowledge and experience, more than I have, to stand for our cause?

If so, please expose this paragon, so I will be able to retire in peace, knowing I have done my duty. To whom should I throw the torch?

Yours for Independence,

Doug Christie

 

Death By Taxation

The state grows and the individual diminishes. This general rule is irrevocable and immutable unless people resist.

Recently I learned from the Ontario Court of Appeal in the case of Dr. Klundert that an honest but mistaken belief about the constitutional validity of the Income Tax Act is no defense to a charge of evasion. This happened in 2004. In the same year, the same Ontario Court of Appeal found in the case of Ricci that a mistaken belief that the Income Tax Act does not apply to you, even though honestly held, was likewise no defense to a charge of evasion.

In order to pay my income tax for the year 2004 I have had to obtain a business loan. This was for the first time in 35 years. It is obvious that taxes are killing everyone. For every dollar I charge in fees I pay 15 percent right off the top. Then I pay all my office and business expenses. On the balance I pay income tax, which seems like around 45 percent.

I am no accountant. When I talk to my accountant she tries to explain to me. I really don”t understand. Like many people, I”m too tired from the stress of my work to be able to comprehend the minute, totally artificial rules and regulations.

When I question the validity of the tax she says “don”t forget whenever someone else fails to pay, that means all the more for you to pay.” This is particularly her comment when I mentioned that my greatest satisfaction comes from defending people charged with income tax evasion. I remind her about what they do with the money when you do pay your tax. Of course without income tax we would not need accountants, to the same degree that we do now. Imagine a world where accountants’ sole job was to help people be more productive rather than be punished for their productivity.

Taxation after all is the bureaucratic engine’s gasoline. It fuels all the relevant non-productive, confiscatory work which bureaucrats enjoy. It creates the state which tells you what to do, when to do it, how to do it, where to do it, at what time to do it, what to pay for it, what quality of work must accompany it, who may buy it, where you may sell it, what you may say about it when you sell at, and of course what you may say about the government that imposes all this upon you.

In Canada taxes funds the Human Rights Commission, which can hold you liable for what you say and make you pay a penalty and remain silent about it. This is to maintain our sacred multicultural society from unpleasant truths that might be spoken about things like the Air India bombing. Immigration likewise can be a taboo topic. You can be considered a threat to national security if you have incorrect political opinions, just like Ernst Zundel, or charged with a word crime like James Keegstra, Malcolm Ross, John Ross Taylor, Tony McAleer, and more recently Dr. David Ahenakew.

All of this of course can only be enforced when there are lots of bureaucrats, policeman, prosecutors, judges, and appropriately respectful media people, all duly paid one way or another from taxes. Even the media persons are largely paid through government advertising contracts as we have come to realize in the Adscam. And an even larger percentage of the public debt every year is incurred to keep the insatiable bureaucracy happy and even growing.

One has to understand that the Canadian system is not just corrupt in a few areas like Adscam, or HRDC grants. The Canadian system is systemically corrupt. Those who think the judiciary are inclined to uphold individual liberty against the power of the state are generally sadly disappointed. Those who see the day-to-day operations of the courts have come to realize that judges are generally quite sympathetic to the concept of state authority, power, and regulation. Hence they do not readily or perhaps ever strike down the taxing authorities power. Taxes are to the government what heroin is to addicts. It is the vehicle of greater power, control, and the ability to reward your friends and punish your enemies.

As a lawyer, I have always upheld the rights of individual against the state. I have done this not because I think there is no point to a state. Rather, I believe that in modern times the state has become enormously over-powerful. To protect the rights of the individual against the state will require both courageous lawyers and citizens willing to pay the legal price of resisting tyranny.

It is frequently easier to pay the tax than to fight it. It is often cheaper to placate the powerful with the guilty plea and beg for mercy than to make a plea of not guilty and go to a long and costly trial. The costs of trials in the legal system are only increasing. This can make, in civil matters, justice only available for the rich. In criminal matters likewise legal aid provides very little, if any, real defense.

The worst-case scenario is the defense of a civil claim, or a quasi-administrative tribunal’s claim. In such circumstances, legal aid is never available. If we want justice, we will have to organize large pools of capital that are capable of providing a credible defense in civil and administrative tribunal cases. This is particularly so in the realm of defamation where a poor plaintiff is virtually unable to protect their reputation.

That is why I see the Canadian Free Speech League as playing a vital role of leadership in the preservation of freedom of speech and individual liberty against the power of the state. Freedom of speech is indeed the first freedom.

It is only with freedom of speech that all other freedoms can be and might be preserved. It is freedom of speech that is most under attack by the governments’ secular religion of political correctness. This is today being enforced primarily through government-funded bureaucrats, disguised as lawyers. They have the security of tenure, lack of competitiveness, excess time, unlimited resources, and quite often the burning hatred for anyone who disagrees with the state religion of (shall we call it) “multiculturalism.”

If the Canadian Free Speech League, funded by individual donations, can make a difference in a few cases, it is capable of turning the tide against censorship and oppression of individual freedom. Ironically, this is only possible with money.

The same people who might donate to such costs are already being taxed to death by their political opponents. By political opponents, I do not mean partisan. I mean those who basically despise individual liberty and worship at the shrine of the state to the state goddess of multiculturalism. It is sadly the truth that the defenders of individualism are attacked from both sides.

They are attacked by the government-funded regulators, supported by taxes, and at the same time the very money that they could use to defend their liberty is being taken away from them by taxation to feed their adversary in the litigation. This can only be defeated by the most courageous and dedicated self-sacrifice, both on the part of lawyers who seek by peaceful means to turn the tide against this state of coercion and also by dedicated citizens who support and fund defenses of others when they themselves are not under attack.

If you cannot see that your brother”s freedom is your freedom, he will soon see that neither you nor your brother have any freedom left.

Three cheers for liberty, for you, for me, for those whose opinions we do not share, that each of us may grow in understanding and respect for the glorious creation that is the individual person.

Taxation and its soul-destroying weight must be resisted at every turn by courageous individuals, using every political and legal means. How ironic that just recently, the NDP demand as a condition of supporting the corrupt Liberals, that the latter do away with billions of dollars in corporate tax cuts. I suppose they think we are so shallow that we will not agree to the removal of someone else”s burdens because like my accountant they want us to believe that your relief is my greater burden. By such reasoning any slave who escaped from the plantation could count on the jealousy of those who remained as slaves to provide the information necessary to return the escapee to the same slaves state that they endure.

Let us hope more people come to realize that the increase of your freedom is not the diminution of mine, but quite the contrary. Freedom, like so many other finite commodities, is actually increased by giving it away to others. Let us further hope that throughout the world, men and women will come to cherish freedoms so much that they will not surrender any of it to governments who diminish the significance of the individual by taxation in order to empower the state.

Let each of us do for ourselves what we can, and voluntarily for those who cannot. Only by such heroic acts of individual courage can we hope to achieve dignity for ourselves and the true nobility possible for all free man. Free the West!

Douglas Christie

April 2005

 

The Positive Advantages of Western Canada Independence

Many people have noticed. Ontario with 103 seats voted Liberal. The west with 88 seats voted Alliance. The Liberals win again. Gordon Gibson, Steven Harper, David Frum, Ian Hunter and a lot of other commentators have commented on all the negative reasons for western separation.

But as one who has publicly advocated western separation for the past 25 years, I believe one should avoid simply negative emotions which quickly pass, and focus rather on positive reasons for Western Canada separating and becoming a new nation.

The first and most obvious advantage separation allows to a Western Canadian is a clean slate. We could write our own new constitution for the first time a solid foundation of values like the constitutional right of referendum, initiative and recall. This idea was ridiculed by the “Doris Day” proposition, which Eastern Canadians and some westerners quickly turned into a farce much like children given paint to paint an artistic master piece instead paint clown faces on each other. An effective right of referendum, initiative and recall combined with technology available through the television, telephone, internet and teleconferencing, could give ordinary citizens real power and when seriously presented, would be seriously discharged. Only a new Western Canadian constitution can effect such referendum rights and diminish the power of politicians between elections.

Similarly a triple E or regionally representative senate cannot ever really be achieved in Canada. Ontario with 103 seats out of 301 in the House of Commons has a clear vested interest in the present balloting arrangement. They have all the power now and will not give it away. After independence, Western Canadians have only themselves to please and I believe they would establish an elected senate as a balance to the House of Commons. Thus each province would restrain the power of the densely populated provinces and the senate would be a regional voice mechanism.

Indian land claims, which today create insolvable problems and tribal homelands with special rights based on race, are in Canada being constitutionally entrenched. Many people see the danger of this institutional minority racism, but can see no solution. As the captain of the ship of state the Western Canadian government can constitutionally establish that the land belongs to all the people individually and the individual rights of Indian people can be recognized without the deadening hand of separate status. This solution breaks the division between peoples and builds the option of a new future where every individual has equal rights. Institutional racism is no way to fight racism, and equal rights for all is the only solution.

A further positive advantage of independence lies in the common language and culture which has tried to emerge in the last 50 years. English as the official common language could be declared as Western Canada becomes free of the stultifying hand of the ancient custom and constitution of Canada with its entrenched confusion and conflict of bilingualism and biculturalism. We can be better friends and neighbours with Quebec after we separate from Canada compared to now, burdened with the resentment of watching our equalization dollars bribe Quebec to remain in Canada. In Western Canada only one official language would be necessary. Proficiency in English would be the only linguistic requirement for success in the military or civil service of Western Canada. All forms and laws could just be written in English.

Another obvious advantage of independence is in the ability to keep ourselves free from debt as we experience huge returns for the export of wheat, timber, minerals, coal, petroleum, fishery, maybe even fresh water, as well as our own manufacturing. The chances of this happening in Canada are nil. The nation of Canada now brags that its rate of debt increase has been eliminated. This is a long way from escaping debt. International exports from Western Canada would create a favourable balance of payments. A Western Canadian dollar would be much more powerful in purchasing ability.

The emergence of a means to define and protect our own culture would finally enable us to avoid cultural genocide as is now being practiced by Ottawa against us by its immigration policy. We could, along with preserving our linguistic unity, begin to prescribe and develop standards of anticipated behaviour which are only capable of definition when we are not open to vast quantities of cultures who decline to assimilate and demand instead our accommodations to the invading culture. In essence we could by legal, social and cultural means promote the development of a common culture formed in freedom and dedicated to honest research and expressive of our common goals and values. Without common language and culture we are incapable of literature, values, or agreed upon heroism. Without culture there is no community for which to fight and die or struggle and live.

With all these positive reasons for Independence, what possible reason for confederation remains? It used to be considered by some ignorant people illegal to separate. The Clarity Bill has now established what was in doubt. Can a province separate from Canada? The Supreme Court of Canada and the Parliament of Canada have both answered a resounding “yes.” All that is required is a clear referendum question and a clear majority. The legal obstacle has vanished. Separation is legally attainable. All that is necessary is political will. That will I hope to articulate, form and stimulate with reason and all the passion I can muster.

The Clarity Bill also provides the logical answer to the question of which provinces would be included. Clearly it would be whichever provinces chose by a clear referendum, and a clear majority. It could be British Columbia, alone. It could be Alberta, alone. Or in combination, if each chose in a referendum at the same time. It could be Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia, Yukon and Northwest Territories, or as they’re now called by some other name. The people of each province and territory, would for once, have a significant decision to make for themselves. For once, their opinion would matter. For once, their choice would be historic and significant. They could choose to create a new nation, peacefully, democratically and rationally.

What are the arguments against separation? Sometimes Mr. Mulroney used to argue membership in the G-7 as a reason not to separate, as if this gained us anything. Mr. Chretien speaks vaguely of a tolerant society but is tolerance of evil a virtue and intolerance of corruption a vice? The CBC tells us geography makes Canada great, but geography is a physical reality and Canada is a political construction totally unrelated to geography. The Soviet Union was geographically beautiful. Those are all emotional arguments, with no basis in fact. So what makes Canada endure? The answer is really inertia and lack of vision. That is being solved. The arrogance and contempt of Jean Chretien is finally breaking through what I had begun to fear would never move, that is the stolid obedience and apathetic acceptance by the average Western Canadian. We are “a different kind of people” as he said. A new nation of Western Canada is, in the end of the day, all that we have to look forward to.

With the 7 million English speaking people of Western Canada, a land mass the size of Europe, extensive agricultural land, oil, gas, fresh water, beautiful scenery, vast wilderness, minerals, forestry and fishery in potential abundance, why would we tolerate a government in Ottawa? It despises our people and their democratic choices. It exploits and taxes away our resources. It steals our land through grants to racial groups. It oppresses our freedom. It bankrupts our economy. What do we really lack to govern ourselves better?

Having worked for Western Canadian Independence for 25 years, after this last election I see the willpower finally emerging.

 

Hearing Both Sides

The media attention has died down. The Attorney General has congratulated the good people of Oliver. Now might be the right time to ask the important questions and have a rational dialogue on the issue of free speech. Is it justified to close down a meeting of alleged racists and hate mongers before they can speak? How do we know that they are racists or hate mongers until we hear them? “Because the media has told us so and so, why do we need to hear them” seems to be the answer. We know who and what they are from a thousand sources; they can’t all be lying. This at least is the media’s implicit reasoning. Well can’t they? Are they really a thousand sources or just one source repeated 1000 times. Does the media really represent a large number of independent assessments or just one copied by all the rest of the lazy reporters who don’t want to write unique perspectives or perhaps cannot due to lack of depth, ability, or time. The reporters who attended Oliver went with a fixed agenda shared it seems by the attitude of the Attorney- General. It is in their view better to “shut the racists down”. The fact is however that the people are really prevented from making their own informed assessment because the most fundamental rule of learning has been broken. What rule is that? The rule audi alteram partem – hear both sides.

The real bigots, and hate mongers are those who say there is no other side. “My point of view is the only one and there is nothing to learn from ‘racists’,” they claim but the difficulty arises in determining who is a racist and what does it mean. Isn’t it necessary first to hear a person before judging the speaker? This is precisely it seems what the Simon Wiesenthal representatives, the town of Oliver Mayor Larson and the Attorney- General of BC wanted to prevent. They all congratulated the decision to prevent a speaker from speaking. Then to rub salt in the open wound they asked Doug Collins “what have you been prevented from saying”? The supposed racists and bigots were not allowed a single direct quote on the TV news while their critics and protagonists were quoted ad nauseam recasting accusations against them. Is there no shame in the media or sense or justice? It is ironic that the media in Canada are so shallow and foolish that they are unable to stand by the simple principle that upholding free speech has nothing to do with the approbation of any speaker or the content of their speech. The media is in a sad state when they cannot see the value of defending other peoples right to free expression. They have lost their courage, objectivity and perception. As a result of such ignorance in the media, the established authorities, the mayor of Oliver, and the RCMP, we see those who threaten violence getting applause and approbation by the establishment, and the victims of this violence threatening tactic told to go away and be quiet. My father fought in the Second World War, my grandfather in the First World War in the trenches of France. My great grandfather against the Fenian Raids in Ontario, all for freedom or so they thought. I am told I cannot hold a public meeting in my own country. Where do I go for the defense of freedom from violence and intimidation. I have to stay and fight here and I will. This should be the same goal as responsible persons everywhere who believe in Free Speech for everyone. We only judge after we have heard from someone – not gossip about them. We are capable of deciding for ourselves. If anything wrong was said, charge the people responsible. Don’t silence people before they can speak. If violence or threats of violence defeats free speech why do we have free speech at all? Or is it only for those the media tell us we can agree with?

 

The Future of Canada

Will Canada continue to exist? Canada has only existed for some time now as a tax-gathering and patronage agency which bribes certain groups with funds to stay in business. Canadian culture when it actually existed until just after the second World War, was really just a remnant of British traditions of law, politics and parliamentary democracy.

The Christian church, which played a major role in the establishment and maintenance of Canada as an institution from at least the conquest in 1759 to the Second World War, has lost its influence since the Second Vatican Council. Canada as a multicultural nation is in fact just a transitional phase to disintegration into various cultural ghettoes. Surrey and Richmond B.C. are the legacy of multiculturalism and the wave of the future.

The real nature of multiculturalism is European genocide. Canada simply does not exist as a cultural, economic, political or philosophical entity. It is a remnant of the British Empire, held together by the power to tax and spend. It will disappear even as that in twenty years. Nothing in the heart holds it together. It is ripe for the invasion which is occurring

Should it continue to exist? A better question is: Why should Western Canada with 75% of Canada’s agriculture, 90% of its oil and gas, 60% of its fishery and forestry, 60% of its hydro-electric power potential and vast quantities of other minerals including coal and gold allow it to continue to dominate our way of life and resources from 2,500 miles away in Ottawa?

Why should all four western provinces be satisfied with 88 seats in the Commons to Ontario’s 105 and Quebec’s 75? Why should the English-speaking west which produces 70% of Canada’s international exports continue to allow Ottawa to decide on immigration, language, banking, international trade, foreign policy, and more while Ontario and Quebec run Ottawa?

When all practical matters are considered, a Western Canadian who watches everything from gun control registries to energy policy, to the federal equalization, transportation and Wheat Board policies, to the media control by Central Canada to federal immigration policies, must clearly realize that Canada is a disaster. Reform is impossible. Separation and a new nation of Western Canada remains the only solution.

 

Police Must be Accountable to Earn Respect

Published in the Times Colonist, February 17, 2011

Police deserve to be admired and respected to the extent they protect society from violent criminals, theft and fraud, rape and other social evils. But the respect they deserve can only be earned by careful attention to the law themselves and respect for the citizens they serve, whether they be drunk or sober, rich or poor, right or wrong, good or bad. Respect is a mutual thing.

It is shocking to hear of a police woman stabbed, perhaps just because she was in uniform. It is equally shocking to hear police have shot to death Jeff Hughes, Ian Bush, or kicked a couple of people into unconsciousness to prevent a fight, or arrested someone like Mike Stebih for no good reason.

The point of this is simple. If police continue to be respected, they must earn public respect through a transparent scrutiny of their own dubious acts or questionable conduct. To think police don’t break the law on occasion would be naïve. To think prosecutors who rely on them every day as professional witnesses can impartially determine if they have broken the law or that lawyers who work with them every day can be counted on to look with dispassionate objectivity is downright childish. There is a growing gulf between the police and public trust, which can only be fixed and crossed with any hope of restoration of faith when the police are judged for their conduct by the public themselves and not by their constant co-workers in the system itself.

This can be accomplished by an equally simple modification to our law. Every police action causing death or grievous bodily harm to a citizen should be subject to an inquest, which must commence within a short and reasonable time. At this inquest a jury should be empanelled, which has the power to attribute fault and law charges under the Criminal Code. Any aggrieved party should have standing to appear, testify and be represented to call evidence and cross-examine witnesses, just like at a coroner’s inquest today. The results of the jury’s verdict would be binding and unappealable. They could lay charges and could recommend remedial action. The minor modifications to the coroners act and the appointment of legally trained coroners would cost money but respect for law is not cheap and the absence of it causes a violent break down of the whole society and the safety and security of police and the public. If police want respect, and they should deserve it, they must stand before the public as equals not above us with the protections of their friends, in a legal system most of us do not even understand.

I do not want to wait from October 23, 2009 to perhaps April 2011 for an inquest into the death of Jeff Hughes, who was shot to death in the presence of over five police officers, to know what happened and why. Is there a shortage of witnesses? Can’t they remember what happened? If we wait much longer, they may have that excuse. Are the public satisfied when a teenager is shot in the back of the head by a lone RCMP officer, less than an hour after his arrest for having an open beer bottle, and the Attorney General declares no charges are warranted? If Dziekanski had not been on video would there be a public inquiry? How difficult is it for us to see a person kicked in the head and hear that a prosecutor in the privacy of his or her office has decided no charges are warranted and hence we are assured justice is done.

The essential ingredient of a society where citizens and police are in agreement on the enforcement of the law is simply that the law applies to police and citizens in equal measure. The police cannot be above the law. With the present system of accountability, that impression is well founded. To remove the present lack of trust, true accountability must be restored. My suggestion would go a long way to achieving that end.