New Law slated to install Police State in Canada

[SixStrings]

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=FOG20050824&articleId=853\

"Connie Fogal, Leader of CAP, says " 'NO' to an impending federal law to give police and national security agencies new powers to eavesdrop on cellphone calls and monitor the Internet activities of Canadians".

"This law is another destruction of Canadian freedom,"insists Fogal. "It moves Canada even further into the realm of a police state. This is an adjunct to our nefarious anti terrorism laws imposed on an uninformed citizenry by our Parliament and Senate. It is another elimination of some of our sovereign rights that were supposed to be guaranteed to us under our Constitution and our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It is an act of stealth imposed under the guise of national security."

Fogal asks? "Why is this being done? Canada is mirroring recent U.S legislation because our government has committed Canada by stealth and backroom deals to a North American Union: US, Canada, and Mexico under US command and control. Information on this year's meeting by the three national leaders at Bush's ranch in Texas on North American Union has been revealed even in mainstream media."

Wasn't this Paul Martins' entire campaign last year? Did he not lecture us ad nauseum on Stephen Harper's 'Hidden Agenda' of two tier health care (Already here, already moving forward folks), and that electing Harper would mean we would be at the beck and call of the USA?
Wake up people. These Federal Liberals are useless and hurting our country. We need to DISTANCE ourselves from the US as much as possible. The recent US reaction to the softwood lumber ruling, and our Federal Liberals sticking their heads in the sand should be a strong indication that we are going down the road to losing our sovereignty, and any control we will have over our resources.
This is scary stuff. A progressive liberal minded person cannot tolerate any attacks on our personal freedoms and any 'monitoring' of our communications, etc. This is a step backwards.
What's our recourse?

[tuvor]

1. It's high time I start paying more attention to what's going on at home.

bush has been an effective distraction, and undoubtedly it's helped a lot of Canadian politicians to some degree.

[iverglas]

2. well ...

I'll go along with a lot of things I see at globalresearch.ca, but I'm a little surprised at this.

Connie Fogal, Leader of CAP, says ...

Hmm. What exactly is "CAP"??

http://www.canadianactionparty.ca/WhoWeAre/OurLeader.asp

Well, it kinda seems to be Connie Fogal.

From the article quoted in the opening post:

<Fogal says:> "... As Harry Rankin, Vancouver's renowned 25 year alderman and criminal lawyer, used to say, 'If you want justice, go to church, not to the courts. The courts are there to apply the law created by politicians.'"

From the CAP site:

Connie is the widow of Harry Rankin after 27 years together. She played a major behind the scenes supportive role to her husband's progressive voice as a Vancouver city councilor and champion of the people. Similarly, Harry was a constant source of revitalization and support to Connie's own political and legal efforts.

Opinions do vary on Harry Rankin, but I think someone offering up such paeans of praise to him might mention that she was married to him.

From the CAP site (still at the "Our Leader" page):

Political Advocacy Work:

Since 1998, Fogal-Rankin <sic> spearheaded three lawsuits on behalf of Canadian citizens through the Defence of Canadian Liberty Committee to protect our constitutional sovereignty.

Hmm, the Defence of Canadian Liberty Committee. Never heard of that one, myself. Here it is:

http://www.canadianliberty.bc.ca

A whole section devoted to "liberty vs. security":
"http://www.canadianliberty.bc.ca/liberty-vs-security/index.html
... and myself, I just don't quite trust people who frame the issues that way.

Lots of reproduced materials at that site by lots of credible people, but I don't see anything to tell me exactly who this "Defence of Canadian Liberty Committee" is.

Oh ... except that the email address is conniefogal@________ ... oh, and the address is her home address (this is information in the public domain; see the obituary below).

Oops, there we are, right above:

The directors are a group of very concerned Canadians: Jim Jordan, a retired air traffic controller, Dr Philip McCormach, physician, Barry Sames, C.U.P.E. member and grounds employee of a school board, Serge Robichaud, small businessman, and Connie Fogal, lawyer. Citizens from across Canada are joining the committee's legal challenge with financial and moral support.

Uh huh. But sheesh, they couldn't even come up with two speakers to rub together for this 2001 event:
http://listserv.uleth.ca/pipermail/action-discussion/2001-February/000306.html

SPEAKERS:
Archdiocese Serbian Canadian Orthodox Church-Archbishop
Lazar Puhallo;
B.C. Action Party- Jack Peach;
Canadian Action Party- Connie Fogal;
Citizens Concerned About Free Trade- Rosemary Larrson
Coalition of Solidarity With Peoples in Struggle-
Eduardo Luro or Rudy Villegas
Communist Party of Canada- George Gidora
Defence of Canadian Liberty Committee- Connie Fogal
Green Party of Canada- to be announced
Marxist Leninist Party of Canada- Charles Boylan
Mexican Citizen- Maria De La Luz Mendoza
Mobilization for Global Justice- Garth Mullins
New Democratic Party of Canada- Libby Davies

Perhaps I'll be forgiven for being skeptical here. (And may I once again say that I find the practice of saying "citizens" to mean "people", as the CAP site does repeatedly, to be pretentious and exclusionary and just plain 18th-centuryish, and creepingly USAmerican.)

An obituary about Harry Rankin:
http://www.tomhawthorn.com/obits/politicians/files/rankin.htm

A Communist in all but party membership, Mr. Rankin was a utopian whose dream society proved to be a dystopian horror, a reality he firmly rejected. He would brook no criticism of the Soviet Union or any of its satellites.

I've got some pretty scarlet stripes of my own, and I'm no fan of the red-baiting used against him ... but I also am very wary of Communist Party types (and also Trotskyists, and various others), from long political experience. Their credibility -- in that there is almost always an agenda lurking behind their speech and that agenda may not be one I share -- is just automatically suspect.

Another bit of history:

http://www.intouch.ca/miniato/kosovo_vanbc_chod.htm

RALLY AGAINST THE WAR IN YUGOSLAVIA

... Sponsors committed to date:

Ad Hoc Committee to Stop Canada’s Participation in the War in Yugoslavia, Canada Cuba Friendship Association, Canadian Auto Workers, Canadian Action Party, Canadian Latin-American Association, Centre for Socialist Education, Coalition of Solidarity With People's In Struggle, Committee of Solidarity with Peoples in Struggle, Communist Party of Canada, Communist Party of Chile (Vancouver), Connolly Association, Defence of Canadian Liberty Committee, East Indian Workers Association, Green Party of Canada, Serbian-Canadian Community, Stop the Bombing Initiative, Veterans Against Nuclear Arms, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.

Contacts: George Gidora ... <leader of the BC Communist Party>; Connie Fogal ... Eduardo Luro ...

That's one incestuous bunch. And since one of the bunch, the speaker at the event in question, seems to be Michel Chossudovsky, Director and Editor of GlobalResearch.ca, I'm starting to think I'll have to do my homework on that front too.

There are lots of genuinely credible people to listen to on issues like this. Connie Fogal just wouldn't be at the top of my own list. Her comments (don't miss the Nazi Germany stuff in the article linked to in the opening post ... odd how she didn't mention Stasi ...) are hyperbole to the point of ridiculousness, and just are not likely to motivate or persuade very many people.

[achtung_circus]

3. Have I mentioned lately

just how much I love your stuff.

You have a healthy mix of devious suspicion, research ability and writing ability so rarely found in lawyers.

No boilerplate.

[iverglas]

6. I always only hope

That *somebody* has as much fun reading 'em as I have writing 'em!

[SidDithers]

8. Put me down as a fan too...

great stuff, iverglas :)

Sid

[Maple]

4. Twas the party started

by Paul Hellyer I believe.

[iverglas]

5. yeah ...

He's mentioned on that "our leader" page.

Here's a site with the text of the press release announcing his resignation as leader of the CAP:

http://www.vivelecanada.ca/article.php?story=20040130121854961

"So I am still convinced that the new party idea was a good one and I know that the proposal enjoyed wide approval both with some members of the NDP and with progressives and patriots from other parties who felt it would provide them with a new and comfortable home. But it is not to be because the NDP is not willing to give up its name, at least before the election, which was one of the conditions of the CAP proposal," Hellyer explained.

"Consequently, in accordance with my commitment to CAP when the merger resolution was unanimously adopted at its Biennial Convention in September, of last year, I am today submitting my resignation as leader of the party and asking the Executive to hold a leadership convention at the earliest possible date. It has been an honour to serve with such a dedicated group of people but the time has come to move on," he concluded.

Connie Fogal, CAP's President said: "Paul Hellyer is one of the great Canadian patriots of our time. Anyone who has heard him speak or who has read one of his two latest books, 'Goodbye Canada' or 'One Big Party: To Keep Canada Independent,' will understand the depth of his love for Canada and the passion with which he has fought to maintain its continued existence as a nation state."

He's one of those strange ones.

Apparently David Orchard was invited to head the party thereafter, and did not reply to the invitation. A party in search of a leader, with no takers; there's a novelty.

I'm seeing a number of possible agendas on the part of various people involved in the party ... some good intentions, some looniness and some more sinister-looking manipulation/infiltration. The last on that list seems to have won out.

[Maple]

7. Well Canada needs a new party

but the CAP sure ain't it.

[Swede]

9. We have MINORITY government you know.

Unless all those NDPers are covert operatives the Liberals couldn't pass this. As you well knew. :)