CSIS vs. CUPW

POST SCRIPT: AFTER BRISTOW

CSIS CONTINUES ITS DIRTY TRICKS AGAINST THE LABOUR MOVEMENT

Tuesday, July 04, 2000

Dirty tricks carried out for CSIS: ex-agent

JEFF SALLOT and ANDREW MITROVICA
The Globe and Mail

An angry former undercover agent says he was part of a CSIS dirty-tricks
squad that intercepted mail, broke into cars, rented apartments under false
names and set up phony front companies.

The former agent and ex-petty criminal, John Farrell, said some of these
covert operations were authorized by Federal Court warrants, but others,
such as a car break-in to steal sensitive documents, were illegal.

Mr. Farrell said that after he stopped working for the Canadian Security
Intelligence Service, he was offered humanitarian assistance of $6,000 by
CSIS director Ward Elcock in return for abandoning a legal claim in which
he sought to recover $50,000 in back pay that he insists CSIS still owes him.

In a series of interviews, Mr. Farrell made other allegations about CSIS,
including that some intelligence officers used public funds to renovate
their homes and to have additions built. Rented apartments that were
supposed to be for covert operations were, in fact, used to house family
members of senior CSIS managers, he said.

He added that he knows of other CSIS wrongdoing, but is not prepared to
discuss it at this time.

Mr. Farrell also outlined a series of actions he performed for Canada Post
Corp., including spying on union activists.

The allegations of lawbreaking by CSIS are particularly explosive because
the agency was created in 1984 as a new civilian intelligence service to
replace the old RCMP security service, which had been caught in a variety
of dirty tricks, including burning a barn in Quebec to prevent a meeting
between the Black Panthers and members of the Front de Libration du Qubec.

CSIS said it does not break the law and does not suggest that anyone else
do so on its behalf.

Government documents suggest that senior CSIS officials have serious
concerns about what Mr. Farrell knows about the dirty-tricks squad's
ultrasecret operations and what he might say publicly about them.

CSIS offered him money and warned him not to violate the Official Secrets
Act. Intelligence sources described Mr. Elcock's offer of $6,000 for
humanitarian reasons as highly unusual.

Mr. Farrell said he rejected the offer because of the strings attached.

A CSIS lawyer also warned Mr. Farrell that he could run afoul of the
Official Secrets Act if he publicly disclosed CSIS activities in any court
proceedings.

Mr. Farrell signed several non-disclosure agreements relating to his
contractual arrangements, Mary MacFadyen, the CSIS lawyer, said in a letter
to Mr. Farrell's lawyer in January.

Writing on behalf of Mr. Elcock, Ms. MacFadyen also said: It is expected
that he `Mr. Farrell' will honour his contractual obligations.

But Mr. Farrell described his work for CSIS only in general terms and has
been careful not to disclose identities of CSIS targets or secret methods
of operations.

He did, however, describe a 1995 incident where at the behest of a CSIS
manager, he broke into a car to retrieve and destroy documents belonging to
another man who was involved in a CSIS mail-interception program.

The victim of the break-in was attempting to go public with information
about the operations of the dirty-tricks squad, Mr. Farrell said.

CSIS operations are reviewed for legality by the service's
inspector-general and by a government-appointed committee, agency spokesman
Dan Lambert said in an interview.

Naming CSIS officers involved in covert operations is an indictable offence
under the CSIS Act, Mr. Lambert warned.

He declined to respond to detailed questions about Mr. Farrell's
allegations, including the 1995 car break-in.

Mr. Lambert, who said The Globe and Mail seems to be pursuing a vendetta
against CSIS with its reporting on the service, also declined to respond to
specific written questions about why Mr. Elcock wrote Mr. Farrell last year
offering him $6,000.

The letter stated that Mr. Elcock appreciates that you are sensitive to
your obligations to respect the confidentiality with which you have been
entrusted.

Mr. Elcock also wrote, Given that you had gone through a period of
unemployment, the service offered you financial assistance in the amount of
$6,000 to assist you in this period of transition. This offer . . . was
meant to be a humanitarian gesture for the purpose of assisting you to
fulfill financial obligations you would have incurred whilst unemployed.

Mr. Farrell said he never got the $6,000 because when he went to collect it
from his CSIS handler in a room at the Toronto's SkyDome Hotel he was asked
to sign a release for any other financial claims against CSIS.

Ernest Rovet, Mr. Farrell's lawyer, said he was baffled by the $6,000 offer.

“In my experience, employers don't go around offering people humanitarian
assistance based on no specific claim,” Mr. Rovet said.

Mr. Elcock's executive assistant, Tom Bradley, wrote Mr. Farrell on
November 22, 1999, informing him the $6,000 offer was being withdrawn in
part because he had complained to the agency's civilian watchdog, the
Security Intelligence Review Committee, about his treatment by CSIS.

Mr. Rovet said the RCMP should investigate to get to the bottom of Mr.
Farrell's allegations.

Mr. Farrell said he began working for CSIS in 1992 after a year and a half
as an investigator for Canada Post. He left CSIS in late 1998. He was hired
by both government agencies, he said, despite a previous criminal record.
He acknowledged that he was in trouble with the law before his involvement
with CSIS. As a youth he was convicted of several crimes, including
breaking and entering.

CSIS informed Canada Post in October, 1990, that he had been pardoned by
the National Parole Board.

Thus he was able to obtain a security clearance to begin his work at the
Post Office as an auxiliary postal inspector.

Mr. Farrell said he was paid by CSIS in cash weekly or monthly so that his
name never appeared on payroll records.

The cash arrangement was so CSIS could deny any connection with the
dirty-tricks squad if their shady operations strayed over the line into
illegalities, he explained.

Auxiliary postal inspectors, also known as APIs, performed a number of
undercover functions for Canada Post management, he said, including spying
on union activists. He said he was the co-ordinator of eight to 10 APIs in
Toronto and there were about 30 other APIs across Canada.

Their main activity, Mr. Farrell said, was to intercept the mail of
national security targets on behalf of CSIS. The mail-intercept program has
apparently become so extensive that the work was contracted out ostensibly
by Canada Post in 1997 to a private security company, Avada Consulting.

Intelligence sources expressed surprise when told of Avada Consulting's
alleged working relationship with CSIS and Canada Post.

It's very strange that they would contract out such sensitive work to a
private firm, a veteran intelligence source said. Who monitors the firm to
ensure it abides by the CSIS Act?

Corporate searches reveal the firm is operated by Alan Whitson, a former
Mountie, and his wife Doris from Metcalfe, Ont., a rural community near Ottawa.

Other intelligence sources and federal officials have previously confirmed
that CSIS intercepts the mail of people suspected of being foreign
intelligence agents or terrorists. CSIS can ask Federal Court judges for
warrants authorizing mail intercepts - and telephone taps and bugging
operations. Judges issue the warrants if they are convinced of the
importance of the cases to national security and that other investigative
methods have failed or are likely to fail.

Mr. Farrell declined to describe how the mail is actually intercepted,
saying he does not wish to compromise legitimate national security cases.
Most of the API intercepts are probably legal because of the warrants, he
acknowledged.

But he also described how some mail intercepts at times involved not just
the mail of the target named in the warrant, but also neighbours if the
target lived in an apartment building.

This was done so that the target would not become suspicious if his or her
bills arrived later than everyone else in the building.

Mr. Farrell also said that while working for CSIS, he intercepted and
photocopied the envelope covers of mail of all the residents of apartment
buildings so the service could quickly compile a current list of all the
people who lived in the building of a target.

The list could then be checked against data bases to determine whether
there were any other possible national security targets in the building.

The list could also turn up names of friendly people who might co-operate
with CSIS by allowing their apartments to be used to install bugging
devices in a target's apartment or allow their apartments to be used as
observation posts, Mr. Farrell said.

Bob Stiff, director of security for Canada Post, acknowledged that APIs
intercept mail with warrants, but said it is illegal to hold up the mail of
neighbours of a target. He said he has never heard of this happening.

Citing national security concerns, officials at both Canada Post and CSIS
were reluctant to reveal details of mail-intercept operations.

Avada Consulting ostensibly supplied services for Canada Post, but all of
the money to finance the firm's work actually came from CSIS, Mr. Farrell said.

The company's arrival on the scene in 1997 was the start of Mr. Farrell's
falling out with CSIS and Canada Post. Mr. Farrell said he told senior CSIS
managers that he was uncomfortable with a private firm handling such
sensitive work and that he did not get along with Mr. Whitson.

Other intelligence sources have confirmed the existence of Avada Consulting.

Mr. Whitson was tight-lipped about the firm's relationship to CSIS. I have
nothing to say to you, he said before hanging up.

Canada Post will not discuss its business relationship with Avada
Consulting, spokesman John Caines said. He referred all questions about the
mail intercept program to CSIS.

Mr. Farrell said that in addition to his mail-interception duties, he was
asked by CSIS to set up and register front companies under Ontario
corporation laws and to lease apartments under false names.

The apartments were used as observation posts in covert operations, he
said, but he insisted on keeping details secret because operations may be
continuing.

He did say, however, that he rented an apartment so that CSIS could keep
track of a pair of Russian spies, Dmitriy Olshanskiy and Yelena
Olshanskaya, who were living under false Canadian identities in Toronto as
Ian and Laurie Lambert. The couple were exposed in 1996 and deported to Russia.

One of the apartments rented for a CSIS operation was actually used to
billet the daughter of a CSIS manager, he said.

Mr. Farrell said he brought his allegations of CSIS wrongdoing and his
claims for back pay to the attention of SIRC last summer when a SIRC
investigator met him in a a cafeteria in the Royal York Hotel in Toronto.

It was hardly the ideal place to discuss national security operations, Mr.
Farrell said.

The watchdog panel has been slow to act, Mr. Farrell and his lawyer, Mr.
Rovet, insisted. They have been passive throughout. Whatever John told
them, it didn't whet their appetite to know more, Mr. Rovet said.

SIRC chairwoman Paule Gauthier, a prominent Quebec lawyer, said the
committee is not ignoring Mr. Farrell's allegations.
The file is still there and we know what we have to do.

The case will be dealt with in SIRC's annual report in September, Ms.
Gauthier said, or perhaps in a special report to Solicitor-General Lawrence
MacAulay, the minister responsible for CSIS.

NEWS RELEASE / COMMUNIQUÉ

July 11, 2000

Ottawa

---

ALLEGATIONS THAT CSIS IS SPYING ON POSTAL WORKERS

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

A July 4th, Globe and Mail article may have left the impression with the postal union, its members and some Globe readers that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) has been “spying” on the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW). There is absolutely no substance to this allegation.

All of the activities of the RCMP Security Service were reviewed by the McDonald Commission in the late 1970s, which led to the creation of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service through the CSIS Act in July of 1984.

The CSIS Act is clear on what CSIS can and cannot investigate. CSIS does not investigate legitimate advocacy, protest or dissent. CSIS has not and is not investigating CUPW.

Communications Branch/Direction des communications

CSIS/SCRS

Daniel Lambert (613) 231-0100

WHISTLEBLOWER PROFILES 2004
BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Association [FIPA]

JOHN FARRELL

John Farrell, a former CSIS agent, helped produce a book in 2002, which details the story of a CSIS and Canada Post Security Inspector who spied on postal workers, illegally intercepted the mail of innocent people, and stole Crown keys to get into apartments and mail boxes. And he did so upon the instructions of senior officers in CSIS and Canada Post.

Published in both English and French, Covert Entry: Spies, Lies and Crimes Inside Canada’s Secret Service by award winning journalist Andrew Mitrovica, provides evidence backing up many allegations which have surfaced in recent years, but have been always denied by CSIS and CPC.

The book follows the day-to-day clandestine activities of John Farrell, who worked as a Postal Inspector for CPC from 1989 to 1991 and for CSIS (as an Auxiliary Postal Inspector) from 1991 to 1998.

Mitrovica writes: "Canada Post's Security and Investigation Service was, in effect, a law unto itself. There were no oversight bodies such as a police service board or review committees to keep a watchful eye on the units actions or its managers. The small, little-known army of investigators enjoyed extraordinary powers of search, seizure and arrest
that rivaled those of any police or security agency in the country. Yet they were effectively accountable to no one outside a few Canada Post executives."

While a CPC Security Officer, Farrell’s job largely focused on spying on the Union. As CUPW engaged in the difficult negotiations leading to the strike of 1991, Farrell and his fellow S and I (now called Corporate Security) officers in the York Region prepared dossiers on “troublesome” CUPW leaders, including the President of the Toronto Local at the time. Farrell himself opened up 15 to 20 files on key union activists. These dossiers included, among other matters:

Where union leaders had gone to school, banking records, photos of some family members and home addresses and names of schools attended by union activists’ children, records of divorce proceedings, accusations of infidelity, physical abuse and financial problems illegally broke into cars of CUPW activists at the Gateway plant.

BRIAN LYNCH

The former chief psychologist of CSIS, who claimed that senior CSIS officers routinely pressured him to divulge the confidential medical records of rank-and-file officers.

MICHEL SIMARD

A thirty-five year veteran of both the RCMP Security Service and CSIS, who claimed that morale at CSIS was plummeting and described the service as a “rat hole.”

FINDLAY WIHLIDAL and JOHN FARRELL

In 1993, Wihlidal and fellow guard John Farrell (also a CSIS whistleblower) decided to blow the whistle on rampant nepotism and sexual abuse at the York (Ontario) Detention Centre prison.

Wihlidal was a former nursing assistant and youth worker with the Children’s Aid Society. He was anxious to get hired on full-time at the jail, but his applications were repeatedly rejected; senior officers at the jail routinely gave their relatives and neighbours full-time contracts instead.

He and Farrell started a public campaign to protest the situation. A well-connected guard threatened to break Farrell’s arm, and Wihlidal’s car was tar-smeared with the words “Pig” and “Rat.”

Several female guards told Farrell they had been sexually molested by a male colleague. They had kept quiet because they feared for their jobs. A labour activist canvassed other women and soon compiled a long and disturbing list of stories of a male guard exposing his genitalia and trying to force himself upon female guards. There were also allegations of rape.

When complaints were made to the provincial ministers, they bounced from one ministry to another before ending up in a bureaucratic black hole. The police were never called in to investigate.

Finally, three female guards complained to police. One former guard was arrested and charged with three counts of sexual assault. Police believed there could be as many as 14 women. He was given a suspended sentence and put on three years probation.

A senior jail official who repeatedly rebuffed calls for an inquiry into the sexual assault allegations and the hiring improprieties was reassigned. Prison officials admitted there were personal links between managers and many guards the jail had hired. No one was disciplined.

Strapped for cash, Wihlidal accepted a small lump sum payment to settle his own grievance.


(See Covert Entry by Andrew Mitrovica, p. 151-60)

New Book Shows CSIS, Canada Post Spied On Postal Workers
Subject: Spying
2002-04-22

CUPW Bulletin no. 2002-2005/37

A new book reaching bookshelves, details the story of a CSIS and Canada Post Security Inspector who spied on postal workers, illegally intercepted the mail of innocent people, and stole Crown keys to get into apartments and mail boxes.

And he did so upon the instructions of senior officers in CSIS and Canada Post.

Published in both English and French, Covert Entry: Spies, Lies and Crimes Inside Canada’s Secret Service by award winning journalist Andrew Mitrovica, provides evidence backing up many allegations which have surfaced in recent years, but have been always denied by CSIS and CPC.

The book follows the day-to-day clandestine activities of John Farrell, who worked as a Postal Inspector for CPC from 1989 to 1991 and for CSIS (as an Auxiliary Postal Inspector) from 1991 to 1998.

While a CPC Security Officer, Farrell’s job largely focused on spying on the Union. As CUPW engaged in the difficult negotiations leading to the strike of 1991, Farrell and his fellow S and I (now called Corporate Security) officers in the York Region prepared dossiers on “troublesome” CUPW leaders, including the President of the Toronto Local at the time. Farrell himself opened up 15 to 20 files on key union activists. These dossiers included, among other matter:

Where union leaders had gone to school.

Banking records.

Photos of some family members and home addresses and names of schools attended by union activists’ children.

Records of divorce proceedings.

Accusations of infidelity, physical abuse and financial problems.

Illegally broke into cars of CUPW activists at the Gateway plant.

As well, S and I inspectors were authorized to intercept every piece of mail delivered to the homes of targeted union leaders. While most mail wasn’t necessarily opened, photocopies were made of both side of each piece. Information from this was used to “mine contacts” at credit card agencies and banks and “pry loose” monthly statements on each card. The garbage of targeted CUPW leaders was routinely stolen and inspected.

“Canada Post’s quest for intelligence about union leaders … was simply insatiable,” says the author.

This was a full-blown espionage operation, in violation of the basic prohibitions of the Privacy Act.

Farrell’s job as a CSIS agent didn’t really change that much. As an “Auxiliary Postal Inspector” he worked for CSIS but on paper was an “independent contractor” hired by Canada Post. Many “Auxiliary Postal Inspectors” came from the ranks of CPC’s Security and Investigation Division.

While much of the section on CSIS unveils the remarkable incompetence of its operations, it also illustrates the inappropriate relationship between Canada Post Corporation and CSIS, at least up until 1997, and the pattern of law-breaking and corruption characterizing CSIS operations.

During this period, Farrell, on the instructions of CSIS senior officers:

Carried out illegal interceptions of mail for every resident in apartments where CSIS “targets” lived, without first obtaining judicial warrants.

Planted a listening device illegally in a postal station where a postal worker was suspected of leaking information to the media about the “Grant Bristow” affair in 1994.

Stole Crown keys from a postal depot to break into apartment buildings and mail boxes.

This book covers the activities of one agent and Security Officer in York Regions. It is not unreasonable to assume similar activities have occurred in all other Region. And if such spying has been carried out against CUPW, it clearly could happen to other unions and lawful organizations.

CUPW intends to respond vigorously to these revelations, including pursuing an independent public inquiry into CSIS activities and holding Canada Post Corporation to account for its outrageous treatment of union activists.


In solidarity,
Deborah Bourque
National President
Canadian Union of Postal Workers


Bill Blaikie NDP MP, CSIS Spying on Postal Workers Wednesday October 30, 2002

Postal Workers Welcome Privacy Commissioner's Investigation Of CSIS And Post Office January 2003.

To understand how this all began we have to go back to the late 1970's when the then Liberal Government of the day under Pierre Trudeau used the RCMP as a political police force for their own dirty tricks against the Quebec Nationalist movement and Quebec Labour. In this case the new leadership of CUPW was under the leadership of Quebecois Claude Parrot. in 1977 RCMP dirty tricks caused a major crisis for the government as they were exposed to the public by the media.
During the 1978 postal strike the union ignored the government's back to work legislation, and Parrot was jailed. This created even greater solidarity amongst the posties and the labour movement. No-one had defied a government back to work order let alone gone to jail for it, in English Canada.
CUPW was raided by the RCMP on orders from the government, after they had agreed to go back to work. As this article from the U of B.C. students union newspaper the Ubessey reports on at the time.
Feds bust strike as posiies go back
Thursday, Octomber 26, 1978
T H E U B Y S S E Y
OTTAWA (CUP) - Canadian
Union of Postal Workers president
Jean-Claude Parrot asked striking
postal workers to return to their
jobs Wednesday after the federal
government threatened them with
mass firings.
The government had threatened
to use a post office regulation
allowing it to dismiss workers who
did not show up for work after
seven days without “proper
cause.” After that time, the post
office considers them to have
“abandoned” the job.
“We have continued to fight
when the government deprived us
of the legal right to negotiate and to
strike, but now they deprive individual
members of the right to
defend themselves (from being
fired),” said Parrot at a hurriedlycalled
press conference that
evening. He said he didn’t think the
government was bluffing in its
threat.
Parrot’s call for an end to the
seven-day strike came at the end of’
a day which saw the RCMP raid
CUPW’s Ottawa headquarters and
regional offices across Canada. In
most cases, the RCMP had
warrants to search for unspecified
union documents.
Parrot and four other members
of the ‘CUPW national executive
were also ordered to appear in the
Ontario supreme court this mor..
ning to face charges of counselling
union members to disobey an act of’
parliament. Warrants were issued
for their arrest, but were not served
after the: executive agreed to appear
voluntarily, Parrot said.
In Vancouver postal workers
were reporting to work for Wednesday
night shifts after summonses
for 31 CUPW members,
including the regional executive,
were issued.
Parrot attacked the federal government for
using the RCMP to search CUPW offices,
since it is the "RCMP that illegally open the mail
we have to handle every day"


Is it any wonder the labour movement is supporting those illegally imprisoned in Canada under security detention orders of CSIS.

The origin of CLAC?

Dutch Emigres from Collaborationist Regime Create CLAC

A point I have wanted to make about CLAC, Christian Labour Assoc. of Canada, in my previous article, is that the origin of their organization is Dutch DP's, displaced peoples who emigrated to Canada after the Second World War.

Holland, which is now an extremely libertarian country, during WWII was a collaborationist country, a fact overlooked by many. While the Vicy government of France has been severely criticized for its collaboration, including internal investigations and trials, the same cannot be said for wartime Holland and the Dutch collaborationists.

There has been less discussion about the collobrationist politics of the Dutch during WWII. They too were occupied by the Nazi's in 1940 as were other sections of Northern Europre in preparation for the Battle of Britain.

Holland was liberated this week sixty years ago by Canadian Forces, my father was a Security Intelligence officer with the Canadian Army as they pressed into Holland during the D-Day operations. He had fond memories of the liberation of Holland, and of the Dutch peoples.

The Dutch, as did the French and other Northern European citizens, created resistance cells against the Nazi's. But the majority of the Dutch were under collaborationist rule. The result was the deportation of 70% of Hollands Jews to death camps, including the famous Anne Frank.

After WWII Canada and the US became a haven for collaborationsts as Cold War allies against the Soviets. The DP policy adopted by both countries aided and abetted the collaborationists in their exit from Europe.

Like operation Odessa by the Catholic Church, and the CIA extraction of General Gehlen of the SS intelligence service Russian division, the immigration policies of both countries favoured the collaborationist emigre's.

Canada and the US became home to the displaced Ukrainina fascists of the Ukrainian National Army UNO, who collaborated with the Nazi's, and went on the create the World Anti-Bolshevik League now known as the World Anti-Communist League, home of wayward fascists.

Fascists always defend their politics as 'anti-communism'.

CLAC founded in 1954, took advantage of the red scare to hide its collaborationist origins behind the mask of anti-communism at the height of the Cold War.

Notorious deportation camp remembered

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (CP) - Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende criticized his country's collaboration with its Nazi occupiers during the Second World War on Tuesday, shortly before commemorating the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the country's main deportation camp.
Balkenende said government authorities at the time "worked on the horrible process whereby Jews were stripped of their rights," Dutch public broadcaster NOS reported.
Thousands of survivors, soldiers and students gathered for a solemn ceremony at Westerbork camp, in the eastern Dutch countryside, where Jews and others considered enemies of the Nazi regime were detained before being deported to death camps in Poland and Germany.
Westerbork was liberated by Canadian troops, and 876 prisoners were freed. Members of the South Saskatchewan Regiment and the 8th Reconnaissance Regiment rolled into the camp April 12, 1945, releasing the inmates.
Many of those present Tuesday laid flowers at the camp's memorial - a short length of railroad tracks with one end twisted up skyward.
"It's a wonder that I exist," said Eveline Hertzberger, whose grandparents were interned at Westerbork.
She said she and other descendants of survivors were living proof that the Nazis had failed. "We're still here. The suffering wasn't for nothing. We bring honour to our history and our race."
More than 100,000 Dutch Jews - 70 per cent of the country's Jewish community - were deported from the Netherlands after Germany occupied the country in May 1940, with the efficient help of Dutch authorities.
Westerbork was run with minimal guidance from the Nazis; Dutch policemen handled security and a council of internees determined who was selected for deportation.
Most Dutch victims of the Holocaust, including the German-born teenage diarist Anne Frank, were held temporarily at the camp, 160 kilometres northeast of Amsterdam and not far from the German border. It was destroyed after the war.
Deportees were sent to death camps in Germany and Poland and most died in gas chambers, among the six million Jewish victims of the Nazi genocide. Frank died in Germany of typhus.

The Bankruptcy of Liberal Federalism

The release of the testimony from the Gomery commission this week pushed the Popes funeral off the newspaper headlines on Friday. Scandal battering Liberals, poll shows

Damn good thing too, there was enough 24 hr coverage on TV to bore one to tears, with the platitudes given to the leader of this outmoded medieval institution.

On to Gomery, well lets see what has been revealed is that now that Jean Brault of GroupAction spilled the beans last week everyone is now singing like stool pigeons. The Chretien cone of silence has been broken open. And now it comes out that as PMO hack Alain Renault says "It's just the way the world works".

Yep it goes like this. Facing a crisis from doing little or nothing around the 1995 Quebec Referendum the Liberals under PM Chretien panicked after the vote went 49% Yes 51% No. Along with the 1993 election the referendum bankrupted the provincial Liberal organization in Quebec. The Federal Government, an arm of the Liberal Party, under Chretien created a sponsorship slush fund to promote Canadian Unity in Quebec.

The official opposition was the Alliance Party of Canada, which had no base in Quebec nor did the NDP. So the Liberals being the only Federalist party in Quebec naturally assumed that they were THE FEDERALISTS. That the Liberals see themselves, not the Government, as the voice of federalism is key to this mess.

Ever since Trudeau, the Liberals have had a vision of a Quebec within Canada, while the Parlimentary carreerists in the old Tory party and the NDP were weak sisters backing up the Liberal lead against the Quebec nationalists.

With the success of the PQ in coming to power in Quebec despite Trudeau, the two Quebec referendums, the collapse of the Tories into the Alliance and the Bloc Quebecois scared the bejessus out of the Quebec Liberals under Chretien.

But the real problem was that the party organization in the province was broke. So the sponsorship fund to promote Canadian Federalism, read the Liberals, in Quebec became a slush fund to refinance the party.

Now this is business as ususal in Quebec, the Tories under Brian Mulroney did the same thing on a smaller scale and got caught. The business class in Quebec like Bombadier always lobbies the Feds for corporate handouts, it is the legacy of Trudeau Liberalism. And even the PQ is now accused of accepting brown envelopes of cash to approve GroupAction contracts.

Of course this kind of brown envelope politics is not limited to Quebec, it has been practiced by the Liberals in areas like Hamilto, Ontario too. Both Hamilton and Quebec have strong organized crime families that have allegedly been involved with the Liberals through their ties to certain ethnic communities. And this has been the case in Quebec where some of those who are accussed of money laundering for the party have last names like Gagliano, Morselli,and Mignacca.

Was this approved by the PMO under Chretien,? Well the bread crumbs lead that way, but the former PM has plausable deniability built into this affair. He can claim he left his Ministers in charge, and not being one to micro-manage he can say he didn't know. He also has the Liberal arrogance of being able to say, as he has, that only the Liberals fight for Federalism, that Federalism (Trudeau's concept of it anyway) is the Liberal Party.

And that is the subtext to this whole affair, only the Liberals represent all of Canada and the Trudeau vision of a Federalism that includes Quebec, whether they want it or not. The Tories under Brian Mulroney never could say that since they were an amalgamation of soft Quebec Nationalists, right wing populist Western Canadians and Bay Street boys.

The NDP has a policy recognizing Quebec's right to self determination but their 'real politick' is two faced, the elected MP's are all quizzlings for the Liberal Federalist vision. So the only real Federalists are the Liberals, and whatever they do to save Canada from Quebec nationalism is ok.

Whenever the Liberals talk about Federalism it is their federalism, their party policy that integrated the Quebec ruling class into Canada after the Quiet Revolution. It is the continuation Trudeau's war against the Quebec nationalism of the unions and the left.

Which is also why the NDP has been historically locked out of Quebec, even though they are a social democratic party. The PQ and the BQ have the support of Quebec's unions and the left. And their social democatic parties are to the left of the NDP. The BQ is under the leadership of Duccepe who is a Marxist Lenninist and a labour activist.

While the NDP under Smiling Jack Layton a former city councilor, remains the voice of Ed 'I'm a social democrat' Broadbent and the CLC. During the referendum the English Canadian Unions and the NDP joined in mass demonstrations waving the Canadian flag in Quebec and calling for a No vote.

Yep, the Federal Liberals view themselves as the only party capable of maintaining Quebec in Canada. And if that takes creasing some palms, well so be it. Of course it helps when the pork also gets shared back to bail the party out of it's fiscal mess.

This is all the result of the politics of statist federalism, that refuses to reconstitute Canada as a partnership between Quebec and the Rest of Canada. It is the real legacy of Trudeaumania.

Federalism as it is now constituted is a failure. It requires a strong central state, willing to slap down the provinces, which Trudeau was willing to do ("just watch me") and his descendants have no stomach for.

The weak tea federalism of the post-Trudeau era has created the mess we are in. Mulroney tried to bandage over with recognition of Quebec's distinct status not as a nation but as a province, with powers different from other provinces cause it is, the home of one of the Canadian State's founding peoples.

This has left the door open to other provinces like Alberta to challenge the Feds over provincial rights and for the Right Wing Federal Tories to promote a decentralized federalism contrary to the Trudeau vision. Liberaltarian Stephen Harper offers a vision of Canada that would be the creation of ten provincial fifedoms. His version of Canadian Federalism is simply neo-Feudalism.

In fact Trudeau's Federalism is not that of the classical anarchists but the reverse, he stands Bakunin on his head and proposes a new Canadian Nationalism, which had a strong central liberal state in opposition to Quebec nationalism.

"In the great tide of nationalism in the nineteenth century, there was a handful of prophetic and dissenting voices, urging a different style of federalism. It is interesting, at the least, that the ones whose names survive were the three best known anarchist thinkers of that century: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Michael Bakunin and Peter Kropotkin. The actual evolution of the political left in the twentieth century has dismissed their legacy as irrelevant. So much the worse for the left, since the road has been emptied in favour of the political right, which has been able to set out its own agenda for both federalism and regionalism." Colin Ward. The Anarchists Sociology of Federalism

But Quebec does not want special provincial status and never has, it wants state hood, within a new regional confederation. And that could open up a real confederation, not only between the so called English Canadian State and the Quebec State but also with the Aborignal peoples, who were not included as 'founding peoples' of the modern Canadian state.

If this Federalist scandal proves anything it proves that trying to keep a former colonial state under British parlimentary rule founded in 1867 and revised in 1967 is a failure despite Trudeaus best efforts.

We need a new Canadian Confederation, one that recognizes citizens assemblies, the Quebec nation, the aboriginal and metis nations, that eliminates the Senate and allows for greater involvement of political movements through proportional representation. All this a liberal state could accomplish.

But a Liberal state never will.

From bad to worse: MPs fear Gomery revelations could lower public trust

Bruce Cheadle

Canadian Pres

Sunday, April 10, 2005

OTTAWA (CP) - Veteran New Democrat MP Bill Blaikie, an ordained United Church clergyman, has never felt a personal whiff of scandal in his 26 years in federal politics.

But the affable Winnipeg MP still fears the stench rising from Justice John Gomery's sponsorship inquiry will taint him and every other federal politician forced to call Ottawa home these days.

"Obviously, my hope would be otherwise: that people would resolve to rise up and do something about it," Blaikie said in a weekend interview from his Transcona constituency office.

"But I think there's a very real danger that it increases cynicism."

It's an almost universal lament as the inquiry unearths a vast cache of riveting testimony alleging Liberal party corruption that is unparalleled in recent Canadian political history.

"People are going to lose faith even in voting," offered NDP Leader Jack Layton.

For a profession that consistently polls at the bottom in public trust rankings, right behind used car dealers, the sponsorship scandal is like a cruel punchline.

Stephen Harper agrees. Federalism in peril: Harper, Liberals to blame And so does the public; Opinions range from 'Liberals must go' to 'all politicians are corrupt'

Conspiracy Theory or Ruling Class Studies

WALL STREET AND THE BOLSHEVIK REVOLUTION By Antony C. Sutton
Found on the web the full book by Anthony Sutton a rational conspiracy researcher, he studies machinations of 20th Century business decisionsof the Wall Street movers and shakers that have had important political impacts. His focus is on the masks of capitalism, the movers and shakers of the corporate world and their political allies.

His dedication is interesting as well:

To
those unknown Russian libertarians, also
known as Greens, who in 1919 fought both
the Reds and the Whites in their attempt to
gain a free and voluntary Russia

Suttons book is an excellent supplement to Maurice Britons outstanding libertarian history of the Russian Revolution; The Bolsheviks and Workers Control. The libertarians in the Russian Revolution were centred around the Ukrainian Anarchist Nestor Makhno.

Sutton debunks the Jewish Conspiracy theory in his appendix to this book, which is printed below.

"Capitalism and Bolshevism are the two sides of the same international Jewish coin." - Adolf Hitler

This is the core conspiracy theory behind the American/English/European/Christian and Islamic belief that the Jews rule the world. One could just as well make the case for the Anglo American Alliance conspiracy theory which sees the the US and England in a long battle with the Vatican. Or that it is all an attempt by the Freemasons to enlighten the world. Or the attempt by Cecil Rhodes to revive the power of the declining English Empire with his round table group, Rhodes himself being a notorious racist and anti-semite. All these conspiracy mythos come to a single conspiracy conclusion that there is one mysterious body of leaders behind all this and it is always the same metatheory whether it is the Illuminati or the New World Order it ends up as the Jews are behind it. Since conspiracy theorists are single minded in their 'faith' that there is a single power at the top of their pyramid their metatheory always ends up as anti-semitic. Being a monolithic view that there is a conspiracy to monopolize power, the conspiracy faithful build intricate patterns of roots and branches eventually all leading to Zion. Or is it Sion? Ah well it's B.S. as Sutton correctly points out. Conspiracy theorists enamoured upon their discovery that "the history of the world is the history of secret societies"(as Ishmael Reed said in his novel Mumbo Jumbo) forget that other dictum; the ruling classes compete for power. Regardless of whether that power is to maintain the antiquated aristocracy of the various European royal families, or the Arabic clans and families, or the Indian Brahamin class, or the Japanese Samuria culture now embedded in their Corporatist State, or the American power struggle between Yankees and Cowboys ( Carl Oglesby ), it is all the same struggle. The capitalist system of politics makes each national bourgoise , the executive arm of their particular national capital and its political economy, regardless if it is a mixed economy, a private market or state capitalism. And within this national executive the Power Elite, (C. Wright Mills,) form political camps and vie for power and global hegemony. The Trilateral Commission, the Davos World Economic Forum and the Bilderburger group, are excellent examples of this ruling class conspiracy (conspiracy in the sense that these are private meetings which do not have public oversight and involve all the superstructures of the capitalist state) to maintain its power. The decisions and policies of these institutions of the ruling class elite, think tanks really, set the wheels of globalization, the WTO, and the new corporate state in motion; American Imperialism through free trade and privatization, while right wing think tanks, like the Cato institute, act as the cheerleaders for these policies . Like the story of the Wizard of Oz the conspiracy theorist needs to believe in the metatheory that the Wizard is behind it all, when in reality it is like the machinery of the Wizard; being the machinery of capitalism, the interlocking families, businesses, corporations, and the state compete to maintain their hegemony of power, and to become a monolithic hegemony (imperialism). The conspiracy theorists do us all a favour in revealing exactly the magnitude of what Chomsky calls the institutional structure of the ruling class. But rather than dismissing the conspiracy culture as Chomsky does, we should look at the facts they raise, not for their racist xenophobic conclusions, but rather as a way of assessing the machinations of the global ruling classes in all their internal conflicts to maintain their power and hegemony. This is what makes Suttons books such a damn good read. They clearly show that rather than being a monolithic conspiracy that goes back thousands of years to lost Atlantis, the corporate hegemony of the elites over the state in the twentieth century is really politics as usual under a still ascendant capitalism. In this way Sutton is not so much a conspiracy researcher, though many of his fans are, as he is a student of Ruling Class Studies. As were Caroll Quigley, The Anglo-American Establishment, another source for the conspiracy cult, Ferdinand Lundberg The Rich and the Super-Rich and William Domhoff', Who Rules America? Another excellent sociological study of an actual ruling class secret society is the doctoral dissertation by Peter Martin Phillips, A Relative Advantage: Sociology of the San Francisco Bohemian Club. This struggle of the power elites goes back to the origins of modern capitalism between 1400 and 1700 as it evolved out of fuedalism to finally challenge it with a new method of production in the 18th and 19th centuries, and a new State, certainly needs no Atlantean connection to make it worthy of study and understanding. As the power of the elites under capitalism expanded so did their riches. Which is what intriques the conspiracy faithful, they expose the inheritance of power and wealth of the elite. The fortunes of the capitalist ruling class are not made by production, sales, work, creation of factories, or jobs but by inheritence the very source as, Marx points out, of the origin of capital. The right wing in America, so enamoured of conspiracy theories, justifies this inheritance of power and wealth by the elites and the ruling classes which is ironically, the very source of their conspiracy theories.

"In a capitalist society, the institution of inheritance is more than a moral institution, it is part of the process whereby wealth is transferred to those who can best use it to serve the wishes of consumers." The Super-Rich Tax Themselves by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

And who better to know what we want, then our rulers whose only claim to power is the wealth they did not earn but inherited from their families who have been exploiting us for centuries. How this wealth came to be, theft, murder, etc., in the hands of a small elite is not anwsered by the right wing apologists for the power elite. And when the ruling class fears things aren't going their way they create their own counter revolution; Fascism.

As Domhoff points out:

Most sectors of the American economy are dominated by a relative handful of large corporations. These corporations, in turn, are linked in a variety of ways to create a corporate community. At an economic level, the ties within the corporate community are manifested in ownership of common stock on the part of both families and other corporations, as well as in joint ventures among corporations and in the common sources of bank loans that most corporations share. At a more sociological level, the corporate community is joined together by the use of the same legal, accounting, and consulting firms and by the similar experiences of executives working in the bureaucratic structure of a large organization. Then too, the large corporations come together as a business community because they share the same values and goals-in particular, the profit motive. Finally, and not least, the common goals of the corporations lead them to have common enemies in the labor movement and middle-class reformers, which gives them a further sense of a shared identity.

hundreds of very large corporations ... are privately owned by a family or group of families. The size and extent of such corporations is often overlooked in discussions of the modern corporation.

The fact that the upper class is also intertwined with the corporate community adds a second dimension to the nature of its cohesiveness. The cohesion is not only social, based on school and club affiliations, but economic, rooted in common stock ownership and most visibly manifested in the complex pattern of interlocking directorships that unites the corporate community and creates a dense and flexible communication network.

And this is exactly what Anthony Sutton's books document is the American Power Elite and their influence in the 20th Century. In Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler, he says;

"This politically active Wall Street group is more or less the same elitist circle known generally among Conservatives as the "Liberal Establishment," by liberals (for instance G. William Domhoff) as "the ruling class," and by conspiratorial theorists Gary Allen and Dan Smoot as the "Insiders." But whatever we call this self-perpetuating elitist group, it is apparently fundamentally significant in the determination of world affairs, at a level far behind and above that of the elected politicians."

Sutton is also the author of "America's Secret Establishment. An Introduction to the Order of Skull and Bones." His work on the Skull and Bones has seen renewed popularity as both George W and John Kerry were members of this Anglo American establishment institution, as is William Buckely Jr. Scratch a right winger, even a so called libertarian right winger, in the United States and you will find a conspiracy theorist. A simple review of conspiracy web sites will reveal the fact that all of them lead to evangelical protestant sects in America and their websites, bible study courses and mass media broadcasts about the coming end days. And of course these sects are notorious anti-semites, cause they know who killed Jesus. So now you know who is really behind the conspiracy.

Appendix II

THE JEWISH-CONSPIRACY THEORY OF THE BOLSHEVIK REVOLUTION

There is an extensive literature in English, French, and German reflecting the argument that the Bolshevik Revolution was the result of a "Jewish conspiracy"; more specifically, a conspiracy by Jewish world bankers. Generally, world control is seen as the ultimate objective; the Bolshevik Revolution was but one phase of a wider program that supposedly reflects an age-old religious struggle between Christianity and the "forces of darkness."

The argument and its variants can be found in the most surprising places and from quite surprising persons. In February 1920 Winston Churchill wrote an article — rarely cited today — for the London Illustrated Sunday Herald entitled "Zionism Versus Bolshevism." In this' article Churchill concluded that it was "particularly important... that the National Jews in every country who are loyal to the land of their adoption should come forward on every occasion . . . and take a prominent part in every measure for combatting the Bolshevik conspiracy." Churchill draws a line between "national Jews" and what he calls "international Jews." He argues that the "international and for the most atheistical Jews" certainly had a "very great" role in the creation of Bolshevism and bringing about the Russian Revolution. He asserts (contrary to fact) that with the exception of Lenin, "the majority" of the leading figures in the revolution were Jewish, and adds (also contrary to fact) that in many cases Jewish interests and Jewish places of worship were excepted by the Bolsheviks from their policies of seizure. Churchill calls the international Jews a "sinister confederacy" emergent from the persecuted populations of countries where Jews have been persecuted on account of their race. Winston Churchill traces this movement back to Spartacus-Weishaupt, throws his literary net around Trotsky, Bela Kun, Rosa Luxemburg, and Emma Goldman, and charges: "This world-wide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilisation and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence, and impossible equality, has been steadily growing."

Churchill then argues that this conspiratorial Spartacus-Weishaupt group has been the mainspring of every subversive movement in the nineteenth century. While pointing out that Zionism and Bolshevism are competing for the soul of the Jewish people, Churchill (in 1920) was preoccupied with the role of the Jew in the Bolshevik Revolution and the existence of a worldwide Jewish conspiracy.

Another well-known author in the 1920s, Henry Wickham Steed describes in the second volume of his Through 30 Years 1892-1922 (p. 302) how he attempted to bring the Jewish-conspiracy concept to the attention of Colonel Edward M. House and President Woodrow Wilson. One day in March 1919 Wickham Steed called Colonel House and found him disturbed over Steed's recent criticism of U.S. recognition of the Bolsheviks. Steed pointed out to House that Wilson would be discredited among the many peoples and nations of Europe and "insisted that, unknown to him, the prime movers were Jacob Schiff, Warburg and other international financiers, who wished above all to bolster up the Jewish Bolshevists in order to secure a field for German and Jewish exploitation of Russia."1 According to Steed, Colonel House argued for the establishment of economic relations with the Soviet Union.

Probably the most superficially damning collection of documents on the Jewish conspiracy is in the State Department Decimal File (861.00/5339). The central document is one entitled "Bolshevism and Judaism," dated November 13, 1918. The text is in the form of a report, which states that the revolution in Russia was engineered "in February 1916" and "it was found that the following persons and firms were engaged in this destructive work":

(1) Jacob Schiff Jew (2) Kuhn, Loeb & Company Jewish Firm Management: Jacob Schiff Jew
Felix Warburg Jew
Otto H. Kahn Jew
Mortimer L. Schiff Jew
Jerome J. Hanauer Jew (3) Guggenheim Jew (4) Max Breitung Jew (5) Isaac Seligman Jew

The report goes on to assert that there can be no doubt that the Russian Revolution was started and engineered by this group and that in April 1917

Jacob Schiff in fact made a public announcement and it was due to his financial influence that the Russian revolution was successfully accomplished and in the Spring 1917 Jacob Schitf started to finance Trotsky, a Jew, for the purpose of accomplishing a social revolution in Russia.

The report contains other miscellaneous information about Max Warburg's financing of Trotsky, the role of the Rheinish-Westphalian syndicate and Olof Aschberg of the Nya Banken (Stockholm) together with Jivotovsky. The anonymous author (actually employed by the U.S. War Trade Board)states that the links between these organizations and their financing of the Bolshevik Revolution show how "the link between Jewish multi-millionaires and Jewish proletarians was forged." The report goes on to list a large number of Bolsheviks who were also Jews and then describes the actions of Paul Warburg, Judus Magnes, Kuhn, Loeb & Company, and Speyer & Company.

The report ends with a barb at "International Jewry" and places the argument into the context of a Christian-Jewish conflict backed up by quotations from the Protocols of Zion. Accompanying this report is a series of cables between the State Department in Washington and the American embassy in London concerning the steps to be taken with these documents:

5399 Great Britain, TEL. 3253 i pm

October 16, 1919 In Confidential File
Secret for Winslow from Wright. Financial aid to Bolshevism & Bolshevik Revolution in Russia from prominent Am. Jews: Jacob Schiff, Felix Warburg, Otto Kahn, Mendell Schiff, Jerome Hanauer, Max Breitung & one of the Guggenheims. Document re- in possession of Brit. police authorities from French sources. Asks for any facts re-.

* * * * *

Oct. 17 Great Britain TEL. 6084, noon r c-h 5399 Very secret. Wright from Winslow. Financial aid to Bolshevik revolution in Russia from prominent Am. Jews. No proof re- but investigating. Asks to urge Brit. authorities to suspend publication at least until receipt of document by Dept.

* * * * *

Nov. 28 Great Britain TEL. 6223 R 5 pro. 5399
FOR WRIGHT. Document re financial aid to Bolsheviki by prominent American jews. Reports — identified as French translation of a statement originally prepared in English by Russian citizen in Am. etc. Seem most unwise to give — the distinction of publicity.

It was agreed to suppress this material and the files conclude, "I think we have the whole thing in cold storage."

Another document marked "Most Secret" is included with this batch of material. The provenance of the document is unknown; it is perhaps FBI or military intelligence. It reviews a translation of the Protocols of the Meetings of the Wise Men of Zion, and concludes:

In this connection a letter was sent to Mr. W. enclosing a memorandum from us with regard to certain information from the American Military Attache to the effect that the British authorities had letters intercepted from various groups of international Jews setting out a scheme for world dominion. Copies of this material will be very useful to us.

This information was apparently developed and a later British intelligence report makes the flat accusation:

SUMMARY: There is now definite evidence that Bolshevism is an international movement controlled by Jews; communications are passing between the leaders in America, France, Russia and England with a view to concerted action....4

However, none of the above statements can be supported with hard empirical evidence. The most significant information is contained in the paragraph to the effect that the British authorities possessed "letters intercepted from various groups of international Jews setting out a scheme for world dominion." If indeed such letters exist, then they would provide support (or nonsupport) for a presently unsubstantiated hypothesis: to wit, that the Bolshevik Revolution and other revolutions are the work of a worldwide Jewish conspiracy.

Moveover, when statements and assertions are not supported by hard evidence and where attempts to unearth hard evidence lead in a circle back to the starting point — particularly when everyone is quoting everyone else — then we must reject the story as spurious. There is no concrete evidence that Jews were involved in the Bolshevik Revolution because they were Jewish. There may indeed have been a higher proportion of Jews involved, but given tsarist treatment of Jews, what else would we expect? There were probably many Englishmen or persons of English origin in the American Revolution fighting the redcoats. So what? Does that make the American Revolution an English conspiracy? Winston Churchill's statement that Jews had a "very great role" in the Bolshevik Revolution is supported only by distorted evidence. The list of Jews involved in the Bolshevik Revolution must be weighed against lists of non-Jews involved in the revolution. When this scientific procedure is adopted, the proportion of foreign Jewish Bolsheviks involved falls to less than twenty percent of the total number of revolutionaries — and these Jews were mostly deported, murdered, or sent to Siberia in the following years. Modern Russia has in fact maintained tsarist anti-Semitism.

It is significant that documents in the State Department files confirm that the investment banker Jacob Schiff, often cited as a source of funds for the Bolshevik Revolution, was in fact against support of the Bolshevik regime. This position, as we shall see, was in direct contrast to the Morgan-Rockefeller promotion of the Bolsheviks.

The persistence with which the Jewish-conspiracy myth has been pushed suggests that it may well be a deliberate device to divert attention from the real issues and the real causes. The evidence provided in this book suggests that the New York bankers who were also Jewish had relatively minor roles in supporting the Bolsheviks, while the New York bankers who were also Gentiles (Morgan, Rockefeller, Thompson) had major roles.

What better way to divert attention from the real operators than by the medieval bogeyman of anti-Semitism?

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