Right then…Plan-B
Wandering around the righty blogosphere the anger and the disappointment with Harper are palpable.
Well, enough moaning…time for Plan-B
To become a party one must have the following:
- Party Name: Plan-B
- Leader: Me for purposes of Registration – we’ll elect someone more suitable later
- Office: My House for the moment;
- Three officers: I am taking volunteers. Ideally one should live in Victoria for convenience.
- An Auditor: I have a CMA lined up.
- A Chief Agent: I have one pro tem but would like to find someone with serious political experience.
- names, addresses and signatures of 250 electors and their declarations in the prescribed form that they are members of the party and support the party’s application for registration:
Here is the form
.Please mail it to Plan-B, 2313 Cranmore Road, Oak Bay, BC V8R 1Z5 It has to be physically downloaded, filled our and signed and then returned to the party. This is the hard part as we will need to have actual people sign off.
As well I will soon be looking for candidates to run in roughly 20-40 ridings in the next election. I will also be looking for donations to cover the $1000.00 entry fee required to run.
The objective here is very straightforward – Plan-B will run candidates in marginal CPC seats with the express purpose of defeating CPC candidates unless the CPC, immediately, repeals s. 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act. We are not a one issue party, we are a one section party.
If s. 13 is repealed prior to an election no candidates will run, if not we do everything in our power to deny Harper his majority.
Harper seems to believe he can ignore his own Party, the vast majority of mainstream media, and the righty blogosphere with impunity.
I would like to prove him wrong.
Here is the form again:
Here is the form. Please mail it to Plan-B, 2313 Cranmore Road, Oak Bay, BC V8R 1Z5
January 11th, 2009 at 2:59 am
A single issue party! Very friendly to the ADD demographic.
January 11th, 2009 at 6:24 am
This is exactly right.
January 11th, 2009 at 6:34 am
Get a life. Just what Canada really needs right now – another single issue campaign. Let’s start with getting a Conservative majority so the Prime Minister can deal with these smaller issues without threat of a NDP/Bloq/Liberal coalition. While I symathise with the s. 13 advocates, I think we have bigger fish to fry.
January 11th, 2009 at 6:47 am
I like your plan Jay but perhaps we should tag it “plan B Version 2.0”...I’m hearing rumbles about Harper’s disappointing leadership from former party contacts. After spitting in the eye of the membership’s policy convention directives for a second time, and formulating policy in a vacuum, There is a growing movement to call him on the mat for it. That combined with the way Iggy and Layton work Harper like a puppet of the Marx-light opposition signals Harper will be facing a leadership review from disgruntled conservatives in the party.
The discontented CPC membership may do half the donkey work for us. By the time you get your troops on the ground, Harper may not be the CPC leader you face in an election. I’d renew my CPC membership just to vote on showing Harper the door. The bone heap is the place for an elitist wimp who is too timid to wear his libertarian/conservative principles in public or in policy action.
Just the same, this partisan-obstructed democracy needs 20 or so independents in the house just to break the power of the whips and the self-serving agendas of the party policy wonks. Let’s work this like a vitally needed citizen-actuated democratic reform regardless of who is in the PMO.
January 11th, 2009 at 8:29 am
I too am disappointed with Harper’s actions, however given the context I don’t think there is much more he can do until he acheives a majority and the LPC is gone, gone, gone (because Canadians will never see the NDP has a credible opposition). I hope that Harper is playing the long game and while I admire your aim I think it will lead the right-ofcentre back to disunity and opposition statuts and allow the Liberals, who have done nothing to develop policies or address any of their fundamental problems, back into government. That I will not stand for.
January 11th, 2009 at 8:34 am
So who would you prefer as PM. This is the most idiotic idea I have heard of, and that takes in a lot of ideas.
Tell us, please, how PMSH could repeal S13 in a minority government, he could introduce a bill or whatever, to be defeated by the coup planners, or held up in the Senate for years.
Give your head a shake and wake up to reality.
January 11th, 2009 at 11:57 am
Your partisans wish to keep your CMA working productively. Please provide means of contributing.
January 11th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
Maureen and MaryT – there is bi-partisan support for the repeal of s. 13. Liberal Keith Martin has introduced a private members bill to do just that.
Hiding behind minority status is rubbish.
January 11th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
Name? Extreme-centre.
January 11th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
I hated this idea at first, but I can’t really come up with an argument against it. Why not use a more expressive name – like the “Free speech party”? Plan-B sounds like a pro-abortion party.
January 11th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
Matth and Thomas: I like Plan-B as a name simply because, as people are looking at the unappetizing choices of the other parties having a “Plan-B” may look attractive.
And, LOL, I was aware of the Plan-B morning after pill. The marketeer in me says, why not take advantage of several million dollars worth of advertising.
January 11th, 2009 at 2:35 pm
Name?
You should call it “Agent 13”
January 11th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
Larry – apparently you didn’t read Harper’s interview that closely. He did NOT say that the CPC will deal with section 13 later (which, given current exigencies, would be understandable). Rather, he said section 13 is necessary to deal with ‘hate’ speech! And he was ignorant enough to make the claim (which Ezra of all people bought) that the provincial HRCs are worse than the federal. This last claim is nonsense – just google Warman, Steacy, Kozak, Lemire, etc.
Or to put this another way – when the Lyin Jackal is happy none of us should be.
January 11th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
Jay, will there be an elaboration of the policy? If you contextualize it to give legitimacy to the Criminal Code provisions, you will likely attract more support. Also, avoid the castigation of the CHRC as there is a very good argument that they have no power to ignore a law when doing their job, however badly they might go about it. This is purely a statutory issue as far as I am concerned and if placed correctly one that I very well could support.
January 11th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
Wow – we have one Lib on board. Bi – partisan? Isn’t that mono partisan.001 Give yor head a shake. Splitting the conservative vote will result in Jean Chretien part deux, ie 15 years of corruption and increased restrictions on free speech.
January 11th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
Craig – I did read the interview that closely – perhaps the optimist in me allows me to read more into the PM’s responses than some others. But the question remains – how can the CPC pass this type of legislation in a minority government? And Plan B, if I am not mistaken , is to ensure they remain a minority government. I still maintain, with the economy going down the tubes, there are more important things to deal with at the present time. If the Conservatives had a majority governemnt and did nothing, then it would be time for Plan B. So lets put all this energy into ensuring they get the majority that we all need.
January 11th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
If it’s true that you “can live with Iggy as PM” as you said before, then why are you willing to spend considerable time, energy and resources with this “Plan B” idea? To send some sort of message to the Conservatives/Stephen Harper? Yeah, that will certainly do the trick. Why would that have any impact when nothing else has? Why not simply throw your vote behind the LPC?
If this section 13 really is your single issue, then I know darned well that you cannot live with PM Iggy. And you cannot live with any of the other party leaders or MP’s who could conceivably become PM in the future.
The best thing you could possibly do is run as far and as fast as you can from all political parties in Canada (as none of them are on the side of completely free expression), continue to point out the moral bankruptcy of anyone who supports s. 13, and speak/blog freely about any and every issue that you see fit.
January 11th, 2009 at 6:15 pm
> The marketeer in me says, why not take advantage of several million dollars worth of advertising.
In that case, let’s call it the Taco Bell Party.
January 11th, 2009 at 6:33 pm
Mambo, you have a point.
Alan, my view is that the repeal of s. 13 would leave the current Criminal Code provisions intact and that this should be sufficient, if the Crown gets off its duff, to contain such things as calling for the murder of Jewish children as apparently occurred in Toronto.
Viewed from a certain perspective, the CHRC is stuck with the administration and enforcement of an entirely unworkable law. We need to relieve them of this burden.
January 11th, 2009 at 7:10 pm
I’ll sign up. All you naysayers waiting for Harper to elect more Ontario and eastern MPs to get his majority are dreaming if you think that will make Sect 13 disappear.
If you don’t like Jay’s idea come up with something better. It wouldn’t directly get rid of Sec 13, but I believe supporting the lawsuit of some one who has suffered from the abuse and malfeasance of office by the specific members (Warman, Steacy, Kozak, Lemire) of the CHRC or some office holders of the provincial ones would shut them down. Don’t think it would work? Look up the legal precedents. The only reason it hasn’t been done is the legal cost.
January 11th, 2009 at 7:18 pm
Exactly, Jay. That is why this has nothing to do with the Human Rights Commission, just those in charge of the legislation…which requires the creation of the party.
That being said, should not the tone of the party not be humour and mockery? When a law is so poorly thought out that it can’t be enforced while at the same time it is seemingly so sacred that it cannot be repealed, isn’t the proper response humour and mockery?
January 11th, 2009 at 8:05 pm
(transferred from your last post):
i was thinking that, since the point of this endeavor is to upset the Conservatives, if this thing got legs and started running, it would definitely hit the airwaves and tv (maybe politicking would be a good way to bait these big media fish?). ;)
but i wonder if it might not play too well for our cause to be labeled the “scary” and “extreme” guys who want to abolish sec. 13.
or, maybe i just worry too much.
i think i’ll go relax now and chew some tinfoil.
January 11th, 2009 at 8:16 pm
I agree with those who think Plan B would just get the Liberals elected and for someone who apparently can “live” with Iggy, maybe this is the ulterior motive? This is how Clinton got elected with Ross Perot as the spoiler.
Libs will certainly jump on the hiving off of conservatives to claim that even conservatives don’t believe in or want the CPC.
Libs are devious enough to even promise action against Section 13 since some of their constituencies are already onside (what votes would they lose, the Jewish or gay vote like there’s a chance?) leaving your group with no issue and the suggestion you vote for them only to find that a decade later they haven’t quite gotten around to working out the details.
Larry’s point that YOU ARE PREMATURE is accurate; “If the Conservatives had a majority government and did nothing, then it would be time for Plan B. So lets put all this energy into ensuring they get the majority that we all need.”
January 11th, 2009 at 8:29 pm
Alan, humour and mockery are my middle names…You bet – hence the name “Plan-B”. Frankly, I suspect people who are entirely indifferent to s. 13, if presented with the opportunity to vote for “Plan-B” will be all over it.
The serious objective is to make Harper feel a good deal of pain for his sell out. How we achieve that objective will be to make fun of his total lack of principle.
Shel, I am not without a certain knowledge when it comes to media. Even as we speak this is sitting in various in-boxes in the MSM.
kivi, you have it in one. The very point of Plan-B is to threaten Harper and the CPC with defeat. And to give them an easy, principled, way to avoid such defeat. Repeal s.13. If the Libs climb on board so much the better; then you have bi-partisan support and even less reason for Harper to delay.
January 11th, 2009 at 9:18 pm
Wow, you’ve hit on an interesting idea here, Jay. I am a strict nonpartisan (not that I don’t have political leanings—I just refuse to commit myself to a partisan collective of any stripe.). Your “plan B” contains a very interesting approach to single-issue wedging. It appears some of your readers here really misunderstand your concept, or think it has something to do with internal CPC politics or overthrowing Harper. As long as it doesn’t evolve into a permanent fixture in Canadian politics I think it’s a great idea, and satisfies my notion of involvement without partisanship. Even if the idea doesn’t fly in the end, I think you’ve come up with a very worthwhile invention!
I’ll mull it over.
January 11th, 2009 at 9:31 pm
For Larry and the others – let me repeat my point: if Harper had said that we can’t deal with section 13 now because of the economy or that we lack a majority, I could (and would) understand. But he didn’t say that. Rather, he claimed that section 13 is justified. As for getting this though a minority Parliament, the elimination of section 13 has the support of the editorial boards of all the major papers (and that includes the Toronto Star and the Globe), PEN Canada, the Canadian civil liberties association, John Ralston Saul, Rex Murphy, the CHRC’s own investigator (!) . . . I could go on. He even has Keith Martin, a Liberal MP, ready with a private members’ bill.
There is really no excuse for inaction – save for the fact that Harper is an unprincipled ‘pol’ who will do anything to stay in power (including cutting and running in Afstan, breaking his own election law, etc).
January 11th, 2009 at 10:06 pm
Hey I got our 1st marketing collateral – and no complainin I’m doin this on my time;)
January 12th, 2009 at 1:59 am
Larry, that has become an excuse for every failure of conservatism from Harper – if only he had a majority, blah blah blah. The other weak argument from the Harper sock puppets is he can’t be a one issue statesmen. One issue eh? So the fact that a Governor got caught trying to take bribes to appoint a Senator – well, that is only ONE issue right, why throw him out of office for one issue? See how absurd you sound. Free Speech as Thomas Paine said is something to die for.
January 12th, 2009 at 2:00 am
Well Mary T, he finds Liberals who would be onside. At least we take it to the public and they can witness first hand who the fascists are.
January 12th, 2009 at 3:00 am
This exchange of comments is a salient reminder of just how many “conservatives” there are who remain clearly ignorant of Section 13.1, don’t care about/actively support statist intervention in freedom of speech, care more about power than principle or are simple-minded partisans who will check the box for Harper or anyone else provided he is wearing the right colour hat (“na na-na na-na na-na leader!”).
The best advertisement, in other words, for why Harper thinks he can do whatever he wants to win a few seats in Quebec and give us Mulroney redux, another five years of Canadian government doing exactly what it would have done under, say, Bob Rae and a few jobs for party hacks who have nothing to say for themselves and consequently nothing to lose by the abolition of our most ancient rights.
It is hilarious to me that anyone who thinks supporting a leader who ignores his own party’s convention platform time and again is going to magically transform that leader into a man who will enact conservative principles once he has a majority. And, yes, despite what these partisans cannot manage to squeeze between their ears, Ignatieff is a big part of what makes Plan B possible. The man supports the war, suggested tax cuts in the face of our economic slow down (the correct action, in other words) and – judging by a doorstep conversation with Kathy Shaidle – may even be a better man to repeal 13.1 than anyone else on offer (anyone who has not read the exchange will have to google for it on his or her own, I cannot be bothered to educate half this comments section). Do we trust Ignatieff? No. But we know we cannot trust Harper and he is the man with whom we have leverage.
Just wait for a majority, we have been told time and time again. If Harper had done anything in his tenure a Liberal would not have done the folks saying making this stalest of arguments might yet have a point. They don’t. They are the reason Harper thinks he can get away with doing nothing and, by so doing, allow the persecution of the innocent. They are the problem.
January 12th, 2009 at 5:52 am
I think this is a good idea. But why stop at going after Tory marginals. Perhaps we should also look at some Liberal marginals as well. Harper is desperate for a majority, and Iggy is desperate to knock off Harper – neither can achieve their respective goals if there are sufficient seats at risk. And if we telegraph our intentions to stand in both Liberal and Conservative marginals one of them may call Uncle and advocate the repeal the offending section in which case we do not stand candidates in that party’s marginal constituencies.
Also Jay I think you need to stand 50 candidates to get official party status.
January 12th, 2009 at 6:37 am
On further thought – if we also target Liberals it needs to be in seats where they are competing with the Bloc or the NDP - no point in handing seats to the Tories. The same doesn’t necessarily hold true for Tory seats though – as the Liberals are so far back, if they benefit by winning a further 30 seats who cares.
Also, when considering what constitutes a “marginal” seat we should include seats not currently held by the Tories but which they have a good chance at winning – ie, Edmonton Strathcona, Ujjal Dosanjh’s riding etc.
January 12th, 2009 at 7:38 am
This is a great idea Jay. I’ve never considered myself naive, but watching the complete sellout of Stephen Harper over the past couple of years has been disillusioning to say the least. My declaration is on the way!
January 12th, 2009 at 8:29 am
After Harper is back in opposition we can all get to work cutting off our noses.
That’ll teach ‘em.
January 12th, 2009 at 9:01 am
Surly, under the current law running a single candidate will get you party status. I think you may have a point on Liberal marginals but I will have to think about it. In a perfect world the threat will be sufficient to have Harper repeal s.13.
January 12th, 2009 at 9:52 am
I’m sure there is some benefit that accrues from running 50+ candidates. Anyways, it can’t be that hard to put up that many candidates. We only really need enough money for deposits and and a couple of thousand leaflets per candidate. And the more candidates we stand the more organized we appear and of course the more time, money and energy is potentially diverted from ridings Harper hopes to win to ridings he hopes to retain.
I think it would be worthwhile targeting Liberals as well on the off chance that Iggy decides to flip over to supporting the repeal of s 13.1 before Harper does – then we’d have the pleasure of watching the lying jackal’s head explode!
January 12th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
Blair – is there no point at which your blind support for ‘Stevie’ will cease?
I’d rather have a principled conservative in opposition than a sell-out like Harper in power.
I prefer my liberalism straight from the source. And the old Reform party did more to shape policy from across the aisle than this government has done in three years in office (I would say the same for the NDP in the 70s).
January 12th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
I’m with Mary T – what an idiotic idea! So you like the big spending Liberals – Iggy, Rae, Kinsella, Trudeau Jr, etc? Good for you – you can have the lot of them. The Lyin’ Liberals have never accepted responsibility for Adscam. And what makes you think the Liberals would repeal anything their Great One (Trudeau) created? Because of Keith Martin? Most Liberals were against his motion. Yep, give your heads a good shake!
Well, I may not be entirely happy with the Conservatives, but in the next election I will certainly be voting Conservative, if for no other reason than to cancel out the vote of one of you, who seem bent on voting Liberal!
January 12th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
We need a web site.
January 12th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
We do…And when I am out from under the proposal I am writing we will have one.
January 12th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
We are gettin nice comments at the Post:
http://tinyurl.com/7sr9je
January 12th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
WL Mackenzie Redux :
I think your plan has the best chance. If one is not faithful in the small things there not likely to be when it matters.
Every thing Reformers fought for like the gun registry’s demise, the CHRC’s, the CRTC’s monopoly of information hording or censorship. A debasement of Free speech in Government. All have been ignored by this PM against his own caucus & party platform.
The Liberals will just render this Nation into a Ghost Country if not cause a split. Ghost of Flea has undeniable points. BCF as well but lets not go goofy for crooked Liberal who have proved they have learned nothing.
Replace Harper. He has become the wall to real Democracy not a support.
I would like to see any new party with a real Bill of Rights as its touchstone. The West went to great lengths to get a PM that understood freedom of the Individual. I was an original Reformer who signed the first party document at the Jubilee auditorium.
Power does strange things to folks. Its why I refuse to run a crew at work. As for the mythical majority. He has done NOTHING for his base supporters, but licked the boots of Quebec & Ontario as per usual like there dog.
He’s in for a big shock from Albertans. Mulroney found that out the hard way. We will not be intimidated. Being away from home to long has caused a reversion to being an Easterner with all the flattery’s of his office in Ottawa. He has forgotten who got him here. That’s just a personnel observation. I started to have doubts only 6 months ago but they have been clarified by his inaction at every level. With pity remarks to feed the conservative lions, with no results. This Picture say’s it all. http://www.conservative.ca/
JMO
January 12th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
I’d post test but why bother, I guess I’m being censored again.
January 12th, 2009 at 10:05 pm
Flea, great post. The problem with the CPC are the centrists, aka red Tories, who will throw over ideology in a heartbeat in the name of “pragmatism”. How pragmatic is it to miss a golden opportunity to free Canada from the shackles of the speach Nazis? Indeed, most Canadians haven’t got a clue, an neither do most “conservatives”.
January 12th, 2009 at 10:07 pm
Sheila T, Harper and lying Irish eyes have proven they are just as good as spending, if not better than the Liberals.
January 12th, 2009 at 10:48 pm
@Flea
Flea, I agree with you. I don’t like the idea of a second center-right party, but we have to get the attention of the party hacks who think they can get away with ignoring the base.
I’ve tried to be as patient as possible with the current government because I thought as time moved forward they would move to the right, instead they seem to be moving left. I can’t support that anymore. We have to ensure that this remains our party – a conservative party.
January 13th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
I think the Tories would do much better if the tried electing a Conservative leader
January 17th, 2009 at 1:27 am
Jay is looking to get on Ignatieff’s Christmas card list.