Bulletin Spring 2003

Call now so we can order enough food and beverages. (Telephone number on newsletter masthead)

Come out and learn about the Party's plans for the election. Meet our new Campaign Manager, Bill Turley. Give us your ideas. Listen to a panel of Libertarian Candidates and show them your support.

Campaign Manager Elected

At the last executive meeting held in Scarborough, Bill Turley was nominated and subsequently elected as the Campaign Director for the Ontario Libertarian Party.

Bill has extensive political campaign experience through his earlier association with the "mainline parties." He has held various positions including campaign manager, fund raising chairperson, president of various constituency associations, and was on the assistants staff to the Nova Scotia NDP leader Jeremy Ackerman in the late 1970's.

Since then Bill has been working as a self-employed telecommunications consultant, which included considerable project management experience. And more recently, he is the operator of a new web site www.total-self.com, a site dedicated to helping people discover their individual potential

Third Annual Y4L Summer Camp

Mark your calendars – Saturday/Sunday, August 9/10 – and plan to attend the Y4L (Youth For Liberty) summer camp in Orono, just 45 minutes east of Toronto. Billed this year as a Liberty Summer Seminar, the annual event features a weekend spent listening to prominent liberty-minded speakers, enjoying the company of like-minded people, debating, swimming, golf-playing, horseshoe-tossing, tennis-playing, and on and on! To get a sense of how awesome this event really is, check out last year's event at http://y4l.org/.

We’ll fill you in on the list of speakers in our summer edition of the Bulletin but rest assured, based on the feedback from the previous summer camps, you’ll have a great time. OLP member at large (nice title) Peter Jaworski is an excellent host (once again) and his family’s 40 acres is a wonderful place to hang out.

Price, just $50 for students and $75 everyone else and that includes food and a place to pitch your tent of park your car and scrunch up in the backseat. Last year’s speakers included Dr. Jan Narveson, professor of philosophy at the University of Waterloo, Sarah Lawrence, a frequent speaker in libertarian circles, Pierre Lemieux, Robert Metz, president of the Freedom Party of Ontario, Paul McKeever, leader of the federal Freedom Party and, of course, Sam Apelbaum, leader of the OLP.

Help Re-Register The LPC

The Libertarian Party of Canada will rise again if you and 99 other libertarians sign up to become LPC members. At this time, the membership fee has been waived so that the Party can more readily obtain the 100 memberships required by Elections Canada to re-register the Party. With re-registration in hand, the Party can run candidates in the next federal election.

The LPC lost its registration in 1998 when it failed to run the minimum 50 candidates in the 1997 election. Elections Canada still requires that number of candidates to run in a federal election to remain or become a full-fledged political party able to give tax receipts for donations to a party. Since then, Elections Canada has created a second category for parties, which requires only 12 candidates to run in an election. Parties meeting the requirements of this second category cannot issue tax receipts but can have their name and logo on the ballot.

Party leader Jean-Serge Brisson began the membership drive in late February. You can register on-line at http://www.libertarian.ca/ or call or write to Jean-Serge at (613) 443-5423. Libertarian Party of Canada, Box 221, 1843 Ste. Marie, Embrun, Ontario K0A 1W0

Leader’s Report - By Sam Apelbaum

An election is in the wind. We urgently need you to rise to the challenge and agree to be a candidate. Libertarian supporters do not yet have the luxury of letting somebody else do it. I encourage you to take a stand by participating. This is an important time to be engaged in the defence of liberty and the promotion of the dominant ideas of the future.

The objections I face when I speak with people about the possibility of running in an election fall under categories, which I classify as no time, no talent, no use. The supposed lack of time is easily dealt with. We always make the time to pursue what is important to us. In fact, the ability to create time is what distinguishes a busy, interesting and exciting life from a routine life filled with long stretches of tedium. In each case the same 24 hours pass each day, but there is a different quality of life for each person. I have no more time for our common cause than anyone who reads this. It is simply a matter of choice.

The no talent objection would quickly disappear if we were able to overcome our fears and jump in with both feet. I confidently assert that our supporters have as much or more ability than candidates offered up by any other political party. If you need proof, just look at what postures as political leadership in this country. This is the best the other parties could offer. Unlike them, you have powerful ideas to present, even if you feel inadequate to do them full justice. Your opponents will offer no more than the same old socialist bromides. Remember that you are not doing it alone and all of us with previous experience have learned to deal with the same fears.

The no use objection comes from thinking in conventional terms about how success is measured. For conventional political parties success is achieved by winning elections. For us it is measured by the degree we are able to change the socialist context in which elections are now contested to a libertarian one. Elections for us are simply means to an end. We can win without ever winning an election.

Victory is ours to embrace. It will not arrive by neat linear predictable progression. Instead it will come in ways and by means unforeseen. For the time being we need to get new people to become involved with our party both during and after the election. Twenty election candidates, with or without prior experience, who cause twenty new people to actively work with us afterwards will greatly increase our effectiveness as a voice for liberty.

Chairman’s Report - By George Dance

I would like to thank everyone who responded to my December fundraising letter. I appreciated your generous response, and also the kind comments you sent me. For those who requested the book premium, please bear with me; this is the first time I have done such a thing, and I’m still learning the ropes. Thank you for your patience and understanding.

I recently spoke to one of our high donors, who had called us about his book premium, and was pleasantly surprised by the conversation. Not only was he not angry or upset he genuinely appreciated my call, went out of his way to thank me for my Party work, and was almost apologetic that right now he could ‘only’ give money. I was flattered; but I had to make some points of my own, which I think should be shared with our other supporters as well.

No one owes me anything for what I do for the Party. Like everyone else, I could do more. I certainly do a lot less now than I did in the past. I have my own life, with other interests and other priorities. I value personal liberty as an important part of making the most of my life; I do not make it a substitute.

Nor do I expect anyone else to. All of us have our own lives to lead, with more or less time to give to the Party. What is important is that each person discover what he or she can reasonably manage, and do that much.

As we rapidly approach an election. We need candidates, campaign workers, pamphleteers, donors every conceivable kind of help. If all you can do is talk to a friend or two and have them let us mail them literature, wonderful generating inquiries is exactly what this election is about. If all you can do is give money, fabulous the more money in our campaign chest, the better able we are to get our own message out. What is important is that each of us does what he or she can.

Our race to success is not the short sprint of an election campaign, but a marathon. One wins a marathon not by going as fast as one can, but by pacing oneself for a longterm. Trying to run a marathon like a sprint leads only to burnout, and withdrawal from the race. We have lost far too many volunteers that way.

Our success will be brought about not by each of us trying to do too much, but by a much greater number of libertarians each doing whatever he or she can. If our goal is to win, we can and must keep that in mind.

Libertarian Stefan Molyneux explains how he came to write his recently published novel ‘Revolutions’.

But first, here is a brief synopsis. ‘Revolutions’ is set in Russia in the late nineteenth century. It is the story of Sergei Nachaev, a revolutionary, and his relationship with his spiritual mentor, Alexander Herzen. Nachaev arrives at the Herzen's house seeking shelter from a political murder; Herzen is appalled that his revolutionary writings have led to such violence, and tries to win Nachaev to the cause of peaceful change. Knowing the power of the older writer, Nachaev seeks Herzen's blessing for his actions. However, almost against his will, Nachaev falls in love with Herzen's daughter, Natalie, and finds that he must choose between his hatred for the Russian state and his love for one of its inhabitants …

'Revolutions' came about in 1991, because I felt angry, and helpless. I had just graduated from University, into the depths of a recession, and I couldn't find a job in my field or any other. I ended up doing odd jobs weeding gardens and moving office furniture on odd occasions. I had been a Libertarian for a few years, and really felt the need to do something for the movement. I wrote a Manifesto, ran an advertisement, and started organizing meetings. Fellow discontents and I would go to Pizza Hut and fix the world over a pitcher of Pepsi.

I enjoyed that, but as I tried to bring the movement to the world, I felt my anger beginning to slide into helplessness. There was the small group of people who I agreed with and then there was the rest of the world, a world that seemed to me to be sliding into disaster in utter ignorance.

I was reading a lot of Russian history and novels at this time, and I came across two fascinating men a thinker and a doer an intellectual and a revolutionary Alexander Herzen and Sergei Nachaev. I was fascinated by the revolutionary, because he lacked empathy, and was clearly a sociopath but got a hell of a lot accomplished. The thinker was more civilized, and wrote and argued rationally but achieved nothing at all. 1917 came and, despite Herzen’s humanitarianism, the monsters took over.

What a paradox! Be a good man and be useless, or be a bad man and achieve only evil. I could not find my way out of this maze. Revolutions' was my attempt to solve this terrible riddle. After completing the novel, I knew which path I must take. And it was neither of the paths I thought of when starting it.

Jaworski Reconsiders ‘Voluntary’ National ID Card Option

The Financial Post published an op ed item (“What’s Your Number?”) in early March by Peter Jaworski wherein our member at large suggested that the federal government’s proposed National Identification Card (NIC) be made voluntary rather than mandatory. Plenty of libertarians took issue with the editorial and Jaworski responds.

“For god’s sake, the whole thing is bollocks!” folks cried, “the card will end up being mandatory regardless of intentions.”

Alas, I think these people are right. Far from defending my piece, I’d rather go on to explain this position, the one that seems to be a most plausible consequence of an initially ‘voluntary’ card.

What difference, really, is there between a driver’s license with a photo, say, and a national ID card? The use of biometric devices (retina scans, fingerprints, etc.), yes. But the likelihood of these additional measures being successful is dependant upon the greater security the addition of the photo on the license has provided. And on that score, the greater benefit seems to approach nil.

Approaching nil is also the likelihood of such a ‘voluntary’ card remaining voluntary for long. Few programs with such nifty tools like the card could possibly remain voluntary. Very much like the Social Insurance Number’s ‘voluntariness,’ you could refuse people, but then they would refuse you in turn. No bank loan, no student loan, and so on.

In short, the national ID card would be the camel’s nose in the tent—the rest will come barging in, all in good time.

Self-Defence and Politics - by John Shaw

Since antiquity people have been forced to develop highly skilled disciplines of unarmed combat to provide for their own individual protection. Typically formal defence training was sought as protection from tyrannical government that had disarmed their citizens to make them easier to subjugate or in areas where the government was not effective in protecting the individuals from criminals. These were most highly developed in ‘the east’: India/China (Kung Fu), Japan (Ju-do) Okinawa (Kara-te do) and Korea (TaeKwon-do) largely due to the religious (mainly Buddhist in this context) traditions being so supportive of their development – as well as the harsh local politics providing the necessity.

When is the use of force morally justified? Only for self-defence would argue us libertarians. So too would argue the ‘-do’ that underlies the martial arts. Indeed it is the ‘–do’ that separates them from street fighters; thugs or the king’s hit men. ‘Do’ translates differently from these differing languages – but the most common translation to English is “The Way”.

The most recent of these major martial arts was TaeKwon-do – formalized from the multiple Kwans and other styles in 1955 by an ex-political prisoner of the Japanese - Choi Hong Hi. TaeKwon-do is now the most widely studied martial art in the world – and in a highly modified style is an Olympic sport. Despite rising to the rank of major general in the South Korean army and being an Ambassador for his country Choi Hong Hi ended up fleeing his native country after opposing the government’s harsh rule. He also wanted to make TaeKwon-do available to all people regardless of the local politics. Canada accepted him as a political refugee and he settled in Mississauga (Ontario) where he lived until a couple of weeks prior to his death last year.

Choi Hong Hi saw TaeKwon-do as a peaceful way of unifying his divided homeland. The coming international competitions in TaeKwon-do between the two countries are the first ever despite TaeKwon-do being the national sport of both North and South Korea. While difficult to comprehend here, they will have a profound significance for the politics and the people – imagine the 1972 Canada U.S.S.R. hockey tournament event times ten thousand. They will likely be much less violent than the Canada / USSR tournament too!

North Korea, of course, is one of the last holdouts of the most highly authoritarian socialist tradition – Communism. It is also perhaps the most brutal place in the world to live today and not to mention a great threat to world peace. Let’s hope that in a year I can report the tourney was successful – and the last holdout from the cold war is coming in from ‘the cold’ peacefully - by following the “do”.

Stop The Presses! Canada’s ‘National Newspaper’ Publishes Kyoto Critique

It should have been above-the-fold on the front page, just because events like this are as rare as reports of alien invasions in Canada’s ‘National Newspaper’, but the Globe and Mail actually published a critique of Kyoto on its editorial/op ed page by Ontario Libertarian Party member Jan Narveson. The following is Jan's summary of his article.

On November 19, the Globe and Mail published an uncharacteristic piece: this one told the straight story about the background to Kyoto. The Kyoto argument is: there's Global Warming and that's a Bad Thing and it's caused by Nasty Humans who Pollute the Atmosphere and (yikes!) breathe, as well as keeping warm by burning lots of gas and oil, resulting in increased CO₂ in the atmosphere, which causes all this bad global warming, see?

What the November article pointed out, and what those of us who have studied the matter carefully have known for some time, is that the whole argument is false from start to finish. There's hardly been any global warming in the 20th Century, and the main part of it came in the first half of the century, whereas all those Greenhouse Gases that are supposed to have caused the warming came afterward. And finally, the "remedy" of Kyoto, which is to make all of us freeze in the dark for a long time, will accomplish the following: after about 25 years, it will cause the temperature to be .01-.04 degrees less than it would otherwise have been -- that is to say, the difference it could make is too small to be measured, so nobody would even know whether it had "worked".

This didn't keep the Liberal government from jumping on the Kyoto bandwagon; it passed handily in Parliament a short time later. So you and I and our kids all get to pay more for less and the total benefit we get out of it is nothing.

This is not to mention that in fact such climate change as has happened in the late 20th C. has been tremendously good for agriculture - the world is growing more food for more people with less effort than ever before. To a government, of course, this has simply got to stop! Because, you see, the improvements weren't brought about by governments, but by people, and governments don't like that.

So there you are, folks. Government strikes once again, for the benefit of you and me, right?

Treasurer's Report – Jim McIntosh

	2001	2002	2003
	Actual	Actual	Budget
INCOME
Cheques/Cash	10,278	11,000	10,800
Goods & Services	3,376	3,425	3,500
General Collections	0	40	40
Interest Income	20	1	1
Membership Fees	55	75	75
TOTAL INCOME	13,729	14,542	14,416
EXPENSES
Accounting & Audit	2,800	2,800	2,800
Bank Charges	115	101	100
Bulletin	1,072	646	650
Fund Raising	0	276	300
Meetings Hosted	764	1,326	1,450
Office & Rental	100	0	150
Office Supplies	744	464	450
Postage & Courier	968	934	950
Professional Fees	4,000	2,000	2,000
Social Functions	43	0	0
Telephone	980	878	878
Travel Expenses	576	625	700
Honorarium	767	793	0
TOTAL EXPENSES	12,927	10,844	10,428

INCOME less EXPENSES	802	3,698	3,988
Plus Bank Bal Jan 1	12,709	13,668	19,208
Less A/P Jan 1	2,800	2,958	4,800
Plus A/P Dec 31	2,958	4,800	2,800
Bank Bal Dec 31	13,668	19,208	21,196

The most significant change in expenses was the Professional Fees paid to support our website. We also spent less on the Bulletin since we printed and mailed fewer copies per issue. Meetings Hosted (Convention, Annual General Meeting) was up this year due to increased cost for the facilities.

The 2003 Budget, approved by the Executive, assumes little change in normal operating expenses. It does not include election expenses or additional contributions; a separate budget will be approved when plans are finalized and we know how many candidates will be running.

We have accumulated a significant war chest for the expected election. After we take care of Accounts Payable (part of which becomes Contributed Goods and Services) we will have about $17,000 available. All we need is the manpower to make effective use of the funds. This includes candidates, campaign managers, and people to write and design campaign materials, run election training sessions and host open houses for interested voters.

Bulletin Vol. 23 No. 3

Spring 2003

Doug Burn, Editor

Spring Has Rites!

Election Kick-off Rally