A commenter pointed out that Mike Daley was really a fellow named Michael Gordon Bracci. Bracci went to the UK and resurfaced on Twitter as Lord Credo. He’s been a busy guy since his cyber-squatting and deception in Canada. The Blog That Peter Wrote chronicles  Bracci’s lies as Lord Credo:

In brief this is the picture of how he has portrayed of himself:

- He was David Cameron’s personal advisor and representative
- He reported only and personally to David Cameron and the Chief Whip
- Only the Chief Whip and his “good friend” William Hague knew his identity online
- He was on the same level with Andy Coulson, was offered his job, but refused it
- He previously worked for the Canadian PM and was personally head-hunted to work for ours
- Somehow, however, he also fitted in working for the Archbishop of Canterbury in comms
- He had read theology, trained as a priest, worked as a policeman briefly in Ontario, then as a pilot, before going into politics/ communications. He suffers from MS.

Credo resigned his job for David Cameron in May, but is currently on gardening leave.  This was because of a personal falling out, even though the Prime Minister has apparently called him and begged him to return to his job.  It coincides with the diagnosis of a brain tumour (more on this later).

Credo’s “offline” name is Mike Paterson.  He has always taken pains to protect his identity, because he is so “high level”.  I did hear him give this name, however, in my presence to officers of the Essex Constabulary in May 2011.

Mike Daley/Paterson/Lord Credo/Bracci landed himself an interview at The Huffington Post as one of four high level Tories Who Tweet Anonymously.

During his time in the UK as Mike Paterson, he took advantage of people’s kindness this past summer, crashing at various homes, borrowing money and not paying it back, and escalating his deception. He announced on his Lord Credo twitter feed that he had a malignant brain tumour, telling his long suffering hosts offline about his ‘late’ wife, who turns out to be alive and well:

Mike is still married.  His wife is not a dead medical doctor in Sydney, but in fact teaches philosophy at an American university.  She is a former evangelical Christian, turned traditionalist.  From what I can see on line she appears to be very much alive.  She did grow up in the Black Forest, which he had mentioned a couple of times to me about his “late wife”.  She talks in one Canadian magazine interview about their traditional marriage and how her husband Mike has moved to London for a job in PR, but that they make things work.  I’ve no idea if she knows about his now girlfriend and how that fits in exactly with this viewpoint.

Before his deception in the UK unravelled  offline the past week, Bracci approached Richard Bartholmew as Lord Credo:

I became aware of “Lord Credo” a few months ago, when he offered to bring complaints by Tim Ireland about Nadine Dorries’ conduct and its consequences to the attention of Cameron’s office. Tim agreed to send him documentation in return for proof of delivery, at which point “Lord Credo” became hostile and jumped on the smear-against-Tim bandwagon (a bandwagon which more than one cyber-thug has found it convenient to join).

When his Lord Credo/Mike Paterson deception collapsed, Bracci, who had no “residency or work permit” to be in the UK,  hightailed it back to Canada. As Lord Credo, he tweeted that within a few hours of landing his mother died. His mother is alive and well. He deleted his Twitter account and threatened to commit suicide if  Peter at The Blog That Peter Wrote did not remove his post:

20/8 Additional Information: Credo admitted in public on his profile, after this post was published, that he was a liar.  He then deleted the profile.  He has been in constant IM contact with me throughout today, threatening suicide at one moment if I did not remove this blog (only to ask 10 minutes later: “are you still there?”), through to begging for forgiveness, and then justifying his actions.  He’s admitted that his wife is not dead and says he’s in contact with her.  I’m simply screen saving everything, refusing to let him manipulate me in the way he wants, and warning him to steer clear of anyone in my circle of friends.

For anyone thinking “whatever” I want to stress this is not about a fake Twitter account – it’s about a person who has used the medium to trick people in real life and caused massive upset.  Help he clearly needs, but my responsibility is to those I care about, which is why I published this.

21/8 Finally, according to his girfriend (and as tweeted by her) his mother is “very much alive” and she has spoken to her.  She has also tweeted that Michael conned her personally out of £15,000.

In the 2 years Michael Bracci was in the UK, he managed to deceive elected government officials, media and bureaucrats, and people who befriended him.  I’ve no doubt the PMO never heard of him. Given his years of fantasying, roleplaying and shit-disturbing, it’s likely Bracci will surface with another online confidence game sooner than later.

Who’s blogging?

Joshua Lachkovic’s Blog: How did Downing Street not know about Lord Credo?

Admiral PR: Out-twitted: how@Lord Credo used Twitter to con his friends and 4,400 followers

“I’m not a scientist” but “some of the research tells me that there’s more of an indication that that’s a choice issue,” he said.

Cummins went on to say homosexuals and lesbians do not need special human rights protection because “people are already protected under the human rights code. In my view it was not necessary to add another category.

“They have the same rights under the Human Rights Act as you and I. Nobody is coming to me and saying whatever I do behind closed doors is somebody else’s business.”

Cummins would not explain the basis for his views when asked before a rally at the Salvation Army Victoria Citadel in Saanich Wednesday night.

“I’m pro-life, I’m protraditional marriage, that’s my view, I’m not a scientist,” he said. “I’m not going to discuss that, they’re personal issues, private issues.”

If this is merely his personal opinion what is he doing discussing rights and choices in media interviews?

Asked by the Times Colonist if he believes crimes against homosexuals should be prosecuted as hate crimes, he said: “If there’s a crime against anybody, that crime should be dealt with to the full extent of the law and that’s it. Trying to determine motive, it puts it to a whole different level and I’m not comfortable with that.”

Cummins was a MP for Delta-Richmond East for 18 years. The fractious BC Conservative Party supposedly has about 8% voter support in the province according to polls, (Globe and Mail 12/28/10), and has about two thousand members.
via: Ex-Gay Watch

How come I can’t get a copy from Chapters Indigo?
It’s a fair question I posed to a clerk from my local outlet.
(The book is available at independent booksellers)

The clerk was unaware The Armageddon Factor was out in paperback and told me that their shipping takes about 3 weeks, which is normal for this time of year.  Because Chapters Indigo is a chain, the stores put the books out when everyone else in the chain gets them.

She offered that as far as she knew her employer was waiting on the publisher to ship them.

Okay. Chapters Indigo is owned by Heather Reisman (CEO). She is married to Gerry Schartwz who is the Board Chair, President and CEO of Onex. They are friends of Stephen and Laureen Harper, and have been Conservative Party backers since 2006.
Nigel Wright, the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, is on loan to Harper by the Onex Corporation. Wright’s appointment is noted in the afterword of the updated and revised trade paperback.

Given the paperback was updated and out in time for the election I have a question.
Where is it? Is the revised edition sitting in  Chapters-Indigo warehouses?  The chain is in approximately 131  cities across Canada and I can appreciate delays, but the next obvious question is this.

Is Chapters Indigo holding back stocking this book until after May 2nd?
As asked in the post headline. Is this bookstore chain playing politics?

How would you like to help out? Give the nearest Chapters Indigo store a call and ask if the paperback is in. If it isn’t ask why not.  If you have an independent bookstore in your location, give them a call and see if they have it on the shelves, or if they can get it to you within the next few days and post your findings in the comment section.

The e-book is available, since, as far as I can tell Random House released it, and online sales aren’t held up in warehouses. The paperback edition is also available from Amazon Canada. The unrevised hardcover is also available at my local store.

Unfortunately the Chapters Indigo non-fiction blog does not allow comments, so readers willing to find out if their Chapters Indigo has the revised edition on their shelf will have to leave their information in the BDBO comment section.  When you use the online store finder, every location you can key in, lists the availabilty as 0. Zero. Go ahead, try it.

Given the kerfuffle with the hardcover release of The Armageddon Factor last year, the delay reaching Reisman’s bookstore shelves deserves an explanation.

If you were able to purchase a copy of the paperback from a Chapters Indigo outlet, pop into the comments and let us know.

“The controversy also obscured the fact that the G8 initiative paved the way for a larger shift: a zero-tolerance policy for funding any outfit that provided abortion services abroad. Thus Harper accomplished what George Bush had pulled off in the U.S. with a contentious executive order, but, unlike Bush, he did so without a single piece of legislation. Instead, aid organizations simply found their grant requests left unanswered or nixed without explanation until they got the message. When the International Planned Parenthood Federation found its bid to renew an $18-million program had been left in limbo for more than a year–a bid that had been targeted in a petition circulated by Conservative MP Brad Trost–it finally gave up and submitted a new proposal without the offending abortion provision. “The government of Canada has made it clear that it does not fund abortions,” shrugged IPPF spokesman Paul Bell.”

Page 370 The Armageddon Factor Marci McDonald Paperback edition 2011 Random House
The paperback edition is on bookstore shelves now.

Paul Bell, International Planned Parenthood Federation spokesman confirmed what is in the revised edition of The Armageddon Factor to the  Saskatoon Star Phoenix today:

Bell said an $18-million application for a three-year core funding grant submitted in 2009 was ignored. The group also still hasn’t heard back from the Conservative government regarding its funding request in 2010, for a $6-million grant.

That application fell within the lines of the Muskoka Initiative and did not include funding for abortion, Bell said, in an interview from London.

“What this government has made clear is that it won’t fund actual abortions, so that is what our bid was based on,” Bell told Postmedia News. “I know that last year, (Brad Trost) was pushing this hard anti-Planned Parenthood agenda and it is the kind of rhetoric that we observe all the time coming out of the U.S.

“It is the same language, it is the same tactics.”

The Armageddon Factor The Rise of The Christian Right in Canadian Politics – Facebook

Update: Marci McDonald is blogging here.

Vote Pray Serve was set up by a person or persons unknown on March 21, 2011, five days before the write was dropped  and according to Whois was registered by  Sibername Internet and Software Technologies Inc.

The website states it is run by a group of volunteers who are soliciting donations which are not tax deductible. That means this is not a charity. But what I’m not clear about is why they need to solicit funds for a grassroots get out the vote web page.

What are the Election Canada Rules?

Anyone can volunteer during an election for whoever they chose.  However registration is required when an individual or group spends $500.00. Elections Canada:

Third party
A “third party” is a person or a group, other than a candidate, registered party or electoral district association of a registered party.

A “group” means an unincorporated trade union, trade association or other group of persons acting together by mutual consent for a common purpose.

A person or group is considered to be a “third party” when incurring electoral advertising expenses during an election period to promote or oppose a registered party or the election of a candidate, including taking a position on an issue with which a registered party or a candidate is associated.

So far this group has a web page, a Facebook and a YouTube channel with two videos. While I doubt the production costs of the two videos and a web page domain and hosting purchase amounts to $500.00, there is no way of knowing. There is no way of knowing how much the volunteer group has received in donations.

What is also troubling is the lack of identification.

Elections Canada:

7. Identification of Election Advertising

The Act requires that a third party identify itself in any election advertising it sponsors and indicate that it has authorized the advertising. Failure to do so is an offence.
[352, 496(1)(b)]

The following wording is suggested:

“Authorized by the Coalition for High Technology Investment”

or

“Authorized by the United Computer Workers Association, Local 2213″

My question is simple. Does this group fall under the criteria for registration? Are they violating the Election Act?

What does this volunteer group promote? They say they set themselves up to vote, pray and serve, and then they go off into some murky territory.

ON IT is a movement of Canadians that are committing to voting, praying and serving in this upcoming election. Stay tuned here for videos, resources and sweet things you can be a part of leading up to the 41st Canadian election!

A click on the prayer tab and up pops Proverbs 29:2.  Up pops links to various charismatic and pentecostal prayer groups, with a list of what to pray about from  Nation at Prayer out of Pickering Ontario. Nation at Prayer was registered as a charity in 2006, a quick glance at the directors, and a familiar name popped up. Kerry Carmichael was a board member of Crossroads Christian Communications Inc.  This charity has expenses and revenue of nearly 100 thousand dollars.

As a complete aside, the Vote Pray Serve site promotes Family Values. Sound suspiciously like the Hope for TV campaign which Crossroads Television Network said it was issuing tax receipts for – the campaign which did not get charitable status. This also sounds like Charles McVety language. I digressed. Back to the topic at hand.

The serve tab gets really interesting.  Family friendly candidates are listed, with an encouragement to readers to get out and help them. There is also a plug for The Conservative Party, thinly disguised:

Catch 22: An “anything but Conservative” campaign has been launched to oust Conservative MPs from 22 ridings by endorsing the next leading candidate regardless of where they stand on issues. We encourage you to check out these ridings, find out who the family friendly MP is (regardless of his/her party) and get behind them as these ridings will be a tough battle for all the candidates. Click here to see the ridings.

Someone is not happy with some members of The Conservative Party, because when you check this list of approved candidates who ‘stand for morality you get what may be the parliamentary pro-life caucus;

THE VOTE THAT SHOWED THEIR TRUE COLOURS: Whether or not a candidate is truly strong on family issues comes through in the “tough” votes where an MP is challenged to choose between their conscience and party/political pressure. A vote that put MPs in this situation was Roxanne’s Law (C-510). Through Roxanne’s Law we clearly saw who the strong family values MPs were and who simply professed to be but were not willing to put their neck on the line when it mattered most (for women wanting to choose life).

Yes, the page claims Roxanne’s Law is not the key issue, but it’s the key issue. The message is, vote for these candidates if you are Christian who cares about righteous people ruling Canada.  REAL Women Canada and Campaign Life Canada are mentioned. REAL Women Canada is the Canadian arm of a right wing US group Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum. REAL Women Canada is a registered lobby group.
Campaign Life Canada is a well known anti-abortion group run by Jim Hughes. They are running a get out the vote video on their site.

There are 89 candidates listed of family friendly. from BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec. I have no idea where Atlantic Canada candidates are.  They are listed, back on blue, web error. No NDP, Green or Independent candidates were listed.

PEI
One Conservative Party incumbent listed, voted for Roxanne’s Law.

New Brunswick
4 Conservative Party incumbents listed. All voted for Roxanne’s Law.

Quebec
No incumbents listed. One ‘family friendly’ candidate.

Ontario
7 Liberals are listed for Ontario. All 7 voted for Roxanne’s Law. All the Conservative incumbents listed voted for Roxanne’s Law.

Manitoba
7 Conservative Party incumbents are listed, all voted for Roxanne’s Law.

Saskatchewan
13 Conservative Party incumbents are listed, all voted for Roxanne’s Law.

Alberta
18 Conservative Party incumbents are listed, 17 voted for Roxanne’s Law.

British Columbia
13 Conservative Party incumbents are listed, 12 voted for Roxanne’s Law.

The voting record for Roxanne’s Law is here. Any mistakes in counting above are mine. Assuming the best a group of eager volunteers culled their information from the same sources I did. But why cull names from Roxanne’s Law which was introduced by Rod Bruinooge, pro-life caucus chair?

Is this Vote Pray Serve web site just a group of volunteers?

On to the Facebook page. One of the first names which pops up is Faytene Grasseschi (nee Kryskow) of MyCanada. Rod Bruinooge has spent a fair amount of time onstage with Faytene and she was a strong supporter of Roxanne’s Law.
Did MyCanada put together the Vote Pray Serve website? The single Facebook admin is Judy K Jo out of Toronto Ontario. That’s it. That’s all there is.  And the fact she lists CTS (Crossroads Christian Television) on her about page along side Crossroads It’s Your Call and John Haggees CUFI situated at Canada Christian College, just means she likes religious television and is obviously a neo-charismatic. She also lists Faytenes group Bound4Life which is another right wing US offshoot founded by hard core dominionist Lou Engle. And I may not be fair, the names are familiar to me and pop off the page quickly. At least she is openly listed as admin. It’s one more person than the Vote Pray Serve website discloses.
While being a friend of a Facebook page is hardly sinister or a breach of lobbying or election laws, I find myself wondering who else listed as a friend may be financing and supporting this ‘group of volunteers.’

At the very least, I am troubled because the people behind this web page are not disclosing.
Unknown people are asking for your money and sending  the message that if you are a caring Christian – vote Conservative.

The lack of disclosure is disturbing. The solicitation of funds is disturbing.  To that end, I’ve written the volunteers at Vote Pray Serve and asked the following: Who are you and have you spent $500.00 on this election?  When I get a response, I’ll post it.

I have posted several pieces over the past year about the Harper government’s decision  to deny project money to the ecumenical social justice group KAIROS. I have also  written about CIDA Minister Bev Oda’s deceitful behaviour in the whole matter. For  months this story was in the back pages of the newspapers and nowhere on television,  but now the parliamentary chickens have come home to roost. Oda lied to a  parliamentary committee in December and now the political opposition is demanding  that she be fired and found in contempt of parliament. There is a longstanding tradition  that ministers can duck, bob and weave in what they say but they cannot tell outright  lies. Minister Oda and the government spent the week of February 14th trying to ride this  out until the parliamentary break. What happened here, what does it mean and does it  matter? KAIROS is an inter-church coalition that has been around for a long time. It is  well respected and does good work internationally, particularly on social justice and  human rights issues. KAIROS also has a habit of speaking its mind on public issues. It has offered criticisms of Israel for its treatment of Palestinians. KAIROS has also raised questions about the rapid development of the tar sands in Alberta and of certain environmental and human rights practices of Canadian mining companies working in developing countries.

Brief history

In November 2009, CIDA cut off funding to KAIROS and neither the organization nor Minister Oda would explain why, beyond the generalization that CIDA’s priorities had changed and KAIROS did not meet them. However, in December 2009, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney spoke at a conference in Jerusalem and said that KAIROS was cut off because it was an anti-Semitic organization and that it was promoting an economic boycott of Israel. KAIROS and a number of its member churches hotly denied both allegations but Kenney’s comments had elevated the issue to a new and particularly nasty level.

Skip ahead to October 2010. Someone provided to Embassy magazine in Ottawa with a copy of a CIDA document clearly indicating that the president and acting vice-president had sent a proposal to Oda recommending that the KAIROS money be approved. However, somebody made a crude hand-written notation in the text inserting the word “NOT” into the final sentence. As a result, the document read as follows: “Recommendation:  That you sign below to indicate you NOT approve the contribution of $7,098,758.” The news story blew Mr. Oda’s cover about its being CIDA and not she who had refused the grant, and it reinforced suspicions that the decision was political payback by the Harper government — bullies who do not like KAIROS and who will not tolerate criticism of any kind.

Oda testifies at committee

Ms. Oda, along with CIDA president Margaret Biggs, was called in early December 2010 to testify before the House of Commons Foreign Affairs committee. Ms. Biggs admitted under questioning that she had recommended that the KAIROS proposal be approved. She testified that the word NOT had not been in the document when she signed it and sent it to Minister Oda for her signature. Oda then told the committee that she doesn’t know who altered the memorandum by adding the word NOT. She also said it didn’t really matter.

Here is a brief bit of the exchange at the committee meeting between Ms. Oda and Liberal MP John McKay:
McKay: You were the one who wrote the ‘not’.
Oda: I did not say I was the one who wrote the ‘not’.
McKay: Who did then?
Oda: I do not know.
McKay: That’s a remarkable statement.

MPs later asked House of Commons Speaker Peter Milliken to rule whether Ms. Oda had misled them. When he responded on February 10, Milliken was highly critical of Oda but said a procedural technicality prevented him from ruling on whether she misled the Commons and breached its rules. Oda’s parliamentary secretary, Jim Abbott, had earlier apologized for telling the Commons that CIDA turned down the KAIROS request because they found it didn’t meet their priorities. He said he did not know that was untrue when he said it.

Parliamentary firestorm

All of this has occasioned a parliamentary firestorm, with opposition MPs using Question Period to call for Oda’s resignation. She did not respond to questions. That task was undertaken by Prime Minister Harper and cabinet minister John Baird. They defended Oda’s right to overrule her officials on projects and Harper said that no organization (read KAIROS) has an automatic right to be funded. That line of defence deliberately ignored the question of why Oda had implied for long months that it was CIDA officials who made the decision to cut off KAIROS, and the even more important question of whether she lied to fellow MPs. On February 15, Oda finally read a statement in the House of Commons in which she said: “The ‘not’ was inserted at my direction.” That was contrary to what she had told the Foreign Affairs committee on December. This admission has fuelled calls for her resignation but the opposition is also claiming that Oda’s orders most likely came from Harper himself. The opposition is attempting to turn this episode into a critique of Harper’s style of governing: bullying, secretive, anti-democratic and dishonest whenever the occasion requires.

What of Kairos?

What of KAIROS and other aid groups in all of this? KAIROS submitted another application for funds months ago but has heard nothing. The silver lining for the organization (if there is one) is that more Canadians will now have heard about it than ever before. KAIROS is even selling a T-shirt with an inscription that reads: KAIROS is (not) going away”.  But other groups that have been critical of aspects of the government’s policy — including the Canadian Council for International Co-operation — have been cut off as well. And earlier in February newspaper reports indicated that Keith Fountain, Ms. Oda’s policy director, warned an aid organization that its policy positions were under scrutiny. “Be careful about your advocacy,” Mr. Fountain is reported to have said. He has since left Ms. Oda’s office. Cheryl Curtis, executive director of the Anglican Church’s Primate’s World Relief and Development Fund, said government officials have not warned her organization, but that other aid organizations have reported such messages.

A flawed process

This indicates not only a measure of vindictiveness and arrogance on behalf of the government but also a seriously flawed way of determining public policy. An Access to Information request regarding KAIROS indicates officials from CIDA and other agencies found its work to be exemplary and indicated that its presence could make a difference in some of the world’s most troubled countries. So it would appear that a respected and effective organization was cut off simply because the Prime Minister or Jason Kenney don’t like them. That’s no way to run a railroad.

Pulpit and Politics

I’m not what you call a saint, but I believe in God and I believe in [doing] the best I can do. You were at CBC pushing Sunday shopping, were you not? On TV?” he asked Crane. “Right after that interview what happened?”

“We had a bit of an accident,” Crane responded.

“Does that not tell you something?” said MacKinley.

“Like what?” said Crane.

“Like the Lord works in mysterious ways, and maybe you should start worrying what’s going on here? We are going all the time, we’re getting farther and farther away, whether it’s prayers in the schools or whatever it is,” said MacKinley.

Crane had been doing an television interview on year around Sunday shopping when she slipped on the set and injured her wrist and ankle. This was McKinley’s response.

In May Bleodow changed his website Christian Government to Christian Governance:

ChristianGovernance is pursuing a two-fold purpose: 1) interfacing with, and contributing to, Canada’s public policy process with initial focus on Ontario and federal governance, and 2) educating, mentoring and motivating Christian youth and adults to be engaged Christianly in Canada’s public life, applying their gifts, harnessing their strengths, and using their spheres of influence to reclaim Canada for Christ.

ChristianGovernance will monitor federal and Ontario public policy activity, including Parliamentary and Legislative Committee schedules in order to find opportunities to contribute policy papers and witness testimony on important legislation and regulations. We will distribute our policy documents to political science professors across the country. We will educate our politicians on the Christian history and philosophy that produced Canada. We will urge our civil magistrates to acknowledge the sovereignty of God and the Lordship of Christ to this nation. Is this a utopian dream? The Throne Speech prepared by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and read by the Governor-General on March 3, 2010 closed as follows: “As you set about this vital work, I pray that Divine Providence guide you in your deliberations.” Still carved into the ornate woodwork over the doorways in the Shadow Cabinet room are the words, “Fear God” and “Honour the King” from I Peter 2:17. The words are still there despite the secularist spirit that dominates Canada’s public square, now we just need men’s hearts to conform to them.

ChristianGovernance will educate people about what a Christian social order looks like, and how we might achieve one in Canada. Much of this will take place through a dynamic website with written, audio and video content, through the continued publishing of books, curriculum, and timely articles providing important news and analysis, and through conferences and a rigorous speaking schedule wherever we have opportunity to share our message. We will work hard to gain the attention of the mainstream media and be part of important stories about Canadian culture and public policy. We will do this by addressing current events in a timely fashion with a genuine Biblical perspective that will likely otherwise be missing from public debates.

Who is blogging?

unrepentant old hippie Christian Government: now with 44% less theocracy
Pushed to the left and loving it My Apologies to Timothy Bloedow, But I do not Hate Christians

Recently I received an email message urging me to read and then pass it along if I want to save Western civilization. The subject line said: Joys of A Muslim Woman: A MUST READ. Actually, it was not about joy at all but was an alarmist rant against Muslims. It was also an example of a recent fetish about “demographic winter”, which has become a favourite preoccupation with the religious right in the United States and to some extent in Canada. The message that I received provides material drawn from an author named Nonie Darwish.  She is of Egyptian heritage and her father was a senior officer in the Egyptian army until the Israelis killed him in 1956. Nonie moved to the U.S. in 1978 and became an evangelical Christian. She has written several books and has become prominent on the right wing lecture circuit and media. She is also founder of a group called Arabs For Israel and director of another called Former Muslims United.

One of Darwish’s books is called Cruel and Unusual Punishment:The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law. Her American publisher describes it as “a wake up call to the Western world.” The book blurb continues as follows: “Nonie Darwish presents an insider’s look at sharia and examines how radical Muslim laws are destroying the Western world from within . . . Heed this warning: sharia law is attempting to infiltrate Western culture and destroy democracy.” The viral message I received contained much the same admonition.

Darwish critique

I am not a fan of sharia law and believe, for example, that the Ontario government was wise to refuse suggestions that it be used in that province. But what Darwish is saying – or at the least what is being attributed to her — is boilerplate hysteria and has no place in civilized discourse. Religious extremism is an ugly thing but it comes in all flavours — Muslim, Sikh, Christian, Jewish and Hindu. The vast majority of religious adherents are not jihadists or Christian warriors but rather people who want to live peacefully with their neighbours.

Jim Holstun, an American professor, wrote a critique of Darwish’s work in 2008, after she had published a book called Now They Call Me Infidel. Holstun says that for Darwish there are no real distinctions between moderate or radical Muslims, and no significant differences within or between Arab and Muslim cultures. If that is what Darwish is saying, it would come as news to the approximately 60 people of good will – Muslm and Christian — with whom I attended a 12-week course at the Ottawa School of Theology and Spirituality in 2009 called Islam: A Deeper Look.

Muslims in Canada

The viral message that I received ends with the following invocation: “In twenty years there will be enough Muslim voters in CANADA to elect the PRIME MINISTER!  I think everyone should be required to read this, but with the ACLU, there is no way this will be widely publicized, unless each of us sends it on!”

The ACLU, of course, is the American Civil Liberties Union, indicating that this message is American in its origin and focus with a bit of Canadian content added on at the end. Interestingly, the name attached to the message is that of a Canadian academic in British Columbia. I have attempted to contact her but have been unable to do so. I want to know if she is actually distributing this message or if someone is playing a nasty trick on her because a variety of right wing websites are circulating the message over her name.

Demographic winter

The comments about there being enough Muslims in Canada in twenty years to elect the prime minister play on the theme of demographic winter. It is an idea much in vogue with the American political and religious right and it turns a long-standing concern about world overpopulation on its head. The problem, according to the new logic, is that a falling birth rate will have what one speaker called “catastrophic” consequences. The narrative usually reads that Western (read white) populations are not having enough babies to replace themselves, and that we will one day (soon) be swamped by immigrants from other races who will come to dominate our societies.

American blogger Bill Berkowitz, a liberal, wrote about demographic winter recently on a blog called The Smirking Chimp. “For many conservatives,” he says, “demographic winter — or ‘birth dearth’ as it is sometimes called — is the ultimate culture war battle, rooted in the rise of feminism, legalized abortion, the acceptance of homosexuality, illegal immigration, and the growth of minority populations. All of this is supposedly the result of a multi-decade campaign by liberals to undermine ‘natural law’ and the ‘natural’ family.”

One right wing website asks this rhetorical question: “Why is global white population declining and not the other groups? Does this have anything to do with the legal recognition of same-sex couples world wide among predominantly white nations in modern history, besides general reluctance to have babies?”

A vast conspiracy

The campaign around demographic winter allows the right to roll all of its straw persons into one vast conspiracy. Muslims, Arabs, immigrants, not to mention Western liberals, feminists and supporters of same sex marriage are all plotting to undermine Western civilization. The alarmists have created an intellectual frame, what one writer calls a “mainstream media shorthand”, to explain disparate events: Muslim veil debates in France (and Quebec); controversies over the construction of mosques in Switzerland (or Alberta); a reduced birthrate in affluent Western countries and a higher one in poorer countries; the closing of empty downtown churches in Europe (and Canada); debates over same sex marriage, even contraception and reproductive choice. One might ask, as a matter of Canadian interest, how the Conservative government’s maternal health policy aimed at helping mothers in poor countries but refusing to fund legal abortion, fits into this frame.

Since 2001, movies, books articles and seminars too numerous to mention have played to the themes of demographic winter and often to an anti-Muslim sentiment. While Europe Slept by Bruce Bawler is one such book. Pat Buchanan’s Death of the West is another. For Canadian content, there is the novel by Patrick Grady called Royal Canadian Jihad. There is also a documentary calledDemographic Winter: The Decline of the Human Family. A seminar held in Washington in June, and sponsored by the Family Research Council dealt with the same theme. The Council is an offshoot of the organization Focus on the Family, which is also present in Canada.

These groups and individuals are also hyperactive on the web. Do a search for the term demographic winter and you will find no end of alarmist sites touting the same dire warnings. On the other hand, there is very little web material that offers a critique of dystopian and chaotic world described by the alarmists. Where are the progressives?

Scary indeed

The introduction to the email message that I received was very direct: “This is scary and you must read it carefully . . .please take your time and understand what it is telling you . . . Let us not become victims. Let us fight and keep our country or we will not have life as we know it for ourselves, our children or our grand children.”

Scary, indeed, that people are wasting their time, and ours, spreading fear and hatred rather than understanding and tolerance.

Pulpit and Politics

“Jesus talked about faith as the leaven that raises up the whole loaf; the light from the mountain that illuminates the valley below … a treasure that one discovers through constant searching; a gift from a God who invites all especially the poor and sinners to a banquet of rich foods and fine wines. This is the faith to which we witness. Jesus, in our tradition, found this faith more deeply rooted in the hearts of sinners , prostitutes, tax collectors, and shepherds than in hearts of the religious and the self-righteous. He encouraged us not to separate wheat from chaff, but to take care of the fields entrusted to our care and leave judgments to God.” Jesuit Fr. Stephen A. Privett

In 2000, Jason Kenney was invited to speak at his Alma Mater, the University of San Francisco, to a group of young Republicans. What he told them when asked about his success in persuading others to his side was: “I did not persuade them, the truth did. I used the political strategy I gained at USF when I campaigned for student government. I took the truth and I built a pluralistic coalition around it.” (1)

The “truth” for him was the orthodoxy of the Catholic church. Normally when writing about a public figure you factor in all of their life experiences, that led them to who they were. But in the case of fundamentalists or those who follow an orthodox form of religion, there is only one place to draw from. And despite all of his life experiences, everything that now shapes Jason Kenney’s thinking can be found at St. Ignatius in the mid to late 1980′s. It was there that he found his “truth”.

He has said on numerous occasions that he was “converted” while there, which I found a little puzzling. After all, Kenney’s father was the president of a Catholic college, the same college that Jason graduated from. Was he not Catholic then?

However, what I’ve discovered is that his conversion may have actually been to the “church”, the absolute “truth”, as espoused by three controversial theologians: Rev. Joseph Fessio, the founder of the school; Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, the influence for the school, and Fr. Cornelius M. Buckley, whose liturgies based on Catholic orthodoxy, were said to have inspired a “cult like” following.

In 1987 1990, when Jason Kenney abruptly left his studies, both Fessio and Buckley had been fired from their positions at the university, not only for their refusal to conform to the modern teachings of the church, but because they were constantly locking horns with the Jesuit hierarchy, and encouraging their students to do the same.

One graduate from St. Ignatius puts it this way:

I began my undergraduate life in 1980 at University of San Francisco. While there, I witnessed a virtual war between orthodox Jesuits and Jesuits of a different stripe. Jesuits who I regarded as good and holy men, were silenced when they didn’t toe the Jesuit party line. Fr. Cornelius Buckley, S.J., a professor of history, was silenced and sent to work at a small hospital in Duarte, California, where he remained for many years, obedient to his order, even though many in his order are flagrantly disobedient.

The St. Ignatius Institute, under the guidance of Fr. Joseph Fessio, S.J., operated a classical Catholic curriculum within the larger confines of the university and it attracted many students … It took the Jesuits over twenty years to shut the Institute down, which they finally did a few years ago by firing its director and hiring new professors who would teach the “new” theology. The Institute now exists in name only. It doesn’t teach the same things … Both Fr. Fessio and Fr. Buckley are two orthodox priests, who when they objected to much of what was going on on campus, did not endear themselves to their fellow Jesuits. (2)

One of the things that they objected strenuously to, was the acceptance of homosexuality.

Our ‘Greatest Canadian’ Tommy Douglas, when studying to become a pastor, told a story of how a straight laced preacher had visited his home and how his mother was mortified, when his father offered the teetotaller a beer. He decided on that day that if he was going to be a minister, he would be “one who would accept a glass of beer at a parishioner’s home, who would accept his parishioners as he found them and would strive to be one of them.” (3)

In the testimonial of the St. Ignatius graduate above, he states that “It took the Jesuits over twenty years to shut the Institute down, which they finally did a few years ago by firing its director and hiring new professors who would teach the “new” theology.” This purge was accomplished by Fr. Stephen A. Privett, who in the opening quote says that “Jesus, in our tradition, found this faith more deeply rooted in the hearts of sinners , prostitutes, tax collectors, and shepherds than in hearts of the religious and the self-righteous. He encouraged us not to separate wheat from chaff, but to take care of the fields entrusted to our care and leave judgments to God.” (4)

Privett understood what Douglas understood. You take care of what was entrusted to you and leave the judgements to God. By sharing a glass of beer or reaching out to the gay community, even if you personally disapproved of such things, you reached the hearts of “sinners”.

Since Marci McDonald’s The Armageddon Factor* hit the shelves, there are many defending the enormous power of the Religious Right on the Harper government, by stating that Tommy Douglas also promoted what have been referred to as “Christian values”. But there is a vast difference.

Several years ago, in an interview, Douglas was asked: It has been suggested that you emphasize religion in politics in the manner of Aberhart and Manning. As I recall, you set yourself firmly against doing this, did you not? To which he responded:

“Yes. I’ve always been strongly opposed to using religion as a gimmick for gaining political support. I believe in applying Christian principles to politics and to government. But I think one must remember that in a political party there are people of all religious beliefs, just as in every church there are people of different political points of view.” (5)

Because this movement does not reach out to “sinners”, but passes judgement, something that should be left to their god.

I’m not a religious person, but I’m not an atheist either. I believe that everyone has a right to their own beliefs, so long as they don’t try to “force” them on others. And I don’t think that homosexuality is a “sin”, or that you need to be a Christian to have “values”.

When Jason Kenney excluded gay rights from our citizenship guide, it was not an oversight. It was part of his “pluralistic coalition”: that he had built around his “truth”.

When he was attending St. Ignatius, “… he made headlines in California trying to ban abortion groups from the university and fighting against gay rights in San Francisco.” (6) In fact, “Jason was a leader of a group of students that sued USF for false representation. USF claimed to be Catholic yet failed to espouse the teachings of the Catholic Church. Kenney, who converted while at USF, was able to see the contradiction. USF began to fund campus organizations, which undermined the teachings of the Catholic Church.” (1)

Jason Kenney went to enormous lengths to oppose abortion and homosexuality, even suing a university. He told the Western Catholic Reporter in 2003 that he felt that “Political activity is “a necessary form of charity in the promotion of the Gospel“.” (6) Or more precisely from the Young Republicans:

Kenney was initially opposed to the life of politics, believing that morality and politics are mutually exclusive. His life was changed when he read the Holy Father’s encyclical, Evangelicum Vitae. Seeing that the Holy Father’s notion of politics was a form of charity changed Kenney’s perspective. “I felt compelled to enter politics as a vocation. I was called to politics, not qua politics, but as a form of charity as a promotion of the message of the Gospel of life”. (1)

Footnotes:

*The Armageddon Factor: The Rise of Christian Nationalism in Canada, By: Marci McDonald, Random House Canada, 2010, ISBN: 978-0-307-35646-8

Sources:

1. A Mix of Morality and Politics, USF Grad Shakes Up Canadian Political Scene, By Rich Kunz, San Francisco Faith, June 2000

2. Why I No Longer Support the Jesuits, by American Phoenix, July 13, 2006

3. Tommy Douglas: Building the New Society, By Dave Margoshes, XYZ Publishing, 1999, ISBN: 0-9683601-4-9

4. Response by Stephen A. Privett, S.J., President of the University of San Francisco, to the charges made on the website of Friends of the St. Ignatius Institute, February 8, 2001

5. The Making of a Socialist: The Recollections of T.C. Douglas, Edited By Lewis H. Thomas, The University of Alberta Press, 1982, ISBN: 0-88864-070-7, Pg. 82

6. Promote human dignity - Kenney: Politician says faith and politics do mix, By Ramon Gonzalezwcr, Western Catholic Reporter, June 2, 2003