Death by 1000 Cuts.

Last night, I joined an online meeting hosted by Civis4Reform. 35 people attended, many with impressive backgrounds. Everyone shared common concerns about our three levels of government.

Ambitious goals.

The founders of Civis4Reform are reaching far and wide for people with the abilities and motivations to build a pan-Canadian organization designed to fulfill this model.

I interpret their vision to build a citizen-led, decentralized network of 338 groups (one for each federal electoral district) organized to defend themselves against global and domestic threats from government institutions. 

The common fear is that a cabal of wealthy and powerful people are successfully executing a plan to establish a one world government under their influence. No one in attendance appeared to know HOW to build a defence plan that will be successful.

The need for a strategy was discussed.

Like other “freedom” groups, the WHO, WHY and WHAT are the clear targets of their purpose , but the HOW remains elusive.

The WHO is easy. It’s the United Nations, the IPCC, the World Health Organization, Justin Trudeau, and other named malevolent actors.

The WHY seems self-evident given the gradual increase in the powers of government (“The Deep State”?) over time always at the expense of our freedoms and purchasing power. The “people in charge” of public policies and their enforcement, and their “crony” affiliates, always emerge from any “crisis” better off than the rest of us,

The WHAT to do usually includes rallies, protests, posters with slogans, meetings with like-minded citizens, signing petitions, writing letters to elected officials, social media posting & sharing, and even writing essays on Substack like this one.

and the HOW?

As I explained to the group last night, the ultimate goal must be to eventually elect a majority of representatives to Parliament (338 seats) and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario (120 seats) who are committed to repealing legislation (laws).

Too much legislation has been passed over successive administrations which serve powerful special interest groups as well as government institutions. Our citizens always suffer the consequences with reduced freedoms and a drop in disposable after-tax incomes.

Our battleground is the fight to repeal excessive and expensive legislation. No other long-term goal is meaningful if a permanent solution to “the problem” is to ever be achieved.

TOO MUCH GOVERNMENT is “the problem”.

It doesn’t take too much reflection by the average citizen to realize how many challenges of modern life are government initiated. Legislation is the ultimate authority that enables the very existence of the current size, cost and scope of powers  wielded by public officials.

This “orbit of power” includes…

Power is shared and distributed within and between: all three levels of government; agencies, boards and commissions;  government-certified professions and trades;  and all suppliers who depend on government spending for their economic survival.

Examples. If legislation and regulations did not exist, would the Accounting and Legal professions exist? If media companies like the CBC, the Toronto Star, and Global TV were not subsidized by your tax dollars, would they have survived the competition from the superior Internet business models? If public monopolies in Education and Health Care were to face open market competition, how would this affect the range, quality, cost and effectiveness of services for citizens?

I could go on, put you get the picture.

We are slaves to the central planning and absolute control of a landscape full of institutions.  They exist solely on the basis of the Acts of Parliament and the provincial eLaws (Ontario) that authorize them to tax, regulate and enforce their rules to the nth degree.

Carpet bombing is not legal.

Frustrated by our reality, some citizens would bulldoze the institutional landscape if is was up to them, but that might harm women, children and other innocents in the process. No one wants anything even resembling the kind of carpet bombing strategy that took place this past year in the Ukraine.

I prefer a legal and targeted approach to attacking the enemy which I have identified as TOO MUCH LEGISLATION.

A back-of-the-napkin Strategy.

If the ultimate goal is to repeal the excessive legislation that authorizes the steady growth of oppressive governments, then a strategy is needed to achieve that specific goal. Of course, a series in intermediate goals must be set and achieved if the ultimate goal will ever be reached.

It has taken generations of bad decisions by elected officials to get to the current state of “the problem”. Likewise, it will take time to unravel this Legislative mess.

There are many laws today and they all command enormous resources to enforce them. Hundreds of thousands of regulations were created but unelected bureaucrats who manage all law enforcement. This “responsibility” requires incremental growth in expensive human and capital resources every year which is one reasons why government budgets never balance or spending rarely decreases.

Here are some steps for the CATC leaders to consider when creating a strategy, some of which are already in place.

1. Create a national, decentralized organization of like-minded citizens who will execute the strategy (tbd). You are already working on this to your credit and have set the goal to establish a group in all of Canada’s 338 electoral ridings.

2. Create a CHARTER defining the CATC national mission, goals & milestones, and governance principles. Ensure that every member has read and agrees with it, and is prepared to work to fulfill it.

3. Treat each of the 338 local groups as self-governing CATC “affiliates” that share support for the common CHARTER, but focus their local group on addressing local issues and needs. Think of each group as a Swiss canton during its formative years. The CATC HQ can serve as a “consulting and services” enterprise to assist each canton in various ways and to provide support for essential governance matters of a regional or national nature (i.e. matters that cross some or all canton jurisdictions).  

4. Two types of active CATC member can be currently identified: “Promoters” and “Problem Solvers”. These can and will overlap from time to time, but the strengths of each member will become evident over time. Both are needed at the local, regional and national level with a “boots on the ground” perspective to credibly inform other stakeholders.

5. The “Promoters” spread awareness and engage citizens to take interest, and ideally get involved, in issues and opportunities that relate to their personal goals and circumstances. The book “Psychology of Totalitarianism” by Dr. Mattias Desmet describes the phenomenon known as “mass formation psychosis”. He explains HOW it was applied so successfully to convince the majority of citizens to follow public health orders during the pandemic with little resistance. The same methods must be used by CATC Promoters to get the attention of the public and follow our advice. I entitied this essay “Death by a 1000 cuts” because it will take many attempts by many motivated Canadians to gradually dismantle the stone fortress that ‘The State’ has erected to protect the interests of its elite stakeholders and affiliates. An army of CATC Promoters will be needed to take down this ediface one stone at a time.

6. The “Problem Solvers” will strategize on HOW best to resolve an issue or capitalize on an opportunity. The success of the Problem Solvers will prove the value of the CATC as it builds a reputation that it can be trusted to act on behalf of citizens and succeed where government institutions have perenially failed. The age of “all talk, no results” by public officials will end as each successive CATC accomplishment will stand in stark contrast to the many failures of central planning, ‘command and control’ government approaches. More citizens will take an active interest in their community,  their leaders and the CATC. Eventually, it become “cool” to work on CATC initiatives and community spirit will grow on a “success breeds success” basis. Citizen engagement will be respected and virtue-signally will be revealed for what it is - empty, narcissistic rhetoric.

7. As the reputation of the CATC grows and its membership expands, so will its political influence. Like public sector labour unions, the sheer volume of CATC members/voters will get the attention of politicians and public administrators who will seek their approval.

8. Let’s imagine a sample election scenario.  Say that a local canton’s trusted and influential CATC chose to publicly endorce a political candidate and encouraged all members to vote accordingly. Say also that the candidate in question is an Independent (not affiliated with any major political party) and therefore accountable ONLY to the local riding constituents. The CATC, of course, will only endorse a properly-vetted candidate who will also publicly sign a statement that “Too Much Government is the #1 threat to democracy”,  and then sign an oath to work towards reducing the size, cost and scope of authority by 5% over the next 4 years. This candidate would get the attention of every voter. Now imagine doing this in 338 cantons.

9. Now, let’s a future national governance scenario: 200 CATC-endorsed Independents are elected to Parliament. The other parties sit only 138. This majority government would have the ear of everyone who has been inspired by the CATC to discuss civil matters with friends, coworkers and family. Even if only 100 CATC-endorsed Independents were elected, it would be unlikely that one of the traditional major parties would achieve an electoral majority (179 seats out of the remaining 228). Advantage still goes to the people instead of the traditional Political Oligopoly of Political Power (LIB, CON, NDP, BQ).

10. The above scenarios will lead steadily towards a citizen-led democracy because the power of government will be decentralized to the local influence of the “cantons” (I refer to a local CATC as a ‘canton’ to invoke images of the Swiss model of republic). Each CATC-endorsed MP will know that their local constituents are watching their performance carefully. They can’t blame their failures on a political party because they are not part of one. Incentives matter, and rewards for success should be considered because punishment for poor performance will be self evident.

Let the discussions begin.

The above back-of-the-napkin “strategy” is meant to generate discussion within the CATC leadership. It was written based on my belief that people will follow leaders who lead with confidence, integrity, good ideas and the ability to deliver on promises or, at least make significant progress towards the desired goals.

Setting goals is easy. Setting realistic goals is harder. Achieving then within the arena of politics is always a tall order. The book ‘Right Here, Right Now’ by Stephen Harper provides valuable insights into political leadership. I recommend it to all “Promoters” and “Problem Solvers” so that they see political reality for what it is rather than through rose-coloured glasses.

Decentralized authority will strengthen Direct Democracy

Every one of Canada’s 338 electoral ridings has economic, demographic and cultural circumstances that are unique and must be treated so. Institutions led by central planning, and managed under conditions of rigid enforcement, will always discount the interests of the individual in favour of the political siren song of “the majority”. Each of Canada’s 40,000,000 citizens is a unique individual possessing one-of-a-kind assets, talents, dreams and circumstances. All regimes that govern by “one-size-fits-all” policies will fail to reliably, fairly and effectively serve a nation of individual human beings.

The greatest shortcoming of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is that it failed to identify and enumerate individual person & property rights. As such, there is no constitutional mandate to enforce these. All “property” disputed must be tried according to Common Law statutes. Besides external mediation services, these disputes must be resolve by lawyers (’certified government agents’) within government courts along with all of the costs and regulatory, bureaucratic baggage that this usually entails. This “monopoly on justice” has been created and sustained with little opposition because “person & property rights” were an afterthought by the provincial previous and Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau in 1982 when the Charter was enacted.

Ideally, Civis4Reform will include as one of its long-term goals to establish “person & property rights” as one of its top goals within all local, regional and national governance institutions. This recent deputation by Dr. Kirsten Kelly and I presented recently to the Mayor and Council of the City of Kawartha Lakes addresses the challenges that rural property owners face in zoning matters that arise when these Natural Law individual rights are absent.

A final comment.

The era of Digital Direct Democracy is not only possible today, it is essential to establish the right balance between public services and citizens. Real solutions exist if we know where to look for them. The ‘citizen white paper” below offers proof of this claim.

To achieve this balance, the Individual Freedom of every citizen to accept and act upon his or her Personal Responsibility is vital. Of course,  human relationships are dynamic and often unpredictable, but the best outcomes can be expected under conditions of mutual Respect guided by Fair and unbiased laws which apply to everyone equally.

Change is inevitable and coming quickly.

Yes, significant changes will be required to achieve the CATC vision. However, we are all entering an era of more change than humanity has ever experienced, and we are not well prepared for it. Uncertainty is the cause of fear and anxiety that is experienced by most (all?) human beings.

Only two options are available. We can sit back and let strangers plan and impose these changes on us according to their priorities. We have already been experiencing this option and are unhappy about its consequences. Feeling helpless, we turn to people like those coming to the CATC hoping for a quick fix and even a miracle.

The other option is to stand our ground with like-minded and concerned members of our communities, and claim our ‘person & property rights’. We find strength in numbers. This bolsters our courage to demand that we be part of the discussions about what changes we want, and what we are willing to accept through informed choice and negotiation.

As a CATC member, you have already made your choice. Make the best of it!