Dear____,
There is a national election coming up next year, 2004, as you undoubtedly know - but if things don't change considerably between now and then, the results of that election are going to be the same as the results of the last several elections - one or another of the corporate parties will win a majority government with a minority of the vote, and Canada will sail (not-so-) merrily on as a CCCE-controlled bowing sycophant of that monster to the south of us - the US military-industrial war machine that Eisenhower quite correctly predicted as being such a danger so many years ago.

I believe that we - all of us, that is, who think this kind of corporate government of Canada tagging along in America's footsteps under American command is a very undesirable thing - have a chance, small but real, to unseat this most undemocratic regime and return the Parliament of Canada to Canadians - real Canadians, who will go to Ottawa to truly represent the desires of their electoral constituents in the House of Commons, not go to Ottawa to receive the orders they will relay to those constitutents, as the great majority of corporate government MPs have been doing for the last 20 years - but only if we make a concerted effort to act together from now until the next election to make it happen, rather than, as in the past, all go our own various ways until the election call, and then scramble around for a few weeks during the election campaign in a vain attempt to win a few seats or wring some promises out of some of the electoral contestants - promises which, even if extracted, prove meaningless, as the corporate parties very rarely honor promises made to the people of Canada, as we have seen so often.

But.... what if - all of us on the "non-far-right" (i.e. anywhere this side of the current rightwing Liberals) could join together in a loose sort of coalition for this election, and present a credible platform to the people of Canada - a true alternative to the corporate government we have had since 1984, a true alternative to ever lower corporate taxes and continually crumbling social network and closer and closer amalgamation with the US - verily the National Post's and CCCE's worst nightmare come to life - something that, if done properly, I believe the Canadian voters would overwhelmingly endorse? What if...????

It is possible, I believe, if enough of YOU people who are receiving this letter and many others like you, those seen as credible speakers and fighters in Canada for pro-Canada and Canadians policies rather than pro-US pro-corporate pro-globalisation etc policies, could get together and work for it. I believe a substantial majority of the people in this country, in fact, are just waiting for you, rather desperately in fact just waiting for some credible alternative to the corporate backed and led-by-the-nose governments they have had first under Mulroney and for the last 10 years under Chretien.

Wait, I hear you say - there have been alternatives available - the NDP, or the Greens, or the CAP, others - if people were so desperate for an alternative, why haven't they voted for these groups? Well, in a nutshell, two main reasons - first, the NDP, the historical "leftist" alternative, for whatever reason (bad advice and strategy at the very least least, at both the national and provincial levels) have made some fairly serious policy mistakes dating back to the 1988 Free Trade Election, and have never managed to regain the credibility they had before that, especially under their great leaders Tommy Douglas and David Lewis; and secondly, and more importantly, the corporate press (whose owners also own the corporate government) has gone to considerable lengths during that same period of time to marginalise all of these parties, with considerable success. But support for the corporate government is, as they say in advertising, shallow at best, again for various reasons mostly related to the generally unpopular and destructive policies they have been implementing, and if you people were to work together through your existing networks and the access you have to the media (they can (and have and do) shut all kinds of Joe Nobodies like me out with nobody being the wiser, but they have to let you speak, at least to a much greater extent, or face at least some consequences and questions), these obstacles could be overcome, as we spent the time between now and the next election working together with that one common goal - getting rid of that corporate government, and giving the Canadian people the option of voting for a solid, credible, non-corporate alternative to them.

The basic idea is simply this: The "coalition" would be just that - not at all an attempt to form a new party, with all of the disparate elements we would need to attract sitting down and hammering out a 10 or 20 or 50-point platform that they all agreed on - this would take decades at least, and Canada would be long gone before such a thing ever happened. No - the key to a workable coalition would be one thing only - an agreement that we needed to get rid of the corporate government in Canada, and, to that end, those of us in the coalition will run one and only one candidate in each riding we contest (hopefully every riding in the country) - and the choice of that candidate (if there is not someone of recognized national stature and popular support available and willing that all agree on) will not be left to some coalition committee (see note above about decades-long decision-making process), but will be decided by the voters in the riding who become engaged with the coalition process during the period between now and the calling of the election, through a series (as many as possible once the process begins) of open meetings and consultations in the riding. Understood, of course, would be that this will be, MUST be, a cooperative effort all the way, not nasty and full of infighting - and at the end of the day, when the candidate is eventually selected, ALL of the coalition people in every riding will work willingly and strongly for that one candidate.

And these candidates would have one and only one common policy - they would guarantee that they would represent the voters in their riding, and their wishes as established through regular riding meetings, at the Parliament of Canada - NOT be the de-facto representative of the CCCE to the voters of the riding, as a great majority of our MPs have been for so many years under corporate government. There will be NO subjugation of the coalition MPs to the PMO's office or any other group.

That's it. For other policies, if the candidate has a party affiliation (Green, NDP, CAP, Marxist, whatever), he or she will be running on those policies; an independant (I would hope for a lot!) will be running on whatever policies they have and elucidate during the run-up meetings.

This will take a bit of growing up on the part of at least a few already affiliated people who are enmeshed in the childish games of party politics - but I think most of them are up to it, many may even welcome it - all of the people we want and need, for sure, will be able to see above petty party infighting to the greater good of our country. It will also take some work to overcome the "turf wars" syndrome we will probably encounter from a few people - but again, I think it can be overcome with work. Indeed, it must, if we are to succeed, and present the opportunity for a non-corporate government in our country.

Anyway - you are very busy, and I will not take more of your time - the idea is there, and if you are interested, you will run further with it - I would not presume to try to present you with a detailed plan for such a coaltion, as I am sure that, if you agree that such a move is about our only remaining hope to dethrone the corporate government, you with all your experience would have a much better idea than me of what needs doing. I am sending this letter, this plea, to a lot of people, a partial list of whom is at the bottom (I'm not hiding anything - it just grows, and undoubtedly I will not be able to reach all of those I am trying to).

Probably the main key, if this is to have any chance, is to get at it immediately - although the press, as you know, slavers and runs front page headlines and pages of commentary at any sign of the so-called "united right" - as if the Libs weren't already occupying the major portion of that ground - they will be most reluctant to give any sustained publicity to any movement designed to form a non-corporate government, so we will be largely on our own, at least until we reach some sort of critical mass and they can ignore us no longer, and the meetings and so on necessary to get this rolling will take time. But as they say - where there is a will, there is a way - and if you all or a lot of you decided to do this, to undertake a fairly rapid mobilisation of the people you are affiliated with, made a solid decision to work together in the interest of the country and our people rather than quarrel about every petty detail, and to utilise this great tool of the internet in a sustained campaign to win this war - well - miracles have happened before (with a hell of a lot of work behind them, of course!). It is in your hands - you who are recognised as progressive Canadian nationalists and have the ear of the Canadian public - if you will work together to save our country. We Joe and Jane Blows all over the country (there are a lot of us, I know) can do all the little work, joyfully - but it goes nowhere without your voices to get the message out far and wide, and create that spirit of unity in a great and just cause - the message, and the speakers, that will have the National Post and the CCCE and the rest of that crew (excuse my french) shitting bricks.

A final note - I understand that, for various reasons, many or even most of you might not want to stand for election yourselves - but your support for this coalition and endorsement of candidates would still be of the greatest importance - along with helping it grow quickly, as it must if it is to have any chance of success, through your network and contacts, the credibility in the eyes of Canadians that you would bring would be of great value, cannot happen without it, really - and if they are going to vote for our candidates, they must believe in them. If 20 or 30 or 50 or more of you "big guys" were to get together and agree on this, and help get the organisation going through your networks and writings, it could take off quick.

I hope you do. I hope my country survives. Should the Libs be elected again next year, I would be rather pessimistic of our chances.



(If any of what I have said above is of interest, I have some more info available at http://www.rudemacedon.ca/ccc/ccc-index.html . And please, of course, feel free to forward this around, if you think it an idea you support)

FIRST MAILING:
John R. Saul
Linda McQuaig lmcquaig@sympatico.ca
Mel Hurtig mhurtig@telusplanet.net
David Orchard
Paul Hellyer
Marc Bombois mbombois@telus.net
David Suzuki c/o dtaylor@davidsuzuki.org
Maude Barlow
Murray Dobbin
S.D. Cameron dcameron@uccb.ns.ca
Rick Salutin rsalutin@globeandmail.ca
Michelle Landsberg mlandsb@thestar.ca
James Laxer jlaxer@yorku.ca
Michel Chossudovsky editor@globalresearch.ca
Ed Finn c/o ccca ccpa@policyalternatives.ca

NDP-?
- Jack Layton jack@fed.ndp.ca
- Bill Blaikie bill@billblaikie.ca
- Joe Comartin comarj@parl.gc.ca
- Libby Davies daviel@parl.gc.ca
- Bev Desjarlais bevdesja@mb.sympatico.ca
- Yvon Godin godiny@parl.gc.ca
- Wendy Lill lillw@parl.gc.ca
- Pat Martin wpg.cntr@shawlink.ca
- Brian Masse masse.b@parl.gc.ca
- Alexa McDonough alexa@hfx.eastlink.ca
- Lorne Nystrom nystrom@sk.sympatico.ca
- Dick Proctor proctd@parl.gc..ca
- Svend Robinson robins@parl.gc.ca
- Peer Stoffer peter.stoffer@ns.sympatico.ca
- Judy Wasylycia- Leis judywl@total.net

Judy Darcy jdarcy@cupe.ca
Ken Georgetti president@clc-ctc.ca
Jean Wolff, Director communications@clc-ctc.ca
Jim Stanford
Tony Clarke tony_clarke@on.aibn.com



"OPEN LETTER" MAILING:
Straight Goods feedback@straightgoods.com
Rabble Lisa Rundle at editor@rabble.ca
CAP info@canadianactionparty.ca
Bourque
NDP
Canadian Dimension info@canadiandimension.mb.ca
CAW Buzz Hargrove cawpres@caw.ca
CofC
- Claudia Medina-Culos cmedinaculos@canadians.org
- inquiries@canadians.org
- Ava Waxman awaxman@canadians.org
- Loretta Gerlach lgerlach@canadians.org
- Dagan Harding dharding@canadians.org
- Eduard Sousa esousa@canadians.org
- David Hermolin dhermolin@canadians.org
- Cliff White cwhite@canadians.org

Vive le Canada susan.thompson@vivelecanada.ca
CCPA info@bcpolicyalternatives.org
- ccpa@policyalternatives.ca
- ccpamb@policyalternatives.ca
- ccpans@policyalternatives.ca