Call to Action re Throne Speech on Wednesday

09/22/2020

The Throne Speech takes place two days from now; Wednesday, September 23. Multiple government sources expect programs that signal significant government spending that abandons traditional fiscal anchors, like the debt-to-GDP ratio, in the short term. Canada is on track to post a $343-billion deficit this fiscal year. The parliamentary budget officer has warned that the current level of deficit incurred by the Liberals in their coronavirus emergency spending runs the risk of becoming "unsustainable" without a plan to shrink it back down within one to two years.

ACT! For Canada joins C3RF in requesting that you take the time to write an email to your Member of Parliament. The letters to each party are presented below and are easy to cut and paste.

To find your MP and their email address, go here and follow these simple steps:

Enter Postal Code where indicated
When MP's name and picture comes up, put cursor on picture
Then put cursor on CONTACT and the email address will appear

FROM C3RF:

Throne Speech letter writing challenge

It seems the call for the "silent majority" to become engaged in next week's Throne Speech through a letter writing campaign has struck a chord. Many of you expressed an interest but were looking for some samples to kick start the creative writing process. Accordingly, I am dedicating this update to providing said samples in the hopes that you will use them, pick them apart and combine them, if you see fit, to make your own requests of your Member of Parliament. Recall that this is a particularly sensitive time in the history of our nation as the Throne Speech promises to strike off into a new direction towards a "resilient economy" - an economy free from the rich, resource-based industries that underpin our current, first world economic system.

The passage of the Throne Speech will signal a sea-change moment for the country as it will clear the way for a never-ending series of debilitating budget deficits along with a system of regulations and subsidies that will do away with our free market system. The Throne Speech must be defeated if we are to see the current government fall. Only then can we have an unfettered national debate on which way the country should go. Here are some sample letters designed to appeal to your Member of Parliament to vote the Thone Speech down, whether they be from the NDP, Liberal, Conservative or Bloc Québécois parties. As a reminder, here's a link where you can find your MP's email address.

Letter to a NDP Member of Parliament

Dear Your NDP MP

I am writing as one of your constituents to let you know that I am very worried about the upcoming federal Throne Speech. It is my understanding that the Liberal government will announce major new initiatives that have the power to change the nation's economic prospects even as it buries the country in a never-ending cycle of deficit spending.

I realize that your party is considering supporting the Speech if it accommodates certain NDP program objectives such as childcare and EI enhancements. I beseech you, however, to vote against the Throne Speech and your own party if need be. My reasoning is simple, the government's stated aim to "build back better" on the heels of the Covid-19 crisis and institute a new "resilient economy" stands to devastate our free market economy and "kill the goose that lays the golden egg". This would be in contravention to the NDP's longstanding history of doing the right and generous thing while keeping an eye on the economics.

I believe the party of Tommy Douglas, the party that gave Canada substance over ideology when it advanced bold ideas like public pensions and Medicare, is a pragmatic one that respects the balance sheet. This party represents the nurses, forestry employees and autoworkers who combine social conscience with fiscal conservatism. Unfortunately, the Liberal plan to grow a new "green" economy out of the Covid-19 pandemic is an affront to this inspired pragmatism as it comes at far too high a price. Additionally, it is based on policy prescriptions that have failed miserably in the recent past in both Ontario and Obama's United States.

As for any worries about the Liberals passing the NDP on the left, please note that the current government is on course to ruining the economy and creating Western anxiety even as its use of identity politics sets Canadian against Canadian. Does the NDP Party want to be seen to be associated with any of these things? Let them pass!

Yours truly

Your name and town

Letter to a Liberal Member of Parliament

Dear Your Liberal MP

You have been a loyal Liberal Party member. You stood by silently as your ethically challenged leader moved to circumvent the independence of our judicial system and treated himself to perquisites offered by rich lobbyists. Now, however, it is time for you to recall the "Member's Code" that you signed onto when you became my elected representative. In accordance with the Code, you affirmed solemnly that you would be faithful and bear true Allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second.

In affirming this allegiance to the Queen, you swore to serve the sovereign of Canada and, as such, the people that she represents and the representative democracy that she rules over - not the Liberal Party of Canada! You are responsible to your constituents as a first priority and I now call upon that duty of care to request that you vote against the Throne Speech on my behalf. I make this request as your leader's stated intention to use the Speech as a start point for "building back better" into a green future with a "resilient economy" is both reckless and far too costly.

The plan is reckless in that it moves the country away from its first world, resource-based economy to one that is underpinned by policy prescriptions that have demonstrably failed in the recent past. These failures have been seen to occur in the contexts of both Ontario and Obama's United States. The costs will be truly astronomical as $50 billion in additional debt will be incurred in the first five years with undetermined deficits piling up on a year-by-year basis as far into the future as the eye can see. Tie this all in a bundle that will be managed by an ethically challenged leader and the recipe for disaster is complete. Please stop this madness before it gets started. Please vote against your party and against the Throne Speech that stands to put Canada on the path to serfdom.

Yours truly

Your name and town

Letter to a Conservative Member of Parliament

Dear Your Conservative MP

I understand that the Conservative Party stands four-square against the prospect of the Liberal Party's green "new deal" and want you to know that you have my full support in voting against this reckless and far too costly initiative. It's hard to understand how the government could so cavalierly discard our first world, resource-based economy and substitute one that is underpinned by policy prescriptions that have failed miserably in other jurisdictions - including Ontario and Obama's United States.

In arguing against the Liberal concept of a "resilient economy", It is noteworthy that the American experience has seen a 14% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions since 2005 through the application of advanced technological solutions within the fossil fuel domain. One wonders why the Liberals insist on moving away from technology-based solutions that would save our in-place energy industries to fully embrace unreliable "renewables". Additionally, the biofuel sop that the Liberals offer Western farmers is fraught with the prospect of high food prices and even starvation.

Additionally, it's not just Western alienation that the Liberal's "resilient economy" stands to inflame but Western separation. A vote for the Throne Speech risks both a breakup of the country and the loss of Conservative Party support as Westerners look to other political entities to help them avoid the devastation that a new "resilient economy" will bring to their communities.

Yours truly

Your name and town

Letter to a Bloc Québécois Member of Parliament

Please know that I support the leader of the Bloc Québécois, Yves-Francois Blanchet, when he declared that he would bring a non-confidence vote to bear subsequent to the Throne Speech if Prime Minister Trudeau and his chief of staff, Katie Telford, did not resign. He is correct in asserting that the positions of trust that these individuals occupy demand they act in a principled fashion and with integrity. It is my hope that you will follow your leader and vote against the Throne Speech - even if by some miracle both Trudeau and Telford have left the scene.

I say this as the Throne Speech, according to the Prime Minister, will be all about, "Who's got your back - who do you trust will support you and your families and your community through the coming months?". Your Party should be very concerned by such pretentious pronouncements as they speak to an obvious drive to centralize all aspects of the new, proposed "resilient economy" into the hands of the federal government. Such massive centralization would be a direct threat to the independence of the French-Canadian people and operate in opposition to their voyageur spirit and desire to control their own destiny.

Combine this promised centralization with a demonstrated capacity of the Liberal Party to operate in its own self-interest and it's easy to see Quebec losing control over its affairs. Seen in this light and even with the departure of Trudeau and Telford, the new "resilient economy" stands to strip Quebec of any free agency it might wish to employ on its own behalf. This, by itself, demands that the Throne Speech be denied so that all parts of the country might enjoin in a debate and have a say in where each goes next.

Yours truly

Your name and town

Thank you.