The Trudeau Empire Has Fallen and Can't Get Up

The Trudeau Empire Has
Fallen and It Can’t Get Up!

Why now is the time for the Canadian
conservative movement to win the War of Ideas
by Gerry Nicholls
The Trudeau Empire Has Fallen and It Can’t Get Up!
Why now is the time for the Canadian conservative movement to win the War of Ideas
Table of Contents
The Trudeau Empire Has

Fallen and It Can’t Get Up! 2-17
Roadblocks to a Revolution 18-22
The Art of Guerrilla Warfare 23-34
Conclusion 35-36
Notes 37-38
2001 M Street NW Washington DC 20036 www.democracyinstitute.org

145-157 St. John Street London EC1V 4PY www.democracyinstitute.org.uk
Vibrant free markets and a respect for individual freedoms are the cornerstones of
any prosperous democracy.
That’s why it’s so important for Canada’s conservative movement to win the war of
ideas, a war we can’t depend on politicians to win for us.
And now is the best time to win the war of ideas.
The old Trudeau political consensus – a consensus which extolled the virtues of big
interventionist government – is falling apart.
Canadians are now ready for policies that promote and protect the quality of their
lives. They care less care about ideology and more about what works.
This is where conservatives must focus their communication strategy – emphasizing

an agenda of how to make government better.
Yes, there are roadblocks to conservative success: gag laws, unfair tax policies, a
biased media and well-financed opponents.
But these problems can be overcome, through better fundraising efforts, through
new communication technology and through smarter campaigns.
For instance, conservatives can successfully get their message across by

employing the “guerrilla warfare” techniques made famous by the National
Citizens Coalition.
In the long run, however, Canada will need a well-financed conservative

organization of the scale necessary to make a major impact. Canada will need
an organization with enough resources and funding to mount long-term strategic
campaigns, using effective advertising, marketing and PR techniques.
Gerry Nicholls is a Senior Fellow with the Democracy Institute and

former vice - president of the National Citizens Coalition.
gerry_nicholls@hotmail.com
2001 M Street NW Washington DC 20036 www.democracyinstitute.org 1

Irish rock star Bono once famously declared the “world needs more Canada.”
But what does Canada need?
It’s simple. Canada needs a strong dose of conservatism – as in “fiscal conservatism.”
We need to cut back on the size and cost of our bloated government. We need to
slash taxes, deregulate our economy and promote a greater role for the free market
in our society.
We need to do these things because the world has become a much more
competitive place, a place where free markets rule. In short, the battle over
which is the better economic system – capitalism or socialism – is finished.
Capitalism won.
As author and New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote, in his book The
Lexus and the Olive Tree, “When it comes to the question of which system today is
the most effective at generating rising standards of living, the historical debate is
over. The answer is free market capitalism. Other systems may be able to distribute
and divide income more efficiently and equitably, but none can generate income to
distribute as efficiently as free-market capitalism.” 1
To effectively compete in this emerging world of freer markets and freer trade,
Canada will have to become a more productive, free enterprise-friendly place.
The only way this will happen is through the political process.
Our elected leaders are the only ones who can change our laws, cut our taxes and
reform our economic system.
But will they? Will they have the courage to do what’s right for our country’s
future?
Maybe. But unfortunately, we can’t always depend on politicians to do the right

thing.
Take the Conservative Party. Nominally dedicated to free market ideals, the
Conservatives have proven to be quite timid when it comes to enacting reforms.
Rather than providing true conservative leadership, Prime Minister Stephen Harper
has opted to go the “Liberal-lite” route.

He has failed to offer Canadians a true conservative vision either through his actions
or through his rhetoric. Indeed, if anything the party has abandoned its principles
and moved politically to the political “centre” (or in some cases the left of centre)
as part of a deliberate strategy to displace the Liberal Party.
Simply put, the Conservatives do not want to be seen as “conservative.”
Yet while the Conservative Party’s failure to live up to its ideals is certainly
disappointing for conservative Canadians, it’s not surprising. Politicians by their
very nature are often more interested in winning elections than in doing what’s
right. Like a rudderless ship, they follow the current of public opinion, driven
only by a desire to be popular.
That’s why somebody has to push the politicians in the right direction. Somebody
in Canada – outside the political system – has to stand up for true principles and
ideals. And that somebody has to be Canada’s conservative movement – those
organizations and individuals who believe in more freedom and less government.
Canadian conservatives must focus less on winning the electoral wars and focus
more on winning a much more important war: the war of ideas.
This is the fight that really matters.
If conservatives can win the war of ideas, if we can convince Canadians of the
need for less government and more freedom, it will create a demand in the political
marketplace for principled conservative policies. And when that happens, politicians
will seek to meet that demand out of their own self-interest.
In short, the conservative movement must lead, so that political parties will follow.
This is a lesson conservatives in the United States learned a long time ago. Faced
with an overwhelming left wing media, left-wing courts and left-wing academia,
American conservatives fought back by constructing a well-funded message
machine to inject new ideas into the national conversation, to attack enemies on
the left, and to spark political action.
Starting in the 1970s, American conservatives built think tanks, media monitors,
legal groups, networking organizations, all promoting the importance of free
enterprise, individual freedoms and limited government.
And just as importantly, this message has been amplified by FOX News, by radio
talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh and more recently by conservative bloggers.

To the American left, so used to dominating U.S. culture, the emergence of such
an effective conservative voice – one Democratic operative called it “perhaps
the most potent, independent institutionalized apparatus ever assembled in a
democracy to promote one belief system.' – was disconcerting to say the least.
They called it the “Republican Noise Machine”, the “Conservative Message

Machine's Money Matrix” or the “Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.” 2
Canadians too can and must have their own “conservative noise machine.” But of
course, to make an effective noise, you must first have an effective communications
strategy.
And that’s what this paper is all about. I want to share what expertise I have when
it comes to political communications – expertise I have picked up after 22 years
of fighting for freedom with the National Citizens Coalition.
I want to explain why now is the best time for conservatives to get their message
out and how they can tailor that message for maximum impact.
Are Canadians ready to hear this message?
Some will say no. Many Canadians, in fact, adhere to the myth that Canada is a
left-wing country.
According to this myth, conservatism – with its emphasis on limited government,

free markets and individual freedom – just won’t sell in this country. It’s too alien
a concept for Canadians to accept.
Selling conservative ideas in Canada, backers of this myth argue, is like trying to
sell steaks to vegetarians. True conservatism, they say has about as much chance
of taking root in Canada as Britney Spears has of joining Mensa.
On the other hand, big government socialism is supposedly as Canadian as maple

syrup, cold winters and hockey
Even some conservatives buy into this argument.
In his book, Harper’s Team, former Harper confidant and Chief of Staff Tom
Flanagan, writes “Canada is not yet a conservative or Conservative country.
We can’t win votes if we veer too far to the right of the median voter.” 3
If this were true, of course, there would be no point in swimming against the tide.
It would be a gigantic waste of time for the conservative movement to push and
promote conservatism. The smart thing to do would be to join the Liberal Party
and wait to receive slush fund kickbacks.

But is Canada really a left wing country? Is big government really our national
heritage?
A quick scan of Canada’s history would prove otherwise.
If anything throughout much of our history Canada has been actually quite a
conservative country, or at least more conservative than our supposedly arch-
capitalist friend to the south, namely the United States of America.
As William Watson documents in his book Globalization and the Meaning of
Canadian Life, rather than leading, Canada followed American interventionist
policies. 4
Canada so lagged behind other countries when it came to interventionism, that

in 1943 Bruce Hutchison, wrote “Beside pre-war Canada, Britain was almost
socialistic, and the New Deal of the United States was wild radicalism...We are
still a very conservative nation by the definitions of these times – perhaps the
most conservative nation under the democratic system in the world.” 5
If anything, Canada’s tradition was one of private initiative and individual liberty.
Of course, that all came to a crashing halt in the late 1960s with the coming of the
Lester Pearson-Pierre Trudeau dynasty. Rather than building on Canada’s past
traditions, Pearson and to a larger extent Trudeau, triggered a social and political
revolution that degraded our heritage and overturned our historic values.
As Trudeau himself put it, “We haven’t been able to make it, the free market system,
work. The government is going to have to take a larger role in running institutions...
It means there is not going to be less authority in our lives, but perhaps more.” 6
At that point, Canada began to drift in socialist waters – with a devastating result
for our economy. Trudeau’s interventionist and fiscally irresponsible policies and
his massive expansion of government, left a legacy of high taxes, gigantic national
debt and bloated bureaucracies.
Yet ironically, while Trudeau’s economic policies were dismal failures, his political
revolution was a total success. His left-wing vision of Canada became, in essence,
the political orthodoxy of the country’s political establishment.
Our media, judges, academia and political leaders accepted the Trudeau vision as
gospel. Trudeau’s ideology became so ingrained in Canada’s political psyche that
Ray Pennings and Michael Van Pelt of the Workers Research Foundation refer to
it as the “Pan-Canadian Consensus.” 7
I, however, like to call it the “Trudeau Empire.”

As an operating model, the Trudeau Empire was based on the following

conditions:
• Strong central government
• Interventionism in the economy
• An activist government that likes to create new and costly social programs.
• Peace-keeping over taking on one’s enemies.
• Programs targeting the perceived causes of crime over policing and punishment.
• Government responsible for society’s social and economic welfare.
• Promotion of multiculturalism and bilingualism
To the media, cultural and political elite, none of these conditions were debatable.
The only matter up for debate was who could best manage the Trudeau Empire.
Anyone who challenged this consensus, anyone who promoted the idea of free
enterprise or individual freedom or less government (all of them traditional
Canadian values) was deemed outside the political mainstream. Or worse, they
were labeled an extremist.
This is what created the illusion that Canada was a “left-wing country”. Only a few
institutions – such as the National Citizens Coalition – had the courage to challenge
the dominant establishment view. Consequently, Canadians were getting only one
side of the story.
Yet there always was a serious disconnect between the left-leaning views of our
establishment and the views of the Canadian population as a whole.
After all, Canadian conservatives have still managed to achieve important victories
in the last two decades, despite the lack of a true debate and the fact that a left-wing
mindset has dominated Canada’s media, schools and political parties.
True-blue conservative Mike Harris won back to back majority governments in

Ontario; Preston Manning created the conservative/populist Reform Party; Brian
Mulroney enacted a free trade agreement; the Liberal Party, under Jean Chrétien,
balanced the budget and the right-leaning Action démocratique du Québec has
emerged as a political force in Quebec.
So much for Canada being a left- wing country!
The fact is Canadians are neither “right wing” nor “left wing”. Rather, they are
simply looking for ideas that work.
Of course, up until now – thanks to the dominance of the Trudeau Empire – most
of the ideas Canadians have heard have come from the left.

But that is changing. The Trudeau Empire has fallen. The Trudeau vision no longer
reflects the political reality of the country, or the new economic reality of the world.
And these new realities offer conservatives an exciting opportunity to both sell our
ideas and help trigger a true revolution in this country, an anti-Trudeau revolution.
First, let’s first examine Canada’s changing political reality.
It used to be Canadians voted for a political party for a wide variety of reasons:
ideology, religion, ethnic background, regionalism and brand loyalty.
But the old loyalties are breaking down. As Robert Sibley, a writer and editor for
the Ottawa Citizen put it, Canada is experiencing a “shift in this country’s political
culture, a reorientation of Canada’s political psyche. That can be a scary prospect
to those comfortable with the old Canada accommodations.” 8
And part of that shift is the emergence of a new voting bloc.
This new bloc isn’t motivated by ideology or by regional grievances or by religion.

What matters to this bloc is maintaining and improving their quality of life.
They want a good health-care system, good schools, safe streets and a clean
environment. They want to keep the wealth they have. Just as importantly they
want an opportunity to acquire more wealth.
I call this voting bloc the “Quality of Life Crowd”. And it’s a voting bloc no
politician can afford to ignore. You can’t win an election without winning over
a large number of these people to your side.
Who are these people? What is their political stance?
Well, you can’t really categorize Quality of Lifers, along the traditional left-wing,
right-wing axis.
You can’t call them left wing because they don’t necessarily buy into traditional
left-wing agendas. They don’t like welfare programs that pay people not to work,
they hate the idea of coddling criminals and old-fashioned class-warfare rhetoric
scares them.
Nor can you call them right-wingers. They don’t care if gays get married and they
don’t like the idea of tax cuts or smaller government if they believe said tax cuts
and smaller government threatens their well-being or quality of life.
If you had to classify Quality of Lifers they could probably best be described as a
coalition of business-minded conservatives and baby- boom libertarians – people
who don’t like government intervention either in the economy or in their private
lives.
Quality of Lifers, in other words, reject the Trudeau notion that big government has
the answer to all of their problems. And why shouldn’t they reject this notion?
They have seen big government fail to eliminate poverty. They have seen big
government fail to stop drug abuse. They have seen big government take more
and more of their money and deliver less in return.
As a result, the Quality of Life Crowd is forging a new consensus in Canada, a

consensus that often equates government service with second-rate service, a
consensus that says big government can’t be trusted to look after us from cradle
to grave.
In fact, sometimes they see government as a threat to their quality of life.
Government health-care is forcing them to endure long waiting lists for service.
Government regulations prohibit them from watching the TV shows they want to
watch.
Government policies drive away investment and hamper wealth creation.
What this all means is that politicians won’t win the “Quality of Life” voting bloc
with old Trudeau-style bromides extolling the virtues of big government.
Smart politicians understand this.
Smart politicians such as former U.S. President Bill Clinton and former British
Prime Minister Tony Blair, both of whom realized that the left- wing rhetoric so
long associated with their parties wasn’t going to cut it anymore.
Clinton, for instance, dumped the Democratic Party’s left-wing dogma, and came up
with a policy called “triangulation,” which was just a fancy label to describe how he
moved to the right on certain key issues that mattered to the American Quality of
Life Crowd. 9
Triangulation meant Clinton was tough on crime and in favour of reforming

America’s welfare system. And he made it a point to stress that his presidency
was not about creating huge government bureaucracies but was about protecting
and increasing prosperity by giving Americans more choice.
As Clinton himself put it, “The mission of this administration from day one has
been to increase economic opportunity and maintain national security; to empower
the individuals of this country to assume personal responsibility for their own
futures.” 10
Would Jimmy Carter or George McGovern ever have used such language?

No.
But Clinton was appealing to the Quality of Lifers. He wasn’t saying, “Government
is the answer to all your problems.” He was saying, “Government will protect you,
but won’t get in your way when it comes allowing you to increase your wealth.”
In the United Kingdom, Tony Blair also targeted Quality of Lifers with what he
called the “Third Way.” The Third Way meant scrapping the scarier aspects of the
Labour Party’s socialist ideology. The Third Way meant copying some of Margaret
Thatcher’s economic policies. The Third way meant focusing on the needs of the
middle class. It didn’t mean socialist revolution.
And here in Canada we saw the Liberal government of Jean Chrétien move in
the same direction. Chrétien’s Liberals eschewed Trudeau-style big-government
initiatives and focused on fiscal responsibility.
In fact, it could be argued that Chrétien – who balanced the budget and cut taxes –
was the most conservative leader this country has had since the end of World War
II.
Of course, it’s important to note that Clinton, Blair and Chrétien were not pursuing
a conservative agenda. They were not by any means “anti-government.” Rather they
were seeking to sell voters on the idea that big government could be made more
efficient. As Clinton advisor Joseph Stiglitz put it, “By showing that government
could be efficient and innovative, we hoped that there would be renewed support
for government, and for those endeavors which lie within the responsibility of
government.” 11
That’s why, here in Canada, the same Liberals who balanced the budget were also
the same Liberals who equated less government with a lower standard of living.
At the beginning of the 2004 federal election, for instance, former Prime Minister
Paul Martin noted, “You can have a country like Canada. You can have a country
like the United States. That’s a choice you can make. But you cannot have a
health-care system like Canada’s…and social programs like Canada with taxation
levels like the United States.” 12
In other words – less government and lower taxes will destroy our healthcare
system.
That’s the game Canada’s left-leaning politicians have been playing for some time.
“Only the status-quo can protect your standard of living. And we are the party of
the status quo.”

It has been a successful tactic. But the times are changing. It’s going to become
more and more difficult for politicians on the left to play this game, because the
economic reality of globalization is going to upset the status quo.
Globalization means we are living in a world of freer trade, integrated economies

and interconnected financial monetary markets. We are living in a world where
markets rule.
And in a world where markets rule, national governments cannot control their own
economic destinies as they once did.
Walter Wriston, former Chairman of Citibank, says the information revolution alone
has changed the rules of the game. As he put it:
“The gold standard...has now been replaced by the information standard. Unlike
other standards, the information standard is in place, operating, will never go away
and has substantially changed the world. What it means very simply, is that bad
monetary policy and fiscal policies anywhere in the world are reflected within
minutes on the Reuters screens in the trading rooms of the world. Money only
goes where it’s wanted, and only stays where it’s well treated, and once you tie the
world together with telecommunications and information the ball game is over...
for the first time in history the politicians of the world can’t stop it.” 13
What this means is that while the “era of big government” may not be over, the era
of bad government is most definitely coming to an end.
In a world where capital and investment can move with such speed, bad govern-
ment is simply a luxury no country can afford. Governments can no longer
recklessly spend themselves into deficits, manipulate their currencies, raise taxes
with impunity or impose burdensome regulations on their economies.
To do so would be to drive away investment, entrepreneurs and jobs. To do so

would be to relegate their countries to second-rate status and to a declining
standard of living. Governments now find themselves in a tight fiscal box that
leaves little room for maneuver.
This is what Friedman calls the “Golden Straitjacket.” Countries, says Friedman,
that shrink the size of bureaucracies, deregulate their markets and make the private
sector the primary engine of economic growth will enjoy higher incomes. But on
the political front, “the Golden Straitjacket narrows the political and economic
policy choices of those in power to relatively tight parameters.” 14
And that straitjacket spells the end for the old-style, Pan-Canadian Consensus.

Big- government, Trudeau-style, no longer has the flexibility to meet the demands
of an increasingly cynical population. People want government to do more, and
government because of the constraints of market discipline, simply can’t afford to
deliver.
Something has to give. Something has to change.
And what is going to change is the role of government.
Phillip Bobbitt, in his book The Shield of Achilles, argues that nation-states will out of
necessity evolve into what he calls “Market-States,” where governments will rely
more on the private sector to provide services.
Market-States – through deregulation and tax cuts – will focus less on redistributing
wealth and more on creating economic climates that encourage the generation of
wealth.
Market States “don’t exist to deliver material well-being directly,” writes Bobbitt.
“They exist to maximize people’s opportunities to advance themselves, and to get
out of the way.” 15
Will Canada evolve into one of Bobbitt’s Market-States? Maybe. Maybe not.
But one thing is clear. The status quo in Canada will have to change. The Trudeau
Empire with its emphasis on big government and high taxes is about as relevant to
today’s world as a Model-T Ford.
The left can no longer offer realistic solutions to the country’s ills. Making
government bigger, hiking taxes on the rich and throwing tax dollars at problems
are no longer options in a world competing for investment.
And of course, the strongest evidence that the Trudeau Empire is coming to an
end was the election of a Stephen Harper-led Conservative government.
Why did the Conservatives win?
While the Liberals were offering Trudeau-style big-government programs like

national day care, the Tories were talking about giving Canadians more choice
when it came to looking after their children.
While the Liberals were talking about old – fashioned, strong central government,
the Tories were offering a new, more decentralized federalism.
While the Liberals were talking about building youth centres to tackle crime, the
Tories were talking about tougher prison sentences.

The Tories, in other words, were better reflecting the emergence of the new
Canada, the post-Trudeau Canada.
So if Trudeau’s Canada is disappearing, what is going to replace it?
First of all, big government is not going away. Government will still be with us, but
in the future it’s going to play a different role because people are going to want it to
play a different role.
Simply put, Canadians are developing a more pragmatic view of government. If

government is working, protecting their lifestyle and prosperity, they will support
it, paying whatever taxes they need to pay.
But if government isn’t working, they are ready for an alternative.
What does all this mean for Canadian conservatives?
It means that if we are going to get our message across in a way that brings about
meaningful change, we will have to follow the leads of Clinton, Blair and Chrétien
and reach out to the Quality of Life Crowd.
It means communicating in a language that will appeal to them.
That means packaging the conservative message carefully and choosing targets
intelligently. Instead of stressing ideology, or assuming Canadians want smaller
government and lower taxes, conservatives need to explain how conservative fiscal
policies will lead to a better quality of life and a higher standard of living.
Just as importantly, conservatives need to go on the attack and stress how old-
fashioned, Trudeau-style, big- government policies are actually lowering our quality
of life.
But how would this work in practice? How can conservatives take advantage of the
new political climate domestically and of the new economic climate globally? 16
Here are some key issues that should be part of a conservative agenda:
Health- Care
This has long been considered the “third rail” of Canadian politics. Few politicians
have had the courage to challenge the socialist government monopoly on health-
care services, or to suggest implementing market-oriented reforms.
And perhaps in the past, to do so would have been political suicide.

But that could be changing. The problems associated with our health- care system
– doctor and equipment shortages, escalating costs, long waiting lists for care –
are now widely apparent and will become even more widely experienced as the
population ages.
In short, when it comes to health care, the government is providing Canadians with
second-rate service, a fact the Supreme Court of Canada recognized with its famous
Chaoulli decision.
In that historic case, the Court ruled access to a waiting list is not the same as access
to health care.
But big government advocates have only one solution for our health-care woes:
spend more money. And while that might be a short-term, band-aid solution,
studies clearly indicate Canada’s rate of health care spending is simply not
sustainable. 17
The Canadian left, therefore, will be forced to defend the health-care status quo on
the basis of nothing more than ideological purity. Canadians suffering on health
care waiting lists will have to be portrayed as heroic martyrs of a health-care system
that makes us better than Americans.
But that won’t wash for the Quality of Life Crowd.
They are used to getting what they want. They are used to paying for top-rate
service. They are not going to put up with a poor and declining health-care system
just to honour the memory of Tommy Douglas.
This gives conservatives the opportunity to counter the left’s ideological arguments,
with arguments based on pragmatism. We need to convince Canadians that
allowing some sort of private competition with the government’s health care
monopoly will provide a higher quality of service.
At the same time, conservatives must be active in aggressively pointing out the
weaknesses of our health-care system. Conservatives must state the obvious: the
health- care emperor has no clothes.
In short, we need to convince Canadians that allowing private health-care

competition will mean a better health- care system.
The CRTC
The CRTC is an archaic institution designed to dictate what Canadians can watch
on TV and listen to on the radio.
To put it another way, it’s Stalinism of the airwaves. In a truly free society, an
institution like the CRTC would not exist.

And now, conservatives have an opportunity to make an extremely strong case for
its dismantling.
First, new communication technology –the Internet, satellite TV and radio – is

making the CRTC obsolete.
Secondly, the Quality of Lifers will resist the idea that bureaucrats should have the
power to regulate their viewing and listening habits. They don’t care about cultural
nationalism.
They simply want the freedom to access as many entertainment and cultural
options as possible.
Conservatives should offer them that freedom.
Taxation Polices
Tax cuts are an important plank in any true conservative platform.
Yet, as mentioned earlier, Canadians will often resist the idea of cutting taxes, if
they fear that cutting taxes will translate into poorer government services.
The way to counter this is to frame tax cuts into a different differently. Conserva-
tives need to emphasize how tax cuts will encourage wealth creation, increase the
country’s productivity and ultimately make us more competitive in the world
market.
According to a 2006 finance department paper, "The degree to which Canada's

tax system can compete with that of our southern neighbour and other developed
nations is vital. Though Canada is currently experiencing strong economic
performance, much of this is linked to a strong commodity market. More long-
terms strategies, including a competitive tax system, are necessary to sustain
and sharpen Canada's competitive edge." 18
And sharpening this edge translates into creating a higher standard of living and a
more prosperous country.
That’s an argument for lower tax cuts that will resonate.
Reining in Union Bosses

When it comes to modernizing labour laws, Canada lags seriously behind other
western industrialized countries.
While our economic competitors, like the United Kingdom, Australia and the
United States, are democratizing the workplace, restoring rights to unionized
employees and defanging union bosses, Canada is still stuck with coercive,
outdated labour laws.

Unionized employees in Canada, for instance, are still forced to pay union dues
even if they don’t belong to a union. In five Canadian provinces, as well as in the
federal government, unions are certified without the benefit of secret ballot votes.
In some Canadian jurisdictions, the law forbids employees from exercising their
right to work during a strike.
In other words, labour laws in this country favour union bosses at the expense of
individual freedoms. And this is costing us. Strong unions translate into a weaker,
less productive economy and put us at a competitive disadvantage when it comes
to our trading partners.
In the United States, for instance, American workers can’t be forced to join a union.
Secret ballots are required for union certification votes and twenty-two states allow
workers to opt out of union dues completely.
Canada needs to change its labour laws so that they fall in line with what’s going on
in the rest of the world.
That’s the case conservatives need to make. And this is one debate, where conserva-
tives enjoy a huge PR advantage. Who can be against secret ballots? Who can be
against democracy?
Who can be against freedom, when protecting that freedom will mean protecting
our standard of living?
The CBC
Does Canada really need a public broadcaster?
Ratings for CBC TV are abysmally low. We now live in an age when Canadians
have a multitude of choices when it comes to television viewing. And the argument
that we need a public broadcaster to unite the country – perhaps true in the age of
rabbit- ear TV antennae – is no longer convincing.
So why should Canadians be paying a billion dollars a year in taxes for a network
they don’t watch?
Surely now is the time for conservatives to make the case either to privatize the
CBC or to transform it into a public broadcaster along the lines of PBS in the
United States.
The Quality of Life Crowd would no doubt like to see that billion dollars go to
services that promote and protect their lifestyles.

Environmentalism
No doubt about it, when it comes to environmental issues, the left is winning the
propaganda war.
As historian David Gress put it, the Al Gores of the world are pushing the vision
of a "Stone Age Soviet Union run by moralistic enforcers who have a monopoly
of the means of coercion and propaganda; the very denial of liberalism and
economic development, the only historically tested and reliable means of cleaner
environment." 19
Those who favour action to fight global warming usually want bigger government,
more regulations and higher taxes. And while all of this might make Green
advocates happy, it does not translate into a healthier environment.
How do we fight it?
First, conservatives must continue to question the validity of the science behind the
global warming hysteria.
Second, it’s important to keep in mind that while Canadians want to preserve their
planet, they don’t want to sacrifice their standard of living. They don’t want to
freeze in the winter or boil in the summer. They don’t want to pay massive gasoline
taxes or ride bikes to work.
Conservatives should take advantage of this mind set and portray “green plans” as
wealth destroyers.
We need to stress that higher taxes and more government will not diminish global
warming, but will instead destroy the country’s prosperity.
Quebec Language Laws

Like every other province, Quebec has a Quality of Life voting bloc, and they can
be appealed to when it comes to undoing some of that province’s anti-English
language laws.
For instance, in Quebec it’s illegal for francophone parents to send their children
to English- language schools. Such a law threatens to undermine the ability of
Quebecers to participate in the global economy, which will hurt their standard of
living and the future quality of their lives. The English language is Quebecers' key
to a successful life in Quebec as well as outside Quebec.
So why stop French Quebecers from learning English?
Already, some francophone parents are asking that question, and challenging these
language laws in the courts.

Canadian conservatives should support these challenges not only because

language laws will hurt Quebec’s prosperity, but because they infringe on
individual freedoms.
Wheat Board
The Canadian Wheat Board, or as I like to call it “The Little Kremlin on the
Prairie,” is an archaic and coercive institution long past its expiry date.
Thanks to its legislated monopoly, the Canadian Wheat Board can throw farmers in
jail for the “crime” of selling their own crop to customers of their choice.
In a true democracy, farmers would have the right to sell their property freely to
whomever they want.
Any true conservative agenda must include an attack on this unfair and undemo-
cratic institution.
More and more farmers want the right to market their own crop and control their
own property.
They deserve that right.
These are just a few of the issues that can be part of a workable, sellable
conservative agenda for Canada.
Unlike the left, we can provide practical answers to the problems facing this
country, answers which will take Canada forward through the 21st century.

Roadblocks to a Revolution
Roadblocks to a Revolution
Yet despite all the reasons we have for optimism, not everything is rosy in the
conservative universe. When it comes to getting our message across, conservatives
still face serious obstacles. It’s important to understand what those obstacles are,
so we can either overcome or change them.
Here are some of those problems:
Election gag laws

Enacted in 2000 by the government of Jean Chrétien, election gag laws impose
severe legal restrictions on how much money citizens or groups can spend on
political advertising during federal elections.
And political advertising includes any ad which supports or opposes a political

party or candidate, or any ad which takes a stand on any issue associated with
a political party or candidate. These laws make it essentially impossible for
conservative groups to mount any kind of effective advertising campaign regarding
issues or causes during elections, the time when voters are most likely to be paying
attention. And even though gag laws clearly infringe on the right of free expression,
the Supreme Court, in 2004, ruled that they were constitutional.
If conservatives are to get their message out effectively, these laws must be
overturned. Free speech is not only a core democratic freedom, it’s also essential
for ultimate conservative success.
Interestingly, the gag law exempts the Internet from its provisions. It’s perfectly legal
under the law for citizens to communicate political ideas online during an election;
there are no restrictions, no regulations.
Legally, it would acceptable for me to extol the virtues of any issue or candidate
on my blog. It would be acceptable for me to send an email to thousands of my
closest friends urging them to vote Conservative. It would even be legal to post a
pro-Harper video on YouTube for three-quarters of the globe to see.
Indeed, this might be the way of the future when it comes to political advertising.
After all, you can reach a lot of people online, you can reach them quickly and you
can do it at very little cost.
In the United States, the value of Internet politicking is already clear. Politicians like
Democrat Howard Dean and Republican Ron Paul have not only raised millions of
dollars through blogs and the Internet, they have created powerful online activist
movements.

One of the most effective anti-Hillary Clinton ad campaigns – comparing her to

George Orwell’s Big Brother – is entirely an Internet product. 20
So if the Internet is such a powerful medium for effective political communication,

why did the government exempt it from the gag law?
Because when this law was being drafted in 2000, the Internet was in its infancy.
At the time, we didn’t know what a valuable medium it would become.
Now that we know how effective the Internet can be, does this mean the
government will seek to impose a cyberspace gag law?
Maybe.
But it will be difficult for them to do so.
Why?
Politicians say we need the gag law to stop the rich from buying elections. Yet
Internet communication does not require a lot of money. You don’t need to be
rich to send out thousands of emails. Anyone can set up a blog for free. And
anyone with a digital camera or Photoshop can create a video and post it, free
of charge on YouTube
If there is no money involved, what is the justification for an Internet gag law?
Of course, the politicians might try and come up with some sort of justification. In
the United States, the Federal Elections Commission was toying with the idea of
calculating the cost of electricity bloggers use on their computers while conducting
advocacy, so that the cost could be counted as a political campaign contribution. 21
Fortunately, the FEC dropped the idea as unworkable.
For the foreseeable future, therefore, the Internet will likely remain a domain of free
thought, free opinion and free speech.
That’s why it is a medium conservatives must dominate.

De-funding the Left

While raising money is a big problem for conservative groups, the left has it
much easier. The fact is, many left-wing groups receive government subsidies.
Governments routinely give financial support to militant feminist organizations,
left-wing think tanks and a whole array of other interests who stridently call for
bigger and costlier government. 22
And it isn’t only governments that fund the left. Union bosses, using forced dues,
also subsidize so-called “progressive movements” as well as engaging in political ac-
tivism themselves. Canadian Auto Workers union boss Buzz Hargrove made it
plain in a recent manifesto that he intends to up the ante and increase his efforts
to, as he put it, fundamentally transform “our economy and society, replacing
capitalism with socialism.” 23
All of this puts conservative groups at a serious disadvantage. The left can always
outspend us.
The conservative movement must make it a key goal to urge the government both
to de-fund the left and to change our labour laws so that union bosses cannot use
forced dues to finance their politicking. More importantly, conservatives must do a
better job of fundraising.
Any successful conservative organization needs a diversified funding base of small,

medium and large donors. And while the small, grassroots donor is important, any
organization that’s going to have meaningful political impact must have consistent
support from large donors.
In other words, it must be a priority for the conservative movement to reach out
to those patriotic Canadians who love their country, who believe in free markets
and who are willing to write very large cheques. Typically, these people are
entrepreneurs and self-made business owners, people who write cheques them-
selves, rather than passing off donation requests to some corporate committee.
And Canada’s stringent campaign finance regulations may make it easier to

approach such donors. The law now prohibits individuals from contributing
more than $1,000 a year to political parties. Political donors who can no longer
contribute to a political party, might be willing to contribute to a political cause.

Charitable Status Tax Laws

Canada’s tax laws inhibit true political debate. For instance, it’s illegal for non-profit
advocacy groups which engage in political action to issue tax receipts for donations.
This is wrong.
Why should charities not have an opportunity to have their say? The media
certainly thinks these laws are unfair. In an editorial The Globe and Mail once
noted that “as a society, we expect charitable organizations to do most of the
heavy lifting regarding our social and medical problems…but we barely hear
their voices in the ongoing national dialogue about how these problems could
be solved”.
The National Post has argued “Canada would be better served by breaking open
this closed shop and permitting charitable groups greater freedom in speaking
their minds.” And the Ottawa Citizen has opined that “silence is not always the
charitable course….In Canada, although we treasure freedom of association and
free speech, charitable organizations get tax breaks only if they avoid political
activity. There must be a better way.” 24
If tax laws were changed so that political advocacy groups were allowed a level
playing field with political parties, it would make it much easier to raise the
financial support needed to wage a political war.
Media Bias
The media in this country– particularly the CBC – has a left- wing bias. This has
been documented in books such as Hidden Agendas: How Journalists Influence the
News 25 and in a Ryerson study, which showed that a TV news director working at
the CBC is almost three times more likely to vote for the NDP in federal elections,
compared to his or her counterpart in the private sector. 26
This bias puts conservatives at a big disadvantage when it comes to countering

left-leaning propaganda. And it’s not just the news media. Our popular culture –
TV shows, movies, documentaries – tend to promote the left- wing party line.
What this means is that Canadians are continually bombarded with anti-freedom
messages. And as the recent demise of the Western Standard indicates, it’s difficult,
if not impossible for conservatives to compete in a tough media market. Unfortu-
nately, here in Canada, we have no equivalent to FOX News.
While the media might be predominately left-leaning, it is not entirely a lost cause.
Canada has newspaper columnists, editorial writers and several radio talk-show
hosts who are conservative or at least sympathetic to conservatism. Further,
conservatives – through blogging aggregates like the Blogging Tories – have a
strong presence on the Internet.

To help balance up the communication war, Canadian conservatives should also

consider setting up something similar to The Liberty Film Festival, an American
organization created to “celebrate free speech, patriotism, religious freedom and
democracy by providing a forum in the heart of Hollywood for conservative
and libertarian filmmakers.” (One of the co-founders of the Liberty Film Festival,
Govindini Murty, is a Canadian.)
Yes conservatives face problems in getting our message across, but none of
these problems are insurmountable. In fact, the emerging new communications
technologies, the new global economic reality and a changing domestic political
climate are all providing an environment where a truly conservative organization
can thrive.

The Art of Guerrilla Warfare
The Art of Guerrilla Warfare
Ideally what Canadian conservatism truly needs in order to take advantage of this
new environment in promoting a conservative agenda, is an organization with
the scale necessary to make a major impact. Canadian conservatism needs an
organization with the resources and funding to mount long-term strategic
campaigns, using effective advertising, marketing and PR techniques.
Such an organization – or perhaps an alliance of already existing organizations –

could do what our politicians won’t or can’t do. It could make the ideological
case for freedom.
However, if such a new group or alliance does not emerge, existing conservative
groups can still increase their impact, simply by improving their communication
skills.
How can conservatives improve their communication skills?
They can learn the do’s and don’ts of guerrilla warfare. That’s right, guerrilla
warfare. I am referring to hit and run tactics, ambushes, and surprise attacks –
all that cool stuff.
This is the style of political combat I know best. It’s the strategy I employed at the
NCC to effectively take on opponents who were bigger, richer and more powerful.
And there is no reason why other conservative advocacy organizations can’t use the
same tactics and strategies when communicating their messages to the public.
Like Sun Tzu, I have come up with my own version of the Art of War, one that I
hope will serve as a kind of manual for conservative activists.
I call it the “Top Ten Political Guerilla Warfare Strategies.”
But before you read this list, be warned -- some of the subject matter may offend.
Political guerrilla warfare, like its real life counterpart, isn’t exactly fighting by the
Marquis of Queensbury rules. You won’t find my ideas discussed in political science
textbooks or talked about in polite society.
But these strategies are battle-tested and effective.

Without further ado here they are:
Strategy #1: Seek the weak

The Chinese military philosopher and general, Sun Tzu, advised military officials to
avoid the enemy’s strength and attack his weakness. That is also what you must also
do in political guerrilla warfare. Go for weakness.
Take the issue of government spending and waste. One way to go after such
waste would be to target the big ticket items: health- care spending, social welfare
spending or agricultural subsidies.
But that would be going after a strength. Those are easy attacks to deflect. Question
health-care spending and you will be accused of wanting to shut down hospitals.
Criticize social programs and you will be pictured as a heartless monster, intent on
shutting down orphanages. And any mention of agricultural subsidies will lead to
charges you want to “destroy the family farm.”
So when the NCC went after government waste, we did it guerrilla warfare style.
Rather than targeting strong points, we researched and collected hundreds of
examples of ridiculous and outrageous government waste.
Some of the examples of government spending we uncovered included: $15,000

to fund the "Continuous Garbage Project;" $20,000 for a two-act play entitled “The
Extasy of Bedridden Riding Hood”, $21,103 for "Deviancy and the new woman,"
and $5,940 for the Society for Socialist Studies. 27
We then took these examples and put them in a little booklet called “Tales from the
Tax Trough.” It was not, by any means sophisticated. Rather than graphs and charts,
it featured cartoon pigs and an easy –to-read writing style.
Then we mailed thousands of these booklets out. We mailed them to our support-
ers, to businesses, to media, to everyone we thought might have an interest in gov-
ernment waste.
This booklet was a massive hit, a home run. For one thing, the media loved it. It
was featured on TV news programs and on the front page of newspapers across
the country. I had radio shows lined up around the block to do interviews about
them.
More importantly, the public loved our booklet. Or maybe “love” is the wrong
word. More accurately, people who read it became angry at the misuse of their
tax dollars. And when people get angry, they mobilize. And when people
mobilize, they take action. They write or call their MPs. They demand change.

That’s not all. Our simple little booklet, with its cartoon pigs, made Canadians think
about the bigger picture. It made them think about government spending and waste
and about the taxes they are forced to pay to finance such ridiculous projects.
That is what I mean about going after a weak point.
The NCC did the same thing with MP pensions. MPs enjoy a generous pension no
one in the private sector could ever hope to have.
That was another weak point, one that symbolized everything wrong with big
government: the greed, the red ink, the abdication of leadership.
And we went after it with hard-hitting and imaginative media campaigns. In 1989,
for instance, we learned that about 50 MPs were going to qualify for their pensions
on the same day. We officially declared that day “Trough Day,” because all these
MPs were going to jump into the public trough simultaneously.
We marked “Trough Day” with radio spots, newspapers ads and with a big billboard
in Ottawa featuring a picture of a pig in a trough of dollar bills, sipping champagne.
We kept it up. During the 1997 federal election, when we had a campaign called
“Operation Pork Chop,” which urged voters to defeat MPs before they qualified
for their pensions. “It’s time to Chop the Pork,” declared an NCC radio ad that
also featured the sound of squealing pigs in the background.
As guerrilla warfare, this campaign was a PR triumph. It not only brought lots of
publicity to the issue, it helped to defeat certain targeted MPs.
Seek the weak.
Strategy #2: Forget everything you learned in poli sci class

All the stuff hey teach in political science about politics is not really relevant to
political guerrilla warfare, because it’s about theories, policies and substance.
In guerrilla warfare you don’t want substance, depth or complexity. You want your
message to be as concise, straightforward and simple as possible. Ideally, it should
be something so simple you can explain your main point in a sentence or two.
When the NCC was going after NDP Premier Bob Rae, we had a message so
simple we put it on a billboard.
We had a picture of a cat that said, “mouse killer.” We had a picture of a fly swatter
that said, “bug killer.” And we had a picture of Bob Rae that said, “job killer.”
It was simple and effective.

And by the way, that’s a lesson we learned the hard way.
Back in the mid-1980s, Canada was in a terrible fiscal mess. Government spending
was out of control. We had a national deficit of $40 billion. We were going to hit
the wall.
So the NCC decided to do something about it. We put together a media campaign
with lots of substance- graphs, charts and sophisticated arguments.
And we test- marketed this campaign in a place called Dawson Creek, British
Columbia. That’s why, thereafter, I always referred to this campaign as the
“Dawson Creek Massacre.”
Why a massacre? Because it was a dud, a disaster, a catastrophe.
Nobody reacted to our campaign. Nobody cared.
We tried to figure out what happened with a survey, and this is what we found out:
nobody understood what we were talking about. Our target audience didn’t really
understand what a deficit or a debt was. They didn’t know the difference between a
deficit and a debt. We were speaking a language people couldn’t understand.
That’s when we went back to the drawing board and came up with the guerrilla
warfare idea of “Tales from the Tax Trough.”
That campaign worked because it was put in terms to which people could relate.
A person who might not care about the government spending $5 billion on an
agricultural subsidy will get riled when they learn the government spent $5,000 to
study the sex life of the slug!
Keep it simple.
Strategy #3: Aim for the heart

In political guerrilla warfare you don’t want to target people’s intellects. You want to
target their emotions.
You don’t want people to think – you want them to react.
Why?
It’s simple. It’s a lot easier to make people to react than it is to make them think.
Pushing emotional hot buttons is the quickest, most effective way to mobilize
people, whether that means convincing them to donate to your cause or to contact
an MP.

You should use emotion when asking your supporters/members for financial
support. One of my specialties was writing direct-mail fundraising letters. The
most successful letters I wrote focused on strong emotional appeals.
In 2001 I wrote a special fundraising letter for Stephen Harper, then running for
the leadership of the Canadian Alliance. The intellectual approach would have
been to write a letter stressing Harper’s platform.
Instead, I aimed for the heart.
Here’s an excerpt:
You know Stephen. Maybe you remember him from the days when he was one of the
Reform Party’s most effective and energetic MPs. You may even recall he was the founder
of the Reform Party and was its chief policy officer. You may recognize him as the principle
author of Reform’s original “Blue book.”
You might remember all that because you were once a strong supporter of the Reform Party.
Then something happened. You became disillusioned. The party lost your trust. Perhaps,
like many others, you came to believe the party had lost its direction, that it had turned
its back on the principles and values you cherish.
But I hope the spirit which led you to originally join the Reform Party is still alive inside
you. The spirit that gives you the strength and courage to fight for what’s right. That same
spirit also burns inside Stephen Harper. It’s the spirit of a true conservative—a true reformer.
I was wrong about Harper. But that single letter raised more than $200,000. 28
So whenever possible, use emotion to deliver a message. It will help to mobilize

supporters and will help to raise money.
Strategy #4: Don’t underestimate the importance of hate and fear

I know that sounds bad. But hear me out.
Poets say love makes the world go around. But in politics, hate and fear make the
world go around. Those are the two emotions you must arouse to mobilize citizens.
Why is that? I would venture to say that it’s because they are powerful primal
emotions that trigger the fight or flight response. What’s important, though, is
that you recognize and harness their power.
Politicians certainly do. They target hot button emotions all the time. These
emotions are targeted in so-called “negative” or “attack” ads.
Think back to the Liberal ads in the 2004 federal election. Those were classic attack
ads designed to make people fear Stephen Harper.

Anyone watching those ads might have thought Stephen Harper had plans to build
nuclear aircraft carriers so he could bomb abortion clinics as part of his plan to send
cute kittens to Iraq.
Were those ads over the top? Were they in poor taste? Were they insulting to our
intelligence? Yes, yes and yes.
But they worked.
Other successful politicians have also used fear. Former American president Ronald
Reagan, for instance, built a winning political coalition in the 1980s, largely based
on fear of international communism. Margaret Thatcher used fear and hatred of
militant union bosses and their socialist agenda to propel herself into power.
Fear and hate were important motivating emotions at the NCC. The NCC’s support
base, after all, is far from ideologically monolithic. It has supporters from all across
the conservative spectrum: libertarians, social conservatives, evangelical Christians,
neo-cons, populists and fiscal conservatives who often don’t see to eye to eye.
In fact, it was almost impossible to get them to love or support the same thing. It
was a lot easier, however, to get them to hate or fear the same thing. It was easy for
us to mobilize support and action against socialist premier Bob Rae. Virtually all
conservatives – of whatever stripe – feared his policies.
Hate and fear are powerful weapons in the guerrilla warrior’s arsenal.
Strategy #5: Get a bad guy

Just as Star Wars needed Darth Vader to be successful, a political guerrilla warfare
campaign needs a bad guy, a villain.
Former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney once said that what you need above all else
in politics is an enemy.
And he was right.
Why? First of all, remember what I said about hate and fear? It’s easier to get people
to hate or fear a person than an abstract concept or idea.
Secondly, if you are very, very lucky your designated bad guy will attack you.
That’s what we always aimed for at the NCC. We often criticized politicians in
the hope they would lash back. We wanted them to as we called it “spin.” Sheila
Copps was a great spinner. Whenever we attacked her, either in ad campaign or in
a news release, she would inevitably rise to the bait and denounce us in the House
of Commons.

Why did we want that?
Because it gave us publicity. The NCC attacking Copps was maybe not big news.
But Copps responding to and attacking us, well that was big news. It was drama.
It gives you credibility with the media. If an important figure attacks you, well you
must be important too. More to the point, it helps mobilize your support base,
which will rally around to defend you from the hated enemy.
Of course, this strategy did not start with me.
Politics is full of bad guys. The Republicans used Ted Kennedy as a bad guy, the
Democrats used Newt Gingrich. Here in Canada the Liberals and NDP also have
a bad guy, and it isn’t Stephen Harper. It’s George Bush.
That’s why they will often try to link Harper with Bush or with Bush’ policies.
Bush is a good bad guy for them.
At the NCC we had plenty of bad guys – Pierre Trudeau, Jean Chrétien, Bob Rae
and just about any union boss.
If you want to play serious politics, find an enemy.
Strategy #6: Make ‘em laugh

Whenever possible, a good political warrior uses humour.
I say that because one of the dangers of guerrilla warfare – of using emotion and
of getting a bad guy – is that you can come off looking nasty or mean-spirited.
You don’t want that.
So use a little humour to take the edge off your attack. You would be surprised
at what you can get away with, using just a little wit.
Take our campaign against MP pensions. We called MPs, our elected

representatives, pigs! Talk about nasty.
But we did it in a funny way. In one ad we had pigs oinking to the tune of the
blue Danube! These tactics made it effective, rather than offensive.
We did get one complaint about our pig campaign. It came from the Ontario
Swine Breeders Association. They said the ad was unfair to pigs!

And it wasn’t just pigs we used in our ads. In one ad – opposing the Kyoto Accord –
we featured flatulent cows. Other NCC ads compared politicians to pit bulls or
donkeys.
Don’t be too serious.
Strategy #7: Win the war of the words

It is really important to define the issue, before your opponent defines it for you.
The people involved in the abortion debate know this. Those who are against
abortion don’t call themselves “anti-abortionists.” They call themselves “pro-life”.
That’s how they want to define the issue. People in favour of legalized abortion
don’t call themselves “pro-abortion.” They call themselves “pro-choice.” That’s
how they want to define the issue.
Similarly, we at the NCC won the war of words in our fight to defeat election gag
laws, in that we called them “gag laws.” We accused the government of trying to
gag all Canadians.
That sounds sinister. That sounds bad.
And the media picked up on it. They began to call it the election gag law. And not
just in editorials or columns but in straight news stories.
As a result, anybody reading those stories would likely sympathize with us. Who
wants to be on the side o laws that gag people?
We did the same thing when we labeled the MP pension plan “gold-plated.” The
media and the public picked up on it and began using the term. Right off the bat it
helped us win the PR war.
Win the war of words.
Strategy #8: Don’t be afraid of the media

Most conservatives and libertarians don’t like the media. It’s biased, it’s left wing.
They want to avoid dealing with it.
But that’s a mistake.
Because biased or not, you need the media to get your message out effectively.
Media coverage is important to a guerrilla operation, because it’s free advertising,
that’s why. Every time a story about you or your organization appears in the
paper or on TV, it’s free publicity.

It’s even better than an ad, because you are getting a disinterested, third- party
endorsement. And that gives you credibility. For instance, if the Globe and Mail
were to run a story calling your group a key player in the conservative movement
that would carry much more weight than if your group was to take out an ad in
the Globe saying the same thing.
So getting media coverage is important. How do you get it?
Well you could write a whole book on that subject.
But here are a few quick ideas:

• Seek out those in the media who are friendly to your issue. They are out there.
Send them news releases, letters and emails. Let them know what you are doing.
Write your information, so reporters can scan it quickly. They don’t have time to
read War and Peace.
• Learn how to pitch a story. You need to convince an editor or reporter that your
issue is newsworthy, controversial or in some way unique.
• Do as much work as possible for the reporter. Provide him or her with good
quotes, background material and sources. The more work you do, the more likely
the reporter will be to use the story.
• Don’t worry about bias. Right wing or left wing, a reporter can’t resist a good
story. Lots of reporters hated us at the NCC, but we got good media coverage
because we made good copy.
• Once story about you is published – even if it’s only in the Orono Bugle – send it
to your media contacts. If the media sees somebody else doing a story about you,
they might follow suit. It’s the echo chamber effect.
Strategy #9: Be vigilant

Che Guevara once said guerrilla warfare meant eternal vigilance.
It’s the same for political guerrilla warfare. You have to be alert in order to take
advantage of what is going on in the news.
If you’re a small operation, you simply won’t have sufficient resources to make a
big media splash or to generate coverage of your cause. What you can do is take
advantage of somebody else’s big splash, and ride the wave for some publicity.
In other words, if you can, piggyback on a story that’s dominating the headlines.
Reporters are always looking for sidebars or different angles to news stories.
Maybe you can give one to them.

In the late 1990s, Ontario’s union bosses were spending a million dollars to defeat
Mike Harris. That was making a lot of news.
So we at the NCC took advantage of this to promote an item on our agenda: the
use of forced dues to support political causes.
We ran a campaign to stop what we called “the forced dues blues.”
This campaign received good coverage because we were taking advantage of an al-
ready existing news story.
The trick is to figure out how your issue can fit into the larger picture.
Then go for it.
Strategy #10: Keep an eye on your allies

When I say allies, I mean politicians. We need politicians. We need them to scrap
bad laws and to provide us with true conservative leadership.
But we should always keep our distance from them and resist the urge to become
their cheerleaders.
While conservative groups should praise politicians when they do the right thing,
we must also be ready to criticize them when they veer off the correct path.
Principled politicians understand this.
When he was Ontario’s premier, Mike Harris spoke to a gathering of NCC

supporters. He made it clear that he expected the NCC to blast him should his
government begin to drift in the wrong direction.
Similarly, former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher once told her
supporters, “If ever a Conservative Government starts to do what it knows is
wrong because it is afraid to do what is right, that is the time for the Tories to
cry ‘Stop’.” 29
Why did Harris and Thatcher invite criticism?
Because they understood politicians are always under tremendous pressure from
the left to abandon their principles. So they need the right to apply just as much
pressure from the opposite direction.
And that’s a key role for any guerrilla operation – working behind the lines to keep
our allies on the straight and narrow.

This is certainly the role taken on by one of the United States’ most successful
conservative organizations: The Club for Growth.
The Club’s goal is to elect Republicans, who would shrink government, cut taxes,
and liberalize trade. It does this by mounting hard-hitting media campaigns and
by supporting pro-freedom candidates with direct financial aid.
Unlike other conservative organizations, the Club does not shrink away from op-
posing moderate Republicans. In fact, the club invented the "RINO (Republican
in Name Only) Watch" list to monitor "Republican office holders around the
nation who have advanced egregious anti-growth, anti-freedom or anti-free market
policies."
The Club has also helped to elect conservative Democrats running against liberal
Republicans. “A lot of people who donated to the Club for Growth were Cato
Institute and Reason Foundation donors,” says Club Founder Steve Moore. “People
who were libertarians or conservatives first and Republicans second.”
And while this has created some Club enemies in the Republican establishment, it
has not stopped the organization from growing. The Club for Growth raised more
than $10 million in 2002 and around $22 million in 2004. 30
That’s my Top Ten Political Guerrilla Warfare Strategies.
It should be noted that the Internet promises to be a powerful weapon for guerrilla
warriors because it allows us to communicate to millions at a relatively low cost. It
also allows us to get around the power elites.
In the United States, Internet weblogs – or blogs, for short – have had a huge
influence on the mainstream media. It was conservative bloggers who successfully
challenged the authenticity of CBS’s infamous story of Bush’s service in the
National Guard. And the conservative blog Powerline helped galvanize opposition
to Harriet Miers’ nomination to the American Supreme Court.
In Canada, Stephen Taylor and his “Blogging Tories” have helped expose left-wing
bias in the Canadian media. On more than one occasion, the CBC has had to
apologize for errors that Taylor brought out into the open.

Top Ten
Political Guerrilla
Warfare Strategies
1 Seek the weak Avoid the enemy’s strength and attack
his weakness
2 Keep it simple Short and direct; forget everything you

learned in poli sci class
3 Use emotion Aim for the heart; push hot buttons
4 Go Primal Hate and fear are good mobilizers
5 Get a bad guy Mobilizes support; Increases news value if

they attack you
6 Make ‘em laugh A little humour takes the edge off your attack
7 Win the war of words Define the issue; create the labels
8 Use the media Find your allies, pitch them, and make it easy
for them
9 Be vigilant Be alert, piggyback on related stories
10 Prod the politicians Keep an eye on your allies; keep them on

track

Conclusion
These are just some of the ways conservatives can get the message out to
Canadians.
Is guerrilla warfare going to usher in a conservative utopia or trigger a revolution?
No it won’t do either. What it will do is undermine people’s confidence in the state,

in politicians and in big government. More importantly, it will reinforce in the
minds of the Quality of Life crowd that alternatives to big government exist.
Once you open that particular door, even just a little, it gives you an opportunity to
start making the intellectual case for better government. It gives the Fraser Institute,
the Montreal Economic Institute, the CD Howe Institute and the Frontier Centre
for Public Policy – the opportunity to make the case for smaller government.
And that just might trigger a revolution.
Of course, it will take more than just a good communication strategy and political
savvy to win the war of ideas.
It will also take something else – courage. It will take the courage to fight for what’s
right; the courage to challenge our country’s sacred cows; and the courage to take
on politicians, union bosses, bureaucrats and the media.
Fighting for freedom doesn’t just mean attacking and undermining big government.
It also means promoting the ideals of freedom, of free markets and of the capitalist
system.
Conservatives must be willing and able to inspire Canadians, to provide an

alternative vision for Canada, a vision that captures the imagination. As Frederick
Hayek once wrote, “We must make the building of a free society once more an
intellectual adventure, a deed of courage .” 31 And only the conservative movement
can promote the ideal of freedom in this way.
Politicians can’t do this. Politics is all too often about making compromises. The
best the Harper Tories have been able to offer Canadians – so far – is a diluted kind
of Liberalism.
The advantage of the conservative movement is that it operates outside the political
system. Consequently, it doesn’t have to worry about what is politically practical.
We just have to stick to our principles and ideals.

This is why, now more than ever Canada needs a principled, independent
organization representing the conservative movement, an organization willing
to take up the cause of freedom.
Using communication know-how, and avenues like the Internet, such an

organization could help win the war of ideas.
Not that the war for freedom can ever really be won.
As Benjamin Rogge once put it, “Given man’s nature, freedom will always be in
jeopardy and the only question that need concern each of us is if and how well
we took our stand in its defence during that short period of time when we were
potentially part of the struggle.” 32
It’s time to take a stand for freedom.

Notes
1
Friedman Thomas L, The Lexus and the Olive Tree (New York : Farrar, Straus &
Giroux, 1999), pg. 104
2
For more on how the American left views this issue see The Republican Noise
Machine, by David Brock.
3
Flanagan Tom, Harper’s Team: Behind the Scenes in the Conservative Rise to Power,
(Montreal, McGill-Queen’s University Press 2007), pg. 278
4
Watson, William Globalization and the Meaning of Canadian Life, (Toronto,
University of Toronto Press, 1998), pgs. 113-120.
5
Ibid. pg 116
6
CTV year-end interview 1975
7
Pennings, Ray and Van Pelt, Michael, “Replacing the Pan-Canadian Consensus”,
Policy Options (March 2006) pgs. 52-57.
8
“The making of a negative”, Ottawa Citizen, February 5, 2006, page B3
9
For more on triangulation see Behind the Oval Office, by Dick Morris.
10
Clinton, William J. “Remarks on the Reinventing Government Initiative”
September 14th, 1994
11
Stiglitz, Joseph, The Roaring Nineties (New York, WW Norton, 2003) page 19
12
“Martin, Harper, Come Out Fighting,” Calgary Herald, 24 May 2004.
13
Quoted in Philip Bobbitt, The Shield of Achilles (New York Alfred A. Knopf,
2002) pg. 221
14
Friedman, The Lexus and the Olive Tree, pg. 105
15
Bobbitt, The Shield of Achilles, pg. 230
16
For more on a conservative agenda, see The National Citizens Coalition’s “Agenda
for Canada”.
17
For more on the sustainability of health-care, see the Fraser Institute study,
“Misinformation and Wishful Thinking about Medicare's Sustainability”, by
Brett Skinner. (August 13, 2007)
18
Quoted in “Much more to be done on easing tax burden” Vancouver Sun,
November 3, 2007
19
Gress, David, From Plato To NATO: The Idea of the West and Its Opponents,
(New York, Free Press), pg. 520

20
“For Candidates, Web Is Power And Poison Clinton, in Particular, Draws Equal
Parts Cash and Vitriol”, Washington Post, November 8, 2007, pg. A01
21
“FEC to extend campaign-finance to Web Commissioner warns of threat to blogs,
online punditry”, WorldNetDaily, March 4, 2006
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=43140
22
For more on government subsidies to the Left, see Rescuing Canada’s Right:
Blueprint for a conservative revolution, by Tasha Kheiriddin and Adam Daifallah
pgs 60-62
23
“In the Eye of the Storm: The CAW and the Re-Making of Canadian Politics”
page 23
24
These editorial opinions were cited in a presentation at the Canadian Constitution
Foundation’s “Future of Freedom” conference, entitled “Law and Liberty in
Canadian Jurisprudence”, by Rob Rainer, Executive Director of the National
Anti-Poverty Organization
25
Cooper, Barry and Miljan, Lydia, Hidden Agendas: How Journalists Influence the
News, (Vancouver, UBC Press) 2003
26
Barber, Marsha and Rauhala, Ann, “The Canadian News Directors Study: Demo
graphics and Political Leanings of Television Decision-Makers” Canadian Journal
of Communication, Vol. 30 No. 2 (2005)
27
“Tales from the Tax Trough IV”, published by the National Citizens Coalition,
2003
28
Flanagan, Harper’s Team, pg. 48
29
Quoted in Kenneth Harris, Thatcher, (London, William Collins, 1988), pg. 146
30
“Insurgent Republicans The Club for Growth wants to create a free market GOP,
whether the party likes it or not”, Reason Magazine, December 2006
31
Hayek, Friedrich, “The Intellectuals and Socialism”, The University of Chicago
Law Review, (Spring 1949) pg. 383
32
Rogge, Benjamin, Can Capitalism Survive?, (Indianapolis, Liberty Fund, 1979),
pg. 300

Published by the Democracy Institute. The Democracy Institute is a politically independent public policy
research organization based in Washington and London. Founded in 2006, this think tank serves to further
public education through the production and dissemination of accessible commentary and scholarship. This
paper was made possible by a grant from The John Dobson Foundation.
2001 M Street NW Washington DC 20036 www.democracyinstitute.org


The Trudeau Empire Has Fallen and Can't Get Up

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The Trudeau Empire Has Fallen and Can't Get Up

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The Trudeau Empire Has

Fallen and It Can’t Get Up!

The Trudeau Empire Has

Roadblocks to a Revolution 18-22

The Art of Guerrilla Warfare 23-34

2001 M Street NW Washington DC 20036 www.democracyinstitute.org

And now is the best time to win the war of ideas.

This is where conservatives must focus their communication strategy – emphasizing

For instance, conservatives can successfully get their message across by

In the long run, however, Canada will need a well-financed conservative

Gerry Nicholls is a Senior Fellow with the Democracy Institute and

2001 M Street NW Washington DC 20036 www.democracyinstitute.org 1

But what does Canada need?

It’s simple. Canada needs a strong dose of conservatism – as in “fiscal conservatism.”

Maybe. But unfortunately, we can’t always depend on politicians to do the right

2001 M Street NW Washington DC 20036 www.democracyinstitute.org 2

Simply put, the Conservatives do not want to be seen as “conservative.”

This is the fight that really matters.

2001 M Street NW Washington DC 20036 www.democracyinstitute.org 3

They called it the “Republican Noise Machine”, the “Conservative Message

Are Canadians ready to hear this message?

According to this myth, conservatism – with its emphasis on limited government,

On the other hand, big government socialism is supposedly as Canadian as maple

Even some conservatives buy into this argument.

2001 M Street NW Washington DC 20036 www.democracyinstitute.org 4

A quick scan of Canada’s history would prove otherwise.

Canada so lagged behind other countries when it came to interventionism, that

I, however, like to call it the “Trudeau Empire.”

2001 M Street NW Washington DC 20036 www.democracyinstitute.org 5

As an operating model, the Trudeau Empire was based on the following

True-blue conservative Mike Harris won back to back majority governments in

So much for Canada being a left- wing country!

2001 M Street NW Washington DC 20036 www.democracyinstitute.org 6

And part of that shift is the emergence of a new voting bloc.

This new bloc isn’t motivated by ideology or by regional grievances or by religion.

Who are these people? What is their political stance?

As a result, the Quality of Life Crowd is forging a new consensus in Canada, a

In fact, sometimes they see government as a threat to their quality of life.

Government policies drive away investment and hamper wealth creation.

Smart politicians understand this.

Triangulation meant Clinton was tough on crime and in favour of reforming

2001 M Street NW Washington DC 20036 www.democracyinstitute.org 8

2001 M Street NW Washington DC 20036 www.democracyinstitute.org 9

Globalization means we are living in a world of freer trade, integrated economies

To do so would be to drive away investment, entrepreneurs and jobs. To do so

2001 M Street NW Washington DC 20036 www.democracyinstitute.org 10

Something has to give. Something has to change.

And what is going to change is the role of government.

Why did the Conservatives win?

While the Liberals were offering Trudeau-style big-government programs like

2001 M Street NW Washington DC 20036 www.democracyinstitute.org 11

So if Trudeau’s Canada is disappearing, what is going to replace it?

Simply put, Canadians are developing a more pragmatic view of government. If

But if government isn’t working, they are ready for an alternative.

What does all this mean for Canadian conservatives?

It means communicating in a language that will appeal to them.

And perhaps in the past, to do so would have been political suicide.

2001 M Street NW Washington DC 20036 www.democracyinstitute.org 12

But that won’t wash for the Quality of Life Crowd.

In short, we need to convince Canadians that allowing private health-care

2001 M Street NW Washington DC 20036 www.democracyinstitute.org 13

First, new communication technology –the Internet, satellite TV and radio – is

Conservatives should offer them that freedom.