The Struggle for Democracy - Alcyonenews

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Posted September 8, 2023

The Struggle for Democracy

It was back in 1989 that prominent Canadiain Journalist Patrick Watson produced “The Struggle for Democracy”, a 10 one-hour episode TV series, “the most expensive documentary ever made”. It cost some $10 million and was filmed in 30 countries, most of them “Free World Dictatorships”. Watson adroitly “demonstrated” that in contrast to “eastern [communist] dictatorships”, the “Free World” dictatorships were not really dictatorships. He did that by refusing to define “Democracy”, so he could “customize” his evaluation of the “democratization” of the various regimes he “studied” but which were deemed “Dictatorships” by users of conventional standards.

Incidentally, after the series ended and the book with the same title was published, Watson demonstrated journalistic independence and impartiality by visiting a couple of Communist dictatorships.

On the first page of the prologue of his book, Watson confesses that his love for Democracy had been “galvanized” by Father Trudeau’s invocation of the War Measures Act. Here is Watson’s rendition of his “galvanization”:

“And then, almost twenty years ago, one particular incident helped to galvanise me; in the early predawn of October 16, 1970, police and uniformed officers fanned out across a sleeping city. Armed with extraordinary powers, they broke into homes, ransacked apartments, confiscated what they wanted, and seized people at will; over 450 were arrested. The police had orders to bring in the suspects and they did, holding them without charge or bail and refusing to provide reasons for their arrest.”

It is a powerful rendition of an historic event. But is damning the Mass Media of the Society in many aspects, one being that the Media did not delve under the surface to expose the true nature and the enormous significance of that 1970 event. Arguably, it was the failure of the media in 1970 that in 2022 resulted in the Son Trudeau invocation of the re-branded War Meassures Act to quench the “Ottawa occupation event”. I lament that I was mislead, along with you and the whole nation as we were all left in the dark on that, this having resulted in imagining the “bad” and missing the “worst”.

Evidently there was a secret plan in place. The police did not just pick up 450 people at random from the telephone book to visit them “predawn”, “ransack” their homes, and relocate them from their beds into jail cells. How could possibly the police instantaneously produce a list of 450 “suspects”, of people who had committed no indictable offense?

I have raised this issue in the past but I never got an answer. Silence of the accountable is an issue in itself, a serious one to boot. Response-denial to a reasonable question by persons duly-bound to answer it, is tantamount to licensing the questioners to seek plausible answers. In general, he who denies an answer to a legitimate question does so because he deems that whatever the questioner may guess as being the answer would likely be less damning than the answer the denier could give.

With that line of thought I imagined that the police had broken the law and spied on citizens for ilegitimate reasons. My misconceptions lasted a tad more than half a century, from 1970 till last week. Then, unsuspecting of what was in store for me, I got me a drink and sat to read the Times Colonist. Things unfolded normally till I turned to page A-10. Then the paper hurled a headline at my eyes and hit my mind, hard: “Pierre Trudeau spy unit reflects secrecy over Quebec separatism” it reads, (bylined Jacob Serebrin, The Canadian Press). It was a flash back to the 1970's to the event that had “galvanized” Patrick Watson.

I transited these 50 years thinking that the police had betrayed their calling and had been making “secret files” on Canadian citizens, which is a staple “policing” practice in overt dictatorships. I was mistaken! The Serebrin piece reveals it was Trudeau, as the Prime MasterSpy of Canada who “sang” to police. Evidently, Trudeau had amassed a secret-police force, code-called “Fan Tan” and had deployed it to spy on unsuspecting citizens exercising their freedom of speech and expression. None of the maligned citizens was ever charged or even accused of breaking any law.

The outcome was very sad. Pierre Laporte was killed, Trudeau the “Just watch me!” (dealing with the FLQ) PM surrendered to the FLQ; and, of course the FLQ Manifesto was broadcast, as per the original FLQ demand.

The tragedy could have been averted had we had honest Freedom of Speech. The FLQ would have lost ground as its aims would have been exposed, as it did after the Manifesto was eventually broadcast. What happened is typical of when politics sink into secrecy.

Accolades are due to the RCMP for having resolutely refused to partake in the Trudeau scam. Apologies are due to you and to me from those who fooled us on such crucial issues. Unwillingly as it undoubtly was, they risked the integrity of Canada and aided Quebec separatism. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions ...