From:  The Party of One   -   by Michael Harris   
   __________________________________________________   
      
   Stephen Harper's direct connection to Republican Party values and strategy was   
   far deeper than the NCC and Arthur Finkelstein.     
      
   Just after the Chretien victory in June 1997, he gave a speech to the Council   
   for National Policy (CNP).  The New York Times described the CNP as a "little   
   known group of a few hundred of the most influential conservative leaders in   
   business, government    
   politics, academia, and religion in the United States."   
      
   The CNP meet three times a year behind closed doors at various locations - -   
   sort of a Bilderberg Group of the continental United States.  Wealthy   
   right-wing donors use the meetings to network with top conservative operatives   
   to plan long-term strategy.   
      
   The CNP was co-founded in 1981 in Dallas, Texas by Baptist pastor Reverend Tim   
   LaHaye, who was head of the Moral Majority, a group made up of conservative   
   Christians who wanted to assist the political right in the United States.    
   Political success on the    
   right in the US existed at the confluence of social and economic conservatism   
   - and Stephen Harper immediately grasped the potential for similar   
   alliance-building in Canada.   
      
   Reverent LaHaye was a true believer who enjoyed spreading the word.  He   
   claimed that his books about Armageddon and the Rapture had sold fifty-five   
   million copies.  He believed that there would be a mass conversion of Jews to   
   Christianity during the "end    
   times".  LaHaye was so certain of the gospel that he even tried to convert the   
   Dalai Lama when he bumped into him in a hotel corridor in Israel.   
      
   When the CNP meets, a lot of money is on the table.  One of the original   
   directors of the organization gave $4.5 million to Swift Boat Veterans for   
   Truth, the group that played a key role in sinking the presidential ambitions   
   of John Kerry.  The same    
   director donated $3 million to the Progress for America Voter Fund, which   
   backed President George W. Bush's attempt to privatize Social Security.   
      
   Seed money was also given by Nelson Baker Hunt, the billionaire son of oilman   
   Howard L. Hunt.  Ronald Reagan addressed the CNP's tenth anniversary   
   celebration and had this to say:  "A handful of men and women, individuals of   
   character, had a vision.  A    
   vision to see the return of righteousness, justice and truth to our great   
   nation."  Beside the vision, the CNP also had tax-exempt status.   
      
   Past members of the group include Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, former US   
   attorneys-general Ed Meese and John Ashcroft, gun rights activist Colonel   
   Oliver North, and the mother of Erik Princep - founder of the private security   
   company, Blackwater,    
   which later ran amok in the Iraq War.   
      
   Their common enemy was political and philosophical liberalism.  Their agenda   
   was cleaving to Christian heritage, unqualified support of Israel, a strong   
   military, gun rights, traditional values, and small government - - things   
   Canada's NCC would not find    
   objectionable.   
      
   The CNP commands the elite of US Republican potentates.  Vice-president Dick   
   Cheney flew in on Air Force 2 to address the group at one of their meetings.    
   Mitt Romney gave an address to the CNP in Salt Lake City, Utah.  When he first   
   made his run for    
   president, George W. Bush gave a speech to the CNP in San Antonio, Texas that   
   helped him gain the support of the conservatives in the 2000 presidential   
   election.     
      
   In the same year that the future president addressed the group, the CNP gave   
   Charles G. Koch the Free Enterprise Award.  Koch and his brother preside over   
   the second-largest private company in the United States: Koch Industries -   
   based in Wichita, Kansas.   
     Oil is the basis of their enormous wealth, and the family has been involved   
   in the Alberta tar sands for over fifty years.   
      
   As reported in The Washington Post, the Koch brothers are one of the biggest   
   leaseholders in the enormous development, controlling over half a million   
   hectares.  Koch Industries also concentrates on shipping and refining heavy   
   oil.  The company has    
   upgraded its Corpus Christi refinery to handle heavy bitumen.   
      
   "Canada is one of the cheapest places in the world for Big Oil to do   
   business", according to Mitchell Anderson, who is writing a book, 'The Oil   
   Vikings', about Norway's wise resource use.  In 2012. Canada produced over two   
   billion barrels of oil    
   equivalent (BOE - which included crude oil, natural gas, and other petroleum   
   liquids) and collected $18 billion in provincial and federal taxes.  Of that   
   total, Alberta produced 1.5 billion BOE in 2012 and collected $6.13 billion in   
   non-renewable    
   royalties.   
      
   By charging the oil companies higher taxes and investing equity ownership in   
   production, the Norwegian government paid $46.29 BOE to their taxpayers for   
   their oil in 2012 - - over five times what Canadians received.  Norway has an   
   $850-Billion sovereign    
   wealth fund for its population of about five million people.   
   [- - -]   
      
   Beyond the appeal of the CNP's great power, the council also shared Stephen   
   Harper's values.  For one thing, Harper disliked the governance model in   
   Canada, preferring Congress over Parliament.   
      
   As he would later tell The Globe and Mail, the difference between the calibre   
   and experience of the Bush cabinet and any Canadian equivalent was   
   embarrassing to Canada.  Bush got to recruit "top people" from private   
   industry into his inner political    
   circle, while Canadian prime ministers were stuck with a cabinet stocked from   
   the relatively feeble pool of elected MPs.   
      
   Like Harper, the CNP was highly secretive.  Its membership and donor list are   
   private.  Its events are closed to the public.  It has been alleged that   
   members are told not to use the name of the organization in emails to protect   
   against leaks.  For    
   Harper, one of the most attractive aspects of speaking to the council was that   
   the even would remain secret.  CNP by-laws both blocked the media from   
   attending and prevented the release of a transcript of what had been said   
   unless all speakers agreed.     
   Thinking that he could say whatever he wanted without media coverage, Harper   
   gave quite a speech that June night in 1997.   
      
   His American audience must have felt as though they were in Utah listening to   
   a well-scrubbed Republican candidate for the US Senate.  The speech was a   
   perfect blend of neo-con and theo-con, which was predictable enough.     
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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