An open letter to candidates in the coming federal elections

Dear Candidates,

You have begun, or are about to begin, your campaign to achieve election in the voting which will take place this coming June 18. If your sole purpose in undertaking this campaign is to win an election, then the interests of the people will be but little served in whatever you do. Your election will be a purely personal matter.

If, however, your aim is ultimately to gain for the people those things which are to their benefit and welfare and to which they have a right, then it is about time that you gave some tangible proof that such is the case.

You should know, dear candidates, that the primary concern of every individual is to gain his daily bread, that is, to lay hold of the ensemble of things which are necessary each day if he is to continue to live, or at least, to live decently. What each seeks is the assurance of having enough for today and for tomorrow, inasmuch as the country is able, physically, to provide such goods. provide such goods. It is the guarantee of bread as long as there will be enough wheat to furnish this bread; it is the guarantee of sufficient clothing as long as there are sufficient textiles to provide such clothing; it is the guarantee of sufficient lodging according to the needs of the family as long as there is in the country, the space for houses, and the materials and men to build such lodgings for each family. What each seeks is economic security based upon the tremendous potential production of our modern productive system. And the citizen wants this security without having to submit to regimentation as is consequent upon a collectivistic regime like Socialism or Communism.

Gentlemen, you are well aware that the producers of Canadian goods, employers and employees alike, whether in the field of agriculture, in mines, forests, on the seas, in the factories and stores, are more than ready to give of their labour and their competence as long as such is needed in order to maintain, and if necessary, to increase the flow of goods and services. You are also well aware that there is a great multitude of unemployed who would be only too happy to get back to work; that there is a vast number of commercial establishments working at only half their capacity (if they have not closed down completely) - and all this simply because there are not sufficient buyers of goods and services.

You gentlemen are equally aware of the fact that most people would rush to buy considerably more than they are buying, of these products and services, if only they had the means with which to pay for them.

Now, if you candidates are not too completely shut off from reality in an ivory tower — or just too comfortable in a nice home with all the good things of life - to care about what happens to others, especially others in misfortune, you know that there is a great number of families which simply cannot achieve that decent standard of living to which the abundant production of this country entitles them.

And there are probably a greater number living in actual distress than you think. Cases where the father and mother are broken-hearted and embittered at the sight of their children suffering actual malnutrition and feeling the pangs of hunger, going without sufficient clothing in the winter, suffering from anemia and a variety of other ills because they haven't sufficient food.

And you candidates know that the only thing which prevents the remedying of this shameful situation in regard to these poor people, is the lack of money in the family, and not a lack of products in stores, or a lack of services.

There is one problem with which you are all probably very familiar, dear candidates. That is the problem-facing municipalities, school commissions, hospitals and other public bodies of all sorts. It is the same problem facing families. The problem of money.

You know very well - and I am sure of this - that if municipalities undertake the necessary public works; that if school commissions put up the schools necessary for the education of our children; if corporations or the provinces build the number of hospitals necessary for the people, they will have to go into debt through borrowing and thus make it necessary for the taxpayers, because of interest rates, to pay for these goods produced, one and a half times over, twice over, and even three times over the original cost necessary to produce these works.

Surely you know that if contractors and builders cease building and lay off their workers, it is only because they cannot get the necessary credit with which to pay for material and workers; which material and workers are available in abundance.

And if production of goods and services has not come to a complete halt it is because the purchaser has had to go into debt; have recourse to finance companies. Thus, to the original high cost of the goods he must add the fantastic rates of loan companies.

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Since, dear candidates, you are not living or another planet, but here on earth, you know that the greatest problem today, the one which gives the greatest headaches to families and governments alike, is the problem of money.

Now, gentlemen, if you are not entirely ignorant, you know that modern money consists essentially, of legalised figures engraved on metal or printed on pieces of paper or set down in bank ledgers. And you surely know that the increase or diminution of the volume of money, the expansion or restriction of credit, depends upon one thing alone — the decisions made in the banking system.

The economic life, the production and distribution of goods, is not regulated and does not operate according to the needs of the people and the physical capacity of the production system to satisfy these needs. Our economic life goes forward or slows down or stagnates completely, depending upon the decisions made by those who control the floodgates of credit.

You must admit that this constitutes a veritable dictatorship over the daily lives of individuals and families; a veritable dictatorship over our public institutions and governing bodies, which, instead of rendering services and benefits to the people according the advances of progress, must tax and tax again the people, despoiling them in order to meet the financial demands of this inflexible dictatorship.

You must admit that there exists a glaring contradiction between, on the one hand, the fact of a progress which should make life more secure, more serene and carefree, and on the other, the ever-increasing cares and worries which becloud the lives of a vast multitude, even of those who, having a sufficient income today, can see this income dry up to nothing tomorrow through causes entirely beyond their control.

You must admit the contradiction between the ever-increasing facility with which goods are produced and the ever-increasing cost of these goods.

You must admit the contradiction between the continuous refinement of production techniques and the perfecting of machines so that more can be done with an ever-diminishing need for human intervention, and the regulations of the financial system which says that every individual must work if he would live.

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Have you stopped to consider seriously the plight of the father who, put out of the factory where his hands are no longer needed, sees himself living off his unemployment insurance benefits (half his usual and necessary income); then sees his unemployment benefits finally halted; then goes into debt with the local merchants until the merchants are finally forced to stop giving food; who sees himself forced to give up his home for non-payment of taxes; or if he is a tenant, faces the possibility of seeing his family on the street or lodged in some wretched shanty because he no longer has any money?

Good candidates, such cases are a great deal more frequent than you would imagine. And they are a great deal more torturing to those undergoing such hardships than you would imagine — and this right from the first week they are cut off from a source of revenue.

Such conditions, implacable and cruel are not a reflection of progress nor of a healthy economic system, nor of a Christian civilization. They are the product of financial dictatorship, of the rationing of credit in the face of the vast possibilities for production and distribution.

They are the product of regulations, illogical and inhuman, which say that a man must be employed if he would live, even though his work may not be necessary in the slightest degree in order to maintain the production of all the goods and services needed.

This financial dictatorship, gentlemen, is the number one enemy of the people from whom you seek the mandate to represent them in the government. And as long as this enemy remains entrenched in its positions, the most sincere among you can do nothing other than lament your impotence in the face of its power, before giving in to it and turning your back on all your good intentions, as so many have done before you - capitulate and try to get the most for themselves out of this election business.

If this dictatorship of money and credit leaves you completely indifferent, then your usefulness to the people is nil; they can only be betrayed and deceived once again if you succeed in getting their vote through whatever means you may employ in your electoral campaign.

And if you are concerned with this very real evil, how does it happen that it seems to be the very last thing to preoccupy you? It is not through political squabbling to get power or to hang on to it that you will arrive at a means of solving the one great problem of our times. Nor can it be solved by hurling about political mud, when the blackest piece of dirt is the enslavement of individuals, families, public corporations, governments even, to the decisions of the banking system which are so in contradiction to reality.

Nor is there any solution to be found by playing around with changes in the taxation system. That would be like taking from Peter's plate in order to have something for Paul's plate, when all the time the cupboard is full with enough for both. Nor is there any hope to be found in the variety of programs set forth by different parties, when not one of these programs include the most fundamental and most important principle: "Whatsoever is physically, possible to meet private and public needs should also be made financially possible".

In the face of a dictatorship which oppresses an entire people, it is an entire people which must rise up against it. And at the head of this rising must be those, all those, who pretend that they are seek-echelon of government - local, provincial or federal; in every situation, in all professions, in all associations.

You can do nothing, gentlemen? You cannot even raise your voices? You cannot denounce or demand?

Simple, ordinary individuals, without any parliamentary titles or honors, receiving no payment from the peoples' taxes, do this all year long for five, ten, twenty years. They denounce the financial dictatorship. They demand that money be made to serve man instead of man being enslaved to money. They demand for each and everyone the right  and means to live. They demand for each human being, beginning with those here in Canada, a share in all the temporal goods, which share is their right by reason of the immense natural resources of the country and the tremendous progress made possible by the cultural inheritance handed down from generation to generation, rather than by reason of the actual labour of those still necessary to carry on production.

We have a right, candidates, to expect more than that from those who seek government posts. There are certain things which individuals, families and independent groups can accomplish themselves and they do not ask the municipal, provincial or federal governments to do those things for them. But there are obstacles which demand government action if they are to be eliminated. That is what we are expecting from our politicians — action!

Nor are we expecting socialistic measures inspired by the financial difficulties in which families find themselves; but we expect measures which will do away with this financial incapacity by causing finance to adapt itself to the rhythm and service of the immense physical possibilities which exist to meet all the normal needs of the entire population.

Is that your first concern, gentlemen? Has it been your principal preoccupation in the past? Is it so now? How can we recognize that it is?

As for the candidate who is not successful, — if he returns and hides himself in his tent without bothering in the least for the welfare of the people, even though he may not be their elected representative in parliament, he shows thereby that he was interested in only one thing - getting himself a fistful of power. So the election actually settles nothing of importance for the people's welfare. Everything yet remains to be done, and everyone is required to work, even those who are not elected.

Your friends, good candidates, your organizers, your party, wish you success in the election. But you will permit us, you will permit all those citizens who are enlightened and zealous for the common wealth, to express the sincere wish that you demonstrate the spirit of disinterested and constant service in the interests of the people, regardless of which way the election may go.

Elected or not, you still have a mission, a mission which does not depend upon a cross made with a lead pencil next to your name on a piece of paper. That mission is to serve the people to whom you have offered yourself, to strive with all the means available to you to liberate the people from the cold brutal dictatorship of finance.