Family head evicted like a trespasser

Sold for taxes

A father of nine children lives on a farm in New Brunswick. In the Autumn of 1960 his farm and house were sold for taxes, by the municipality, But the family has remained in the house, the father having made up his mind that he was not going to leave his property. It was his firm conviction that he had been made victim of a policy of gangsterism, and he was determined to face up to the gangsters. He declared that his first duty as a father of a family was to lodge that family; that he had violated the rights of no one; that he has not the right to turn out into the streets, the children which God has confided to his care; that, consequently, his duty was to protect the family hearth against these invaders and remain on the land which had nourished him and his family.

On December 20, 1961, about a year after the sale of his property by the sheriff, he wrote us a letter of which we quote a part below:

"'There is a contagion going about among our parish councillors — resignations. This time it was one of our municipal councillors. There is one left. He'll soon follow the other. (In New Brunswick, each parish has 2 councillors on the municipal council of the county.) They can't stand being accused of selling the people for taxes. It affects them the way holy water affects the devil.

"And can you imagine it, the Federation of Farmers has just presented a memorial to the provincial government of New Brunswick asking that farmers be exempted from paying taxes on their animals, machinery and on farm buildings, with the exception of a house that has a value of $5,000.00. The seeds sown by Vers Demain (our French-language paper) are beginning to sprout. They are beginning to understand that taxes are destroying the farm families as they are ruining things elsewhere.

"The so-called proprietors of my house came out there and tried to take over, saying that it was their place. My wife, who is not at all shy, treated them like Communists and chased them out. Our dog, a big German Shepherd, tried to get his teeth into them. That was enough for them. They didn't come back. Today I received a registered letter from the secretary of the municipality saying that they had sold my property, that the owners had come twice to see me, and that I refused to give them what was theirs. He asked that I give them my property at once, or else to make some arrangement with the new owner if I wished to stay on as a tenant. I made my own arrangements with myself, and I am going to remain until such time as the police or Castro's army come to throw me out. This is probably the best way to find out if the Communists here are as barbaric as they are in Cuba, Hungary and elsewhere. I believe they are. The only thing we haven't had here are executions. It would be something if I were the first to go.

"I went to visit the secretary of the municipality. He admitted in front of witnesses, that discrimination was practiced: that they didn't apply the same rule for everyone. There are some who owe as much as $3,000.00 in taxes and they are not sold out. Only the poor and the large families have their houses sold. It has been discovered that those responsible for having us sold out, and those who are always preaching, "You must pay taxes!", are obliged to sell liquor in order to pay their taxes.

"The individual who has caused us the most grief, the chief tax collector of the municipality, has ended up in a mental hospital. The poor people are just about crazy with the trouble this man has caused them. But Providence saw fit to send him first.

"I ask all of you to give me your moral support so that I may have the strength to go on to the very end. I place all my confidence in the truth."

Father of a family evicted

Is there any rule of society more barbaric than that which immolates the father of a family on the altar of money? And it is society itself which accomplishes this act of barbarism. The very members of society are sacrificed in order that society may live (so they say), in order that there may be a continual flow of tax money. Society thus devours itself, it kills itself, commits suicide because it is destroying the parts which make it up. Such a society is rotting, is on the way to complete disintegration; it is a disease in the world, it poisons civilization.

The policy of property taxes, of taxing the family home, the fount of the family, the farm which is the source of the family's bread, this policy is special to our times. It is the final blossom on the plant of Financial dictatorship which our leaders serve so slavishly.

So, in effect, the father of a family is told by taxation: "Father of a family, you who alone have received the true authority of God, get out! Get out of your house, leave the land which your father, with all legality has left you, the land which you have worked with so much love; out with you! you and your children! Out into the night, on to the road and a life of despair and wretchedness. You shall be uprooted from your patrimony. From now on you shall live without property of your own, without authority, without security. Father of a family, you shall beg your bread from day to day, humbly beseeching it at the knees of the money men and of the government bureaucrats, who, if the design to throw you a scrap will do so in such a way that they will degrade you and humiliate you so that you are little less than an animal!"

This, in effects, is what taxation tells to the father of a family.

Paternal authority disappears

The father of the family has become something of a laughing stock in our modern world as a result of losing his natural authority which is so essential if he is to perform his functions as a father. This authority was formerly guaranteed him by his ownership of house and property, a farm, for example. What the children had they held from their father, they lived with the father. In such conditions they respected the authority of the father. It was seen and recognized by its outward symbols.

But today, when children are obliged to shift for themselves at an early age, the bonds of the family are soon ruptured and they no longer feel the strength of the father, a strength which they still need but which the father, unemployed, without a cent, without property or possessions, can no longer supply.

The father of a family is the founder of home. A home is a hearth in a particular place. That is to say, a home. The father of a family, without hearth or home - this is something almost contradictory. And yet under the existing regime, this is the situation in most cases. The house of the father of a family, which should be untouchable, as sacred as the family itself, this house no longer exists. Certain of our laws forbid that special items of furniture be seized, such as the table and beds. These items are considered essential to the family. Then why should not the house itself be declared beyond seizure? What is the point in protecting the table and beds from seizure by the sheriff if the house is to go? Can you find lodging in a stable and bed on the public square?"

And when it is public corporations, representing society itself, which lays hold of these homes and throws the fathers out into the street; what adjective can we find which will truly describe - such a despicable act of piracy! This is surely the policy of gangsterism, is it not?

Taxation upon the homes of families is really an act of gangsterism; it is gangsterism refined to its highest efficiency. So much so that it is preached by the so-called elite of our society. And yet it is worthy only of a world which is dead to God, a world which has become utterly materialistic. Our ancestors did not know these taxes which despoil man of his patrimony. Nor would they have tolerated them.

They speak to us patriotism. Patriotism springs from love of country. And how can there be true love of country when a man does not share in it? When he has no patrimony." How can there be patriotism without patrimony? And how can we have patrimony when the very laws of our land, which should be safeguarding each man's patrimony as sacred thing, essential to the good of the country, are despoiling him of his home and property?

Property taxes, succession taxes, income taxes — these are the instruments which are being used to break up the home, to destroy the ancestral heritage, the rightful patrimony of the family. The country cannot exist without true family homes, for it is made up of such patrimonies. And if it continues to exist, it is no longer a country of families but a country of financiers, of usurpers. We are all their prisoners there in the land which belonged to our forefathers, for we are poor, all tenants, all workers for others, we who are the true heirs, the true proprietors, the true owners of production, the true builders of Canada.

A colony of High Finance

The Separatists of Quebec who believe that they are truly fighting for the autonomy of French-Canadians, are not realists. The true master of Quebec is High Finance. French Canada is not a colony of England, nor of Ottawa, nor of the confederation brought into existence by the British North America Act. French Canada, like the rest of Canada, is a colony of High Finance. In fact, it is in a worse situation than a colony. In a colony the colonists can a least become proprietors of land. But under High Finance it has become little less than a concentration camp. In both Quebec and other parts of Canada the heirs of the men and women who built New France and Canada, are no longer proprietors. And even if they are proprietors in name and before the law, still in fact they are not proprietors. For, periodically, the taxation system expropriates their property. The tax on income expropriates the future home. The property taxes take the home which presently exists. And the succession taxes, make sure that heirs will not inherit those patrimonies which were able to survive the first two assaults.

Taxes which take away the everything of a family, how else can they be qualified except as confiscation, robbery? The only legitimate reason for the existence of a tax is to take out of circulation that money which is surplus to the production which a country has to offer. If the totality of the population has too much money in relation to the products at hand, then taxes, which are a global subtraction from existing purchasing power, will be legitimate - but only on the condition that they do not take from the poor to give to the rich. But the taxes of today take away purchasing power which is needed to buy the products which are awaiting purchase. Taxes make people, poor, make them slaves by dispossessing them, true heirs and legitimate proprietors, of their property. The citizens are subjected to systematic confiscation of their property by taxes, as if they were criminals - guilty of high treason to their country.

Go to New Brunswick and you will see a fertile land once populated by a prosperous and happy people. This land is becoming, deserted, and those who remain are dying of hunger.

Here in Quebec, also, the countryside is being emptied in the same fashion. Open The Official Gazette, published by the provincial government each week; see the hundreds of page's listed under: "Advice of sales for taxes by the sheriff".

In one edition there were 71 pages. In another 157. These lists represent hundreds and hundreds of properties sold for non-payment of taxes. Our economists with high-sounding-degrees, and our government at Quebec, so proud of their ability in the administration of the province's affairs, have yet to awaken to the only solution which will save the country from ruin - the abolition of taxes. Yes, Quebec, French Canada, like all the rest of the Dominion, groans under the dictatorship of Finance. Our members of Parliament and your high and mighty Ministers would shrink from wearing the White beret of L'Union des Électeurs. But they are not at all shy or embarrassed to serve the gangsters... of Finance in robbing the people. And they call it "professional dignity"!