LETS: Ottawa West (Ontario) Candidate Report #2
GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY:
On Monday Aug.
25, I learned that the Tuesday night meeting had
been cancelled freeing up that day. In
that day's Ottawa Citizen, I
saw the headline:"Municipalities' meeting
has harris-bashing theme."
The annual 3-day
meeting of the Association of Municipalities of
Ontario opened at the Royal York Hotel
in Toronto complaining they'll
be "paying more of the cost of social
housing, public health and
ambulance services."
It was a golden
opportunity for a politician for provincial
office to deal with the heat from the
municipals and spread the LETS
solution to their funding woes.
Before leaving,
I had to deal with the fact that my original post
"TURMEL: LETS: Upcoming Reports and Activities"
had been deleted from
all seven newsgroups. I wrote the following
letter of complaint to the
Returning Officer:
Mr. Robert J. Faulkner, Returning Officer,
Province of Ontario,
Electoral District of Ottawa Carleton,
Tel/Fax: 613-728-5915/2663.
Dear Sir:
On Mon Aug 25
06:07:12 1997, I posted:
Subject: "TURMEL: LETS: Upcoming Reports
and Activities" to Usenet
Newsgroups: ont.politics,ott.politics,ont.general,ncf.government.ont-
elect.general,ncf.ca.lets,own.eco.lets,alt.fan.john-turmel
Upon posting, I received the following confirmation:
ont.politics...OK
ott.politics...OK
ont.general...OK
ncf.government.ont-elect.general...OK
ncf.ca.lets...OK
own.eco.lets...OK
alt.fan.john-turmel...OK
Calling inews to post the news article...
Done. Waiting for inews status...
On Tuesday, Aug.
26, I discovered that my posts had all been torn
down by vandals.
Is there anything
you can do to try to remedy this kind of
vandalism? Could you indicate what the
candidates who have their
campaign literature torn down do in these
circumstances?
Hoping you see
the importance of protecting our campaign
literature wherever we choose to post
it, I am,
Yours truly,
John C. Turmel
Abolitionist Candidate in Ottawa West
I reposted it
and newly posted my LETS Candidate Report #1. The
next day I found that they had again,
both, been deleted from all
Usenet newsgroups. I received an explanation
from a Chris Lewis that
my posts had been cancelled everywhere
because one of the newsgroups,
ott.politics, did not allow cross-posting.
I dropped ott.politics and
added can.politics and have since reposted
"LETS Upcoming Events" and
"LETS Candidate Report #1."
So at 5a.m., a
few of us drove down to Toronto in order to pass
out the Petition for Municipal/Provincial/National/Global
LETS. We
arrived at 10a.m. in time to catch the
forenoon session where speaker
after speaker spoke of coping with insufficient
funding.
In the afternoon,
as municipal officials entered a plenary
session, I passed out a hundred and fifty
LETS petitions after getting
their attention with the headline from
the UK Liberal Democrat News:
"CAN COUNCILS
HELP TACKLE POVERTY? Stockport thinks it can and
has launched an anti-poverty strategy
including a LETS local currency
scheme."
Several of officials
had already heard of LETS which should
actually be expected since there have
been several Globe & Mail and
Toronto Star and many other articles about
LETS in the last few years.
I was stunned by the few who could see
a headline about a Council
Anti-Poverty Local Currency scheme who
weren't interested in hearing
more. Fortunately, most of the participants
seemed interested in
alternatives they hadn't yet heard about.
As I said to
the audience during a 1996 Hamilton East election
debate, I don't need to get a majority
to win, I just need one guy
with a brain to visit the web sites, pick
up the software and do-it-
yourself. One month after the election,
the Hamilton Self Help Centre
started up the Hamilton LETS. So I didn't
need to get a majority of
the Association of Municipalities to understand
Municipal LETS. I just
need one guy with a brain to visit the
web sites, pick up the software
and do-it-for-your-municipality-yourself.
Maybe one of those 150 will.
I believe that the Calderdale Council
has opened an account with the
Calderdale LETS so they won't be the first
but perhaps the first in
Canada.
CITIZEN DEBATE:
I'd received
a call from the Ottawa Citizen on Monday inviting me
to a candidate meeting to questioned by
the Citizen editorial board.
Tuesday, Randal Denley called to say that
I had been uninvited to that
interview.
He said that
since I was a one-issue candidate, they had been
pretty well exposed to LETS. As if seeing
the other parties on
television every day isn't the same thing.
I asked how that
could be since they had never before published my
vision of how we could use LETS . He said
he'd heard me at a meeting in
my last Ottawa West federal election.
I pointed out that all the
Citizen had ever reported was "John Turmel
is running again with his
computer barter system" without ever mentioning
that it was the
world-renowned LETSystem until just the
last 1997 federal election.
I suggested I
had the right to participate even if it was just to
gloat at the reporters who had already
heard me speak of LETS years
ago and who could now be accused of being
technical incompetents or
had suppressed the story from their coverage
of me over all these
years.
He admitted that
I was the only candidate being excluded, that I
was fringe and they weren't going to pay
attention to someone who runs
in every election. They had already agreed
not to endorse me so there
was no reason for me to attend.
I'm going anyway.
I announced it at tonight's Ottawa West
meeting. It's not fair that my opponents
be allowed to present their
ideas to solve the problems raised and
I not get the chance to keep
proving my point that funding it with
Ontario LETS Greendollars is
better than having no Canada BANK dollars
to fund it with.
We'll see whether
the Citizen bars me from attending or whether
the other candidates will take the stand
that several of their other
party members have already taken. In the
1985 Provincial Ottawa Centre
by-election, Liberal Lowell Green and
Tory Graham Bird refused to
participate in a debate to which half
the candidates had been excluded
and only NDP Evelyn Gigantes stayed to
avail herself of the whole
show. She won.
Bob Mitchell,
PC Ontario MP for Carleton once ordered the
Community Cable channel to let me participate,
soon backed up by the
other candidates, and it was "add the
extra seat or no show" which was
quickly resolved in favor of adding the
extra chair. In all my equal-
time confrontations, the CJOH debate was
the only time the wish of the
contestants on how they wanted their contest
run was ignored. I have
always found that the surest guarantee
I can have is when the other
candidates speak up.
Tomorrow, I will
certainly appeal to my fellow candidates as they
enter the Citizen's arena where the reporters
want to tell us of their
opinions of everyone but John Turmel.
Is this an issue to be arrested
over? Considering I'm still on probation
for my 1995 Casino Turmel
Gaming House conviction, it's a fight
for my democratic right whose
perils I can ill afford. My only choice
might be to carp a lot at the
front door while the selected parties
are examined by this less-than-
august arena.
PETITION DEADLINE:
I have let my
opponents know what they face if they don't sign my
petition for Provincial LETS.
After the meeting
where I couldn't get a straight answer from the
Hesitant Three, I sent a fax letting them
know what I'm going to say
about them in the 9p.m. Labor Day Rogers
Cable 22 debate.
John C. Turmel, B. Eng.,
Email: johnturmel@yahoo.com
Wednesday Aug. 27, 1997
Alex Cullen, Ottawa West Candidate,
Liberal Party of Ontario
Tel/Fax: 613-274-0004/727-7087.
Dear Alex:
Before we go "on
the record" at the ROGERS CABLE show about
whether you support an Ontario-wide LETS
Local Employment-Trading
System, I would finally point out that
on Pinecrest Road in our riding
is Pinecrest Public School where last
year's Grade 5 class learned how
to operate and use their own LETS local
currency.
As I had pointed
out to the NDP candidate that her federal NDP
counterpart had signed the petition, I
would point out that Mr. Singh,
the federal Liberal Party speaker at the
1997 CBC demonstration on
Parliament Hill, did sign the Petition
for National LETS and Mr.
Patten, your Liberal colleague in Ottawa
Centre, has heard a full
presentation on LETS by Pauline Morrissette
and has agreed that the
Ontario Liberal Task Force on Job Creation
will meet with her for a
presentation at the Cyberccino Cafe where
the software can be examined
at any time.
As I suggested
the NDP candidate consult with her counterpart, I
would suggest you consult with Mr. Patten
and Mr. Singh or, as a last
resort if none of these is convincing
about the ease and desirability
of the LETS solution, I would finally
suggest that you contact the
Pinecrest Public School class of now-Grade
6. This byelection has
focused this growing political issue on
you. Soon, you'll have to face
those Pinecrest students and explain why
you didn't see the potential
of a financial tool they had easily mastered
in Grade 5.
Hoping you see
the potential for humor you may wish to avoid, I
am,
Yours truly,
John C. Turmel
CC:
Chris Thompson, Ottawa West Candidate,
Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario
Tel/Fax: 613-729-4109/729-3363.
Katrina Prystuba, Ottawa West Candidate,
New Democratic Party of Ontario
Tel/Fax: 613-729-6242/3020
It's true. Not
only are thousands of adults around the world
operating the LETS software, this year's
class of Grade 6 at Pinecrest
school can operate an Ontario LETS if
the Province of Ontario can't
find an adult to operate it for us.
Just as Health
Canada has funded a $105,000 University of Toronto
study on the health benefits of belong
to a LETS, I'd hope the Ontario
Department of Education may soon be doing
studies on the benefits of
LETS in the class-room.
CANDIDATE'S DEBATE:
I'll try to report
on the actual questions and answers from the
Our Lady of Fatima Parish Hall debate.
The CBOT TV report ran one
quote from me:
"But if we spent
nothing and we got nothing for it but debt
service, that is the theft.
Considering the
plug from this evening's CJOH TV report, the
evening was loaded with good lines:
"John Turmel
was at it again. Forty-three campaign losses but he
was still a big hit with the crowds."
I must admit
it was lots of fun. As an banking systems engineer,
having an economist, an accountant and
a lawyer, three professions
used by the malfunctioning banks to foreclose
on debtors, it was
humorous to note their resistance to something
they've been bred to
believe is impossible. Interest-free banking.
It's here. Interest-free
banking software is taking over the
world and it wasn't on their curriculum.
Economists, accountants and
lawyers have never studied interest-free
banking and steadfastly
refuse to do so.
Anyway, stay
tuned for the 9p.m. Labor Day debate where we'll see
what kind of routines I can develop about
the candidates who don't
understand how the Local Employment-Trading
Software creates
employment and the class of Grade-six
savants who do.
If I do get onto
the Ottawa Citizen debate, I will make sure to
stress the same thing. It's possible to
have consensus on LETS. It's
inevitable to have consensus on Ontario
LETS. Pinecrest School is 5
football fields as the crow flies from
the Ottawa Citizen.
Disbelievers can easily check.
If I don't get
on the Citizen debate, I'll mention it on the
Labor Day in my criticism of my fellow
candidates who accepted my
share of the "consideration" time and
in a future candidate's report.
ELECTION LITERATURE:
I will soon repost
my Abolitionist Party Programs, my Petition of
Right, Petition for National/Global LETS,
and the Banking Systems
Engineering Analysis cited by the Bishop
of Worcester to prove that
John Kenneth Galbraith was wrong on what
I call the Big Lie of
Economics.
To see the graphs
properly, you'll have to download and print it
out as an ASCII file. Any competent engineering
student should be able
to provide any graphs with the equations
accompanying them. In them
can be found what was dubbed by the media
almost 18 years ago: the
Miracle Equation.
LETS is based
on the Miracle Equation which proves all the
bankers and economists wrong and more
and more people are seeing its
benefits. It was the intersection of the
Venn diagrams of many
interests at this year's TOES 97 People's
Summit, "The Other Economic
Summit" in Denver. In almost every plenary
session were speakers who
stated that a LETS was one tried-and-tested
way to revitalize a
community.
So reread the
Mathematics of Banking and decide for yourself if
all the promises in the Abolitionist Programs
can be delivered once a
Province-wide or Nation-wide LETS is available
for our use?