It has been twenty two years since the founder of the NCC, my father Colin M. Brown, died of cancer at age 73. I have probably thought of him in some way every day since 1987, and perhaps that is what makes the idea of two decades without him somewhat incomprehensible.
Although I was only 11 years old at the time, I can remember the beginnings of the NCC. It was 1967, and Pierre Trudeau's Minister of Health, an affable young lawyer named John Turner, had been in our home town of London, Ontario giving a speech to some students at the University of Western Ontario. In that speech he talked about the great potential for Canada to provide for its citizens, including a guaranteed annual income. As the size of the state grew, so would taxation, but because there would be so much state-sponsored prosperity, taxation would not be a problem.
The little reported remarks caught the eye of Globe & Mail columnist Dennis Braithwaite He posted a column the next day entitled "Beware of Gifts." My dad read it at the breakfast table, placed it in his briefcase and went to his office at London Life that day deeply worried. He was alarmed at Turner's words, the shaky assumptions that framed them and their dangerous implications for Canada.
And so, with no pollsters, political consultants or spin doctors he did something no-one in his position had ever done before. He bought a full-page ad in a newspaper. It featured a larger reproduction of the Braithwaite column, and commentary on the rapidly escalating size of government in Canada.
The ad seems sparse by today's standards, but it still gives you a jolt. Dad signed off with "If you share my alarm, your support is welcome." Around the breakfast tables of the nation, people read the message. Many pondered why a man would be so alarmed about the size of government that he would take such a step. To others, who felt uneasy with the conventional wisdom of Trudeaumania, it was a call to arms. They wrote letters back to the man in London, Ontario offering their support.
As the letters came in, more ads followed. For years it seemed like my father was the only person in the country taking on the Liberal establishment. His friends gave him the nickname of Don Quixote. For me, he might as well have been attacking the Beatles. Trudeau was cool. I had a poster of him in my room, in between Steve McQueen and W.C Fields. More than once a kid in the school ground said "My dad says you're dad's crazy."
But if my dad was crazy, what about all those big bags of mail he got? They were now piling up at the London post office (the Postmaster appeared at his door one day hopping mad) in his London Life office, in the trunk of his car and in Uncle Jim Kenny's Ottawa basement. Were all those people crazy, too?
On the contrary, with his "hobby that went berserk" he had a struck a chord with tens of thousands of quiet, hard-working and concerned people like him who didn't buy into Trudeau's big government dreams.
My father left a lasting legacy. The National Citizens Coalition remains an important voice for more freedom and less government in Canada. A former president of the NCC is now Prime Minister of Canada. And the NCC is not alone. Today many organizations give compelling arguments for the small-c conservative cause - The Fraser Institute, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, the Dominion Institute to name a few. Media has changed too, with major publications like Macleans, and the National Post proud to present and champion the conservative viewpoint.
Is Canada today perfect? Far from it. Have we conservatives been able to accomplish everything we want? Not by a long shot. But we now have the people, the tools and the political will to help bring Canadians the government they deserve at a price they can afford. It would all seem fantastic to the man walking out his front door on a sunny spring day in 1967 with a newspaper clipping tucked in his briefcase.
And if you share his alarm, your support is welcome.
Colin T. Brown Chairman The National Citizens Coalition
