ETA (March 2024) The video was taken down by YouTube for claims of defamation.
Listen to some further clarification about what's actually in the Klondike Papers, how the Brethren is a profit-making empire, ways it controls instead of ministering to members, and why Richard finally left.
We've grown to develop an anti-expertise view in society. I imagine it might have something to do with a do-it-yourself mentality born of individualism and capitalism. I can work harder to figure out how to do it myself and then I don't need anyone else's help. I get that.
About eight years ago, I built a reading/writing/painting studio in my backyard all by myself despite not really knowing what I was doing (h/t YouTube videos), and I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. But, I hired an electrician to wire it and a window guy to install that huge front window. I know my limitations. From the other side of things, though, as a teacher, it's pretty annoying when non-teachers are confident they could do the job better and offer helpful hints around time management because surely you can finish the day's work by the end of the school day. "Prep your lessons on PD days," I was told recently. I can't even begin to explain everything wrong with that suggestion. Teachers have a skill set that many well-meaning parents don't have, and it would be amazing if people could believe that and trust us just a little.
When I posted a little summary of what I understand so far of the Klondike Papers, many asked me for access to the 6,400 pages of documents that were discussed - the corroboration of many of the claims. As far as I know, those pages were only provided for select journalists chosen by David Wallace. Someone claimed they're all open source, but I haven't seen signs of this elusive file online. But this is where I think we need to understand our limits and when to find an expert. I summarized what I know of this story from watching six hours of interviews and reading a handful of Reddit posts and another handful of news sources. Once I started down that rabbit hole, I spent a day watching and reading and the next day sorting and writing. Sifting through 6,400 pages would be like reading War and Peace FIVE TIMES, and with the chapters and paragraphs all out of order so it's an enormous effort to make sense of it all. I'm not sure how many people asking for a copy are really up for that kind of journey.
I'm just getting my head around it all here. But I've watched lots of videos and read lots of threads, and here's what seems to be happening in as brief a nutshell as possible. I don't know what's absolutely true here, but it's a compelling story with lots of supporting documentation available to the media, which mostly isn't biting at this point, except for Press Progress and some small independents like Blackballed and the Dean Blundell Show. This is paraphrased and/or transcribed and re-assembled for brevity and clarity from the sources linked at the bottom in a way that I can understand it, and I believe I haven't misrepresented what was said, although I don't always clarify who said what, so do check out the videos and articles on it! It's fascinating!
ETA (June 16) --> Check out Justin Ling's article. He disproves some of the points below including that Chipeur is NOT a lawyer for the CP or Poilievre. The file has nothing about the convoy or Russian financing or any kind of harm to Trudeau. He questions the credibility and motives of Wallace and Jacobson: "The fact is, both men had burned their professional relationships." The PBCC is about as shady as Scientology, but isn't this powerful or nefarious. I've corrected a few things below in red or crossed out (but visible so you can see what was added and removed) based on Ling's article and Richard-freakin'-March's contact with me to clear up some misconceptions! Gosh!
ETA a bit more on June 19 -- Press Progress wrote about the problem when "people who have never seen the documents began trying to explain their significance," like me. In my defence, I said from the get go that I'm just trying to make sense of some podcasts, later clarifying (on June 14th) that I don't have the skill set to fact check things like Russian involvement in our politics. I wrote the following disclaimer once I started getting an unusual amount of traffic taking me from about 100 hits on a post to 40,000 on just this one. I'm not here for hits, so I'm not baiting readers, just trying to bring some clarity to what's unclear and unwittingly muddying up the waters in the process! I'm sorry if I misled anyone to believe the claims, when I, myself, wasn't certain of their veracity. I said as much twice in this preamble, but apparently it wasn't enough.
ETA: Disclaimer: This is just a tiny blog, not a news article with editors and fact checkers. Normally, a handful of people read anything I write here. I'm usually careful with citations anyway, so boy do I regret not citing each specific piece of information below. I took notes in a pile as I watched videos and read articles, with some parts verbatim and some parts paraphrased, without always tracking who said what or where, and then put it together under headings to try to figure it all out, noticing some patterns or connections that may or may not be the case. The post seems to be useful to people, but, really, DO check out the videos and articles yourself to see if you get the same picture from it all. The Reddit post at the end has some recording and verification, but I haven't listened to that or seen any of documents available to the press. I have no idea how much of any of this is true, but it sure is a compelling narrative that could make sense of some things if a media team took some time to unravel it further!
THE PLAYERS
Long ago I bought in to the idea that Stephen Harper is the puppet-master of all the provincial conservative parties, but that's not quite it. These Klondike Papers show that Harper and most federal and provincial conservatives in power are being run influenced by an outside organization with ties to Russia and the United States: the Universal Business Team (UBT). It's the financial wing of the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church (PBCC), which has congregations all over, a big one being in Grand Prairie, Alberta. They have one in the industrial section of Toronto, all fenced up; they don't do community outreach, but they'll talk to anyone. They are strongly exclusive, only willing to talk to people within the church, run their own schools and businesses in a closed economy, but they do some dealing with hand picked leaders and CEOs to shape the world to their benefit. The church started in 1827 in Ireland, but was radicalise in the 1960s under "Big Jim" Taylor, in Brooklyn. at which point UBT began to become the point of the church in the 2000s - to make big deals and shut out the rest of the world. PBCC is all a front for profits, not prophets, which can be seen if we look at registries, lobby lists, shell corporations, etc. A coherent picture emerges. There is a handful at the top controlling this fascist mafia-type movement.
