Maxime Bernier Stole My Idea, But Also Saved It.

Currently, I’m not an influential politician, I’m not the runner-up to Andrew Scheer’s bid for the leader of the Conservatives, and I’m not a former member of parliament. But Maxime Bernier is.

But in 2015 when parliament was discussing Bill C-51, I and my brother Randy were discussing the current political landscape and how a true grassroots movement ‘by the people — for the people’ was exactly what was needed globally as a response to the changing times.

The political landscape was evolving and people in general were becoming more aware of political issues and wanted more of a say in how their governments ran and how their money was being spent.

On May 1st 2015 we (my brother and I) founded The United People’s Movement making this Facebook page for it May 7th, 2015.
We also founded The People’s Party of Canada the same day, creating a page for it May 9th, 2015.

There was massive support for this idea, we quickly gained over 2,000 supporters in the form of members of a Facebook group of the same name.
within a week we went from 0 to 2000, it was intimidating to have that many people hanging on your every word.
I valued my role in the founding of this new movement, however by June 20th 2015 I walked away from the group.
My Brother and I didn’t see eye-to-eye about key issues on immigration and the members of the group going on about the military-industrial-complex and area 51 and MSM talking heads honestly rang like a bell for left and right-wing activists or conspiracy nuts.
The key-factors that caused me to walk away two months-in with 20,000 supporters by that time are factors that plagued the PPC from it’s founding to registration with Elections-Canada to today.

I was thinking pragmatically that letting ‘just anyone’ represent the core values of a movement would be problematic, essentially because without centralized adherence to an ideology the group would essentially be organized anarchy and I wasn’t about de-centralization of authority but more democratic solutions giving more autonomy to areas and groups that wanted to do things differently while addressing and promoting the ‘core values’ of the group.

The People’s Party Of Canada shocked Canadians twice, once by having hundreds on their founding documents, second by having a known white nationalist among them.
An ‘I told you so’ moment for me, but what shouldn’t be a new lens for the general public. The connotations of ‘People’s Party’ is reminiscent of nationalism and has strong left and right wing leanings and those links could be hard to un-stain. The stigma surrounding these ideologies was enough for me to part ways early on, as to not, in the word’s of the masons, stain my apron.

Like any organization of individuals, there has to be structure, organized chaos is just chaos with a glorified title. Don’t use word-magic, and certainly don’t be afraid to draw a line in the sand.

If you’re drawing a crowd that would be distasteful for a major party to attract, it’s time to re-think how your message is being perceived.

That’s why I’m proud of Maxime Bernier, a man whom I’ve never met.
A man who doesn’t know what I know. A man who isn’t me, had the courage to try and form this party with a new slate, a new mission and maybe slightly less radicals than it’s original inception.
Someone with experience, weight and a prowess required to try something new, to take an idea and make it a reality.

In September 2018, I was in Fort St John, British Columbia.
I was testing out a new type of system for a ‘social engineering’ project for work.
I became aware of the newly formed people’s party of Canada through an article a friend shared.
My friends message said simply ‘look familiar?’ a little jest at my expense.
I waited, I’m a patient man, I watched how systemically my worries came to fruition and calmly passed.
I am happy with having done nothing to forward the idea as a movement and I’m happy to have been a ‘founding father’ to the ideology of the movement.
I wish Max the best of luck with his party, and who knows, I might help him out if the sentiment is mutual.

But with the current state of affairs in Canada, I think I’ll be staying out of politics, at least for now.