(Continued from Part 3, previous blog post)
In its history, the renowned Knox College founded in 1844-45 by the Presbyterian Church in Canada once had a prominent leading role in the free-church and anti-slavery movements in Canada.
A main founder of Knox College was Rev. Dr. Robert Burns, a Scottish Presbyterian minister and one of the leaders of the 1843 Free Church movement in Scotland (the “Great Disruption”), who was invited to Toronto in 1844 to start the Free Church movement in Canada, became minister of Knox Presbyterian Church in Toronto and led the founding of Knox College. 118
The first Principal of Knox College – a position begun in the 1850s – was Rev. Dr. Michael Willis, a colleague of Burns and also from Scotland, who when became the principal was already the founding president of the Anti-Slavery Society of Canada. 119 The anti-slavery history in Canada at the time was mainly known for the “Underground Railroad” – a network of anti-slavery Americans and Canadians who smuggled black slaves from the American South to freedom and settlement in Canada. 120
As much as being a part of the anti-slavery history, though, Knox College of Toronto is not related to (and should not be confused with) Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. Located at a town that was the centre of anti-slavery activity in the state of Illinois and a “Freedom Station” on the Underground Railroad, this liberal-arts Knox College had been founded seven years earlier in 1837 by a group of anti-slavery advocates led by Presbyterian minister George Washington Gale, starting out as a bible-training college with an odd name, Knox Manual Labour College, for the reason that students worked on the farm to support their educations; this Knox College’s establishment had the approval of Abraham Lincoln among other state legislators, and subsequently it was the ‘historic’ site of the fifth Lincoln-Douglas debate – one of a series of political debates in 1858 between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas – for election to the U.S. Senate; Lincoln lost the election but the debates propelled him to national fame and in two years’ time election to the U.S. presidency, defeating Douglas this time. 121 Abraham Lincoln also received a honorary degree from this Knox College – his first and the college’s first honorary doctorate. 122
Even now, Knox College in Illinois continues its tradition of being part of the politics for change and progress, proudly making it known to Americans: the college observes that when John Podesta, former Bill Clinton Whitehouse chief of staff and leader of the transition team for newly elected President Barack Obama – the first African-American President in U.S. history – appeared on the TV program The Colbert Report (on January 29, 2009, which happened to be a special day for me, and when I posted my first blog article, “Greeting the New Millennium – nearly a decade late”), Obama, Podesta and the show’s host Stephen Colbert all had received Knox College honorary degrees. 123
But even so, back in early 1863 when Abraham Lincoln was succeeding in his historical achievement leading Americans to abolish slavery – although he had not decidedly won the Civil War – the Canadian contributions to the cause, especially those by Rev. Robert Burns and Rev. Michael Willis of Knox College in Toronto, were singled out by George Brown – a fellow Scot and founder of The Globe and Mail newspaper – for congratulation for a mission accomplished: 124, 125
“… Now we have an anti-slavery president of the United States. Now we have an anti-slavery government at Washington. Now we have an anti-slavery congress at Washington. Already slavery has been abolished in the District of Columbia. At last a genuine treaty for the suppression of the slave trade has been signed at Washington with the government of Great Britain, and for the first time in her history the penalty of death has been enforced in the republic for the crime of man-stealing. Then, the black republics of Hayti and Liberia have been recognized by the United States as independent powers; and, even more important still, the vast territories of the United States have been prohibited by law from entering the republic except as free states. And the climax was reached a month ago when Abraham Lincoln, as President of the United States, proclaimed that from that moment every slave in the rebel states was absolutely free, and that the republic was prepared to pay for the freedom of all the slaves in the loyal states. The freely elected government and legislature of the United States have proclaimed that not with their consent shall one slave remain within the republic.
Was I not right, then, when I said that we ought to rejoice together to-night? I congratulate you, Mr. Chairman (Rev. Dr. Willis), on the issue of your forty years’ contest here and on the other side of the Atlantic on behalf of the American slave. I congratulate the venerable mover of the first resolution (Rev. Dr. Burns), who for even a longer period has been the unflinching friend of freedom. I congratulate the tried friends of emancipation around me on the platform, and the no less zealous friends of the cause throughout the hall, whose well-remembered faces have been ever present when a word of sympathy was to be uttered for the down-trodden and oppressed. …”
Of special interest here is that George Brown who made the above-quoted speech in 1863 soon after the proclamation of emancipation by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, had also (with his father Peter Brown and with Robert Burns) founded the Presbyterian Record magazine; this fact is mentioned in the September 2005 article quoted in detail earlier (“A united effort crowns righteousness”) about Stevie Cameron and her Out-of-the-Cold program as well as about Chinese Presbyterians; in addition, George Brown as a politician later became one of the founding fathers of Canada (Fathers of the Confederation). 126
The late Rev. Edward Ling’s son Winston Ling, vice president of finance and administration at Tyndale University College & Seminary since 1995 – as earlier mentioned – whose wife Stephanie has been a governing board member of Knox College in Toronto as well as a board member of the Scott Mission for the needy, had for many years been the executive vice president of finance at (the former) Crownx Inc., holding company of the Crown Life Insurance Company, the Extendicare Health Care group, and the Crowntek Group, working under then president Michael Burns and chairman David Hennigar from the owners: Toronto’s Burns family of Burns Fry Ltd. fame (today part of Bank of Montreal Nesbitt Burns), and the Jodrey family of Nova Scotia. 127 I found the Burns and Burns (i.e., the financial Burns family and Rev. Robert Burns) associations in the Winston-Stephanie Ling couple quite interesting and even intriguing, and once asked Winston if the Burns family were related to Rev. Robert Burns; but the answer was: not that he knew of, Michael Burns was Anglican – in fact a recent Chancellor of (the Anglican) Renison University College at the University of Waterloo. 128, 129
My question to Winston is pertinent here even if not everyone in Rev. Edward Ling’s large family is necessarily familiar with a historical Burns connection: my great-great-grandfather, namely Rev. Edward Ling’s medical-doctor-and-Presbyterian-minister grandfather (as discussed earlier in the context of a Toronto Star article about Rev. Ling, and in my January 29, 2009 blog article, “Greeting the New Millennium – nearly a decade late”), who had been born in or around 1849, the year the first Protestant church in his home region of China was founded in his humble village by Swiss Basel missionary Rev. Rudolf Lechler, in around 1860-61 became a Christian when he was a young pupil tutored by Rev. William Burns at the school of that church and was baptized by Rev. Burns 130 – that was 100 years before the cornerstone for the first Chinese church building in Toronto, with a school-style architecture, was laid under the leadership of businessman and church elder Edward Ling in 1960, who then went to Taiwan in 1961 to study to become a pastor. 131
The Rev. William Burns in China in 1861 was the person Canadians had known as Rev. Robert Burns’s young nephew, William Chalmers Burns, who in 1844 had accompanied Robert Burns to visit Canada, where Robert Burns stayed to lead the free-church movement and found Knox College. They and William Chalmers Burns’s fellow young preacher Robert Murray M’Cheyne were enthusiastic members of the Scottish Free Church movement led by Thomas Chalmers, and when visiting Canada the young W. C. Burns was already internationally known as the remarkably incredible revival preacher of Kilsyth, having drawn crowds as large as 10,000 to his spiritual-revival sermons in 1839. 132
William Chalmers Burns was born in 1815 in the same year the Swiss Basel Mission was founded in Basel, Switzerland, which as a Lutheran foreign mission subsequently had strong influence over British foreign missionary work – particularly that of the Anglican Church – for the next several decades. 133 In 1847, Burns became the first official foreign missionary sent abroad by the Presbyterian Church of England Foreign Missions, going to China in the same year as the two first Basel missionaries to China, Theodore Hamberg and Rudolf Lechler. 134 In 1860-61, Rev. William Burns was invited to the Ling family’s home village in the Shantou (Swatow) region of Guangdong province to visit the first Protestant church of the region founded by Rev. Lechler in 1849, which had been left with only 13 disciples on their own in 1852 when Rev. Lechler was expelled by the regional government and returned to Hong Kong. 135 Rev. Burns preached and taught school in the same house where Rev. Lechler had done so, and revived and took under his spiritual wing this local church. 136
Rev. William Burns died several years later in 1868 at the age of 53, up in the unfamiliar Northeast of China (i.e., Manchuria, homeland of the imperial Qing-dynasty ethnic people), exhausted, nearly alone amongst a small group of Chinese worshipers but still full of the spirit that had set him apart. 137
In or around 1896, the second medical hospital to be founded by the English Presbyterian Mission in the southern coastal Shantou region of China was named the William Burns Memorial Hospital in his honour; by this time, the young-pupil Ling baptized by Rev. Burns had long ago completed studies under Doctor William Gauld at the first hospital of the Mission founded by Gauld, practiced as a medical doctor in this hospital for decades and was about to become a Presbyterian preacher, while a fellow doctor Lin (Ling and Lin were actually the same family name, in a village where the majority were of this family name and distantly related) – son of the person who had invited Rev. Burns to revive the village church left there by Rev. Lechler – would become the principal of this second hospital; in recent decades the site has been the campus of a regional school of public health. 138, 139
Prior to his life journey in China, William Chalmers Burns was in Canada from 1844 to 1846, preaching in churches in different part of the country. In the Woodstock area of Ontario (Oxford County) Rev. Burns baptized a baby born in 1844 – the year he arrived in Canada – by the name of George Leslie Mackay. 140 Little Mackay grew up with W. C. Burns as his idol, studied at Knox College in Toronto and at other Presbyterian institutions, became the first foreign missionary sent abroad by the Presbyterian Church in Canada (and became a medical doctor), following the example of his idol to China and following his idol’s footsteps to do missionary work in the Shantou (Swatow) region; but after arrival Mackay decided to sail across the sea to take a look first at the island of Taiwan, and once he saw the Tamsui town in Taiwan he knew instantly Taiwan would be his home, where today a large Mackay Memorial Hospital (in the capital city Taipei with branches including in Tamsui Township) stand in testimonial of his contributions to his adopted homeland – even if the hospital originally was not named for him but after a Captain Mackay of Detroit whose wife donated money for his clinic on the condition that the hospital be named that way. 141
Rev. Dr. Mackay died at the age of 57 in 1901 in Taiwan, after a fruitful and fulfilled life, whose achievements beside the medical hospital included founding around 60 churches with thousands of coverts, founding the Oxford College – forerunner of Taiwan Theological College and Seminary where in the 1960s Rev. Edward Ling studied to become a preacher – and serving as the elected Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Canada in 1895; the Canadian missionary assisting him in his later years and then succeeding him was one Rev. William Gauld (apparently unrelated to the British Dr. William Gauld in the 1860s in Shantou across the sea). 142, 143
Burns, Mackay, Mackay & (not closely or necessarily related) Mackay, William Gauld & (unrelated) William Gauld, Burns & (unrelated) Burns, what interesting ‘inspirations’ around!
The town of Tamsui in Taiwan which Mackay felt in love with at first sight and chose as home was by the Chinese name 淡水, meaning ‘freshwater’; it had been an important seaport on international trade routes, with prior Spanish and Dutch colonization and missionary work dating back to the San Domingo Fort and church in 1629, and has been referred to as “Venice of Taiwan”. 144 In contrast, the village housing the first Protestant church in the mainland region of Shantou across the sea – a region Mackay had gone to as inspired by W. C. Burns – was a small fishing village named Yanzao (Yam-tsau), or 鹽灶, meaning ‘salt pan’, where Rev. Lechler had stayed only three years before he was expelled in 1852; in fact, even the port city of Shantou not long before that point had been a fishing village in the same county. 145
An English missionary book published not long after Rev. William Burns’s visit to the Yam-tsau church in 1861, told of the story of local children flocking to him and singing his Christian hymns during the Chinese New Year, at the same time when a clan-feud with a neighbouring village were engaging two hundred militia men in the defense of this village (and obviously most of the attention); and to travel to that village the missionaries had to contend with robbers on the road. 146
A moving tale indeed. Even today the Yanzao village is known in China for a unique type of annual ritual – held on the twenty-first and twenty-second days of the Chinese new year – in which an idol of Chinese god is paraded in palanquin under heavy protection and the large crowd fight to drag him down to the ground, something – just like any other ritual of idolatry type – most local Christians do not take part in and the older Christians do not go anywhere near. 147
The purpose, or morale, of the preceding, long-winded family history digression in this blog article about Brian Mulroney, the Airbus Affair and Stevie Cameron, is the illustration that in the proud history of Canadian Presbyterians there was a long period from 1843-44 to the end of the 19th century when, inspired by Scottish Presbyterians, the Church was split into two, the Established Church and the Free Church, with the former then overseen by and beholden to the government and the landownership, while the latter independent and democratic in its religious affairs, governing, and finance: 148 in this historical division, the St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Toronto where Stevie Cameron has been an elder and founded the Out-of-the-Cold program, was the centre of the Established Church in Canada, from which the Free Church led by Rev. James Harris, broke off, founded Knox Presbyterian Church as its new centre, 149 brought over Rev. Robert Burns and Rev. Michael Willis (among others) from the Scottish Free Church, founded Knox College, and became active also in anti-slavery activity.
The Chinese Presbyterians in Toronto have been associated with the Free Church tradition, and with the heritage of William Chalmers Burns from Scotland and in China. They have also been associated with the early heritage of Swiss Basel missionaries in China, who made efforts to separate missionary work from the state of being tainted by unscrupulousness under German missionary Karl Gutzlaff – who had taken part in the opium trade himself and in the Opium War as a British colonial official – and to expose some of the problems in Gutzlaff’s organization Chinese Christian Union. 150
It was a moving history, even if it wasn’t quite that of Knox (Manual Labor) College in Illinois with its association with Abraham Lincoln; and this history provides a new level of context to certain criticism of Stevie Cameron related to her Presbyterian background, “inbred puritanism of the old Ottawa establishment”. However such if true of Ms. Cameron was not what many Canadian Presbyterians have been; besides, one should note that Ms. Cameron’s personal choice (who grew up in Belleville outside of Toronto, studied at UBC in Vancouver and worked for the federal government in Ottawa before becoming a journalist in Toronto 151) did lead to the opening of the once-privileged St. Andrew’s door to even the homeless, and that as a journalist-author her pursue to expose corruptions associated with Brian Mulroney has been relentless, albeit – with the Gutzlaff controversy in mind – not as hard-hitting or as all-encompassing as the work of academic-author Chalmers Johnson on recent American history – which has been noted in an earlier part of this blog article.
The legacy of Brian Mulroney, in his known propensity to associate with persons of corrupt or unsavoury repute and in the yet-unclear depth of his political problems of ethics and conduct relating to business interests close to or lobbying his government, may in the end be compared to some of the more notorious in the recent history of the western, Judeo-Christian, democratic world. Yet, as have been previously shown, neither the RCMP nor the Liberal government of Jean Chretien during its 10-year tenure from 1993 to 2003 really went after Mr. Mulroney: in public they were merely reacting to, and maintaining a continuing interest in, issues in the Airbus Affair as brought forward by members of a left-leaning Canadian media – particularly by Stevie Cameron and the CBC’s The Fifth Estate – and supported by those in the federal government system opposed to Mr. Mulroney’s rightwing agendas.
The conclusion would again appear to be that not only there was no political vendetta against Mulroney on the part of the RCMP or the Liberal government, which he has alleged, but that the long-running saga was mostly a media circus despite that – as previously shown – very serious and nagging questions still exist as to the nature of the Airbus Affair, the depth of corruption and Mr. Mulroney’s real role in them.
However I am not ready to conclude such but would next illustrate that the Chretien government and the RCMP did likely have their own agendas in seeing the criminal investigation against Mulroney be launched and be ongoing for an extended period of time (from 1995 to 2003), and that although neither wanted to get to the bottom of the Airbus Affair both had an interest to see it hound Mr. Mulroney through to the end of the Chretien political era.
In November 1997 in his first media interview after winning a legal settlement with the federal government over the libel issue, Mr. Mulroney alleged that there had been pressure from Liberal justice minister Allan Rock to prosecute him since 1993: 152
“Allan Rock arrives (in Ottawa) in 1993. The first thing he does as minister of justice is to write to the RCMP, conveying gossip about me personally to the commissioner of the RCMP requesting an investigation. Out comes (Stevie) Cameron’s book (On The Take), Herb Gray, the solicitor general, gives a copy of it to the commissioner of the RCMP, asking that he look into it. These are clear signals by a new government to a national police force, and the signals say, it’s all right for open season on Mulroney”.
And Mulroney further stated the Liberal government must have been behind the RCMP in branding him a criminal in a letter to the Swiss authorities:
“If anyone believes that this could take place without the knowledge of the minister of justice or the knowledge of the solicitor general or the knowledge and approval of the commissioner of the RCMP or the knowledge of the PMO [i.e., Prime Minister’s Office] anybody who believes that, I wish them well in Disney World”.
While the Chretien government at the time denied any involvement in the RCMP investigation, I would give Mr. Mulroney the benefit of the doubt on his points quoted above. My analysis of press archives has suggested to me that such were likely the case, however that it was not obvious vendetta against Mulroney but a part of the incoming Liberal government’s law-and-order agendas during 1993-1995 to include a criminal investigation of Mulroney’s role in the Airbus Affair, and that the Liberal brand of law-and-order may at least partially explain the criminally accusatory language in the September 29, 1995 letter to the Swiss authorities.
First, one notes that when Jean Chretien stepped down as prime minister in December 2003, he had completed a decade-long reign in which he won three back-to-back majorities – among the most Canadian prime ministers have done in history – in elections in 1993, 1997 and 2000, 153 and that big anniversaries and personal milestones in politics were important for the high-achieving Chretien, who in August 2002 when announcing his plan to step down after he was challenged by long-time leadership rival Paul Martin, set a time of February 2004 – well past the ten-year mark in power – for retirement. 154
On the date of the 10-year anniversary of his election to power, Saturday, October 25, 2003, Chretien celebrated by visiting the sacred Sikh Golden Temple in India on a day that happened to be Diwali – India’s equivalent of Christmas, basking in happiness among over 100,000 revellers and accompanied by natural resources minister Herb Dhaliwal, one of several Sikh Canadian Liberal MPs, while in Ottawa in the House of Commons a motion put forward by the Bloc Quebecois was to be voted on that Tuesday to force Chretien to step down as soon as Paul Martin became the Liberal leader in November; but Mr. Chretien was still planning to attend the Commonwealth summit in Nigeria in December, and he survived the motion, notifying new leader Paul Martin on November 18 that he would leave office on December 12 after returning from Africa – an unusually long time for a new Liberal leader to wait (for anything more than 10 days). 155
The British Commonwealth summit turned out to be important as during that early-December event Zimbabwe under leader Robert Mugabe withdrew from the Commonwealth due to continued opposition from western democratic nations against ending suspension of its membership – in place after Mugabe was accused of rigging election in 2002. 156 A Canada-EU summit after that, originally scheduled for December 17 in Ottawa (which would be right after Chretien’s resignation), was mysteriously cancelled by then EU president, Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, who also refused to meet with Chretien sooner in Europe, so Chretien paid a farewell visit to France with his large family accompanying him, and then as his last official foreign-relations function he received Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in Ottawa on December 11. 157
Now, taking notice of Mr. Chretien’s liking of anniversary dates and milestones, one recognizes that on April 22, 2003 when the RCMP announced termination of the Airbus Affair criminal investigation, the day happened to be the 10-year anniversary of the Liberal Party’s unveiling of its law-and-order platform for the 1993 election, an election that would turn out to be historic as the Tories under Mulroney’s successor Kim Campbell would be reduced to only two seats and without official-party status – the worst federal electoral defeat in Canadian history. 158
And in case when it came to versus Brian Mulroney the date symbolism might not be so important, one should also recognize that it was actually the more important: although Paul Martin had openly challenged Chretien’s leadership since June 2002, when on August 21, 2002 Chretien suddenly announced to step down in February 2004, it was when he had just surpassed Mulroney’s length of prime-ministership by 10 days, which had been from September 17, 1984 to June 24, 1993 for Mr. Mulroney and had taken Mr. Chretien from November 4, 1993 to August 11, 2002 to match; yet everyone was “shocked” why Chretien suddenly announced his retirement plan at that time, and also wondered why he wanted to drag on to early 2004 before leaving – when he would need at least till November 4, 2003 for a full ten years. 159 Such milestones must have been sacred for Mr. Chretien. 160
Behind and beyond any symbolism of a 10-year law-and-order milestone regarding Brian Mulroney was likely a Liberal view of Mulroney – like a criminal who should be subjected to law and order, even if the Liberals did not openly say such. Back in early 1993, the Liberal Party under Jean Chretien was criticized as weak on crime, a reputation to do with Chretien’s stint as justice minister under Pierre Trudeau before the Mulroney era; in 1993 the new Reform Party which was going to siphon off much of the Tory votes in Western Canada, ran on a strong law-and-order platform, and so Chretien responded by putting forward a law-and-order platform to make him look respectable. 161
But in hindsight, Chretien was only testing the political water: his real brand of law and order would go against the political rightwing, and to him it was not so much harder penalties on crime, which the Reform Party championed, but more stringent gun control, about which Chretien stated on April 22, 1993 that he wanted to wait and see. 162 Gun control subsequently became the most high-profile law-and-order legislative issue of the Liberal government throughout the 1990s, and on that agenda both the Reform Party and the Tories put forth fierce opposition. 163
For the Liberals, why not deploy the same tack, as they did with gun control, on Brian Mulroney who had the reputation of a political “bully boy” and whose party had been so soundly trounced in the election? 164
You may say that, assuming the Liberals were treating Mulroney like a tough gun-owner, how could they have had him named like a criminal, in an official correspondence with a foreign government in 1995, without any evidence?
They might have some evidence. According to Stevie Cameron, during 1993 lawyers closely affiliated with the Liberal Party had in fact been provided with documents pointing to fraud and financial mismanagement on the part of Bruce Verchere, then tax lawyer and financial trustee for Prime Minister Brian Mulroney: when Verchere’s wife Lynne Walters Verchere had a fallout with her husband whose fraud had gotten to the point of defrauding her and their children, Mrs. Verchere made the point of specifically retaining notable lawyers with distinction in the Liberal Party to represent her in the legal proceedings against Bruce Verchere, and she gave copies of many important documents she found in their home to these lawyers. 165, 166, 167
Note that this Bruce Verchere, who then died in an gunshot suicide in August 1993 only two months after being appointed board chairman of Atomic Energy Canada Limited in one of Mulroney’s patronage appointments on his last full day as prime minister, as previously discussed had been the “Swiss lawyer” of Mulroney’s who Karlheinz Schreiber alleges wanted Schreiber to transfer Airbus money to Mulroney; then later in the RCMP investigation, the September 29, 1995 Canadian government letter accusing Mulroney of criminal activity was written to the Swiss authorities to investigate the Airbus money.
If Liberal-affiliated lawyers indeed had access to documents containing clues of possible mismanagement in Brian Mulroney’s finances related to Airbus money, the issue would be how seriously, or not, during 1993-95 the Liberals push the RCMP to pursue those aspects, rather than that they had Mulroney accused without any evidence; in particular, did the “gossip” Allan Rock conveyed to the RCMP in 1993 right after he became justice minister – something Mulroney has alleged – include stuff to do with Mulroney’s former lawyer and trustee Bruce Verchere?
Time and again in the surveys in this blog article, the controversy about the long and fruitless RCMP Airbus Affair investigation has come down not to why it took so long when the RCMP found nothing incriminating, but to why it took so long with the RCMP not disclosing what it really did or found. The investigation appeared to have run its course in the same vein as the Liberal gun-control drive: initially in 1994 then justice minister Allan Rock wanted a full handgun ban, but by 1995 it became only a gun registry, and by 2007 the running cost of the national registration topped $2 billion. 168
(Continuing to Part 5, next blog post)
Notes:
118. Brian J. Fraser, Church, College, and Clergy: A History of Theological Education at Knox College, Toronto, 1844 – 1994, 1995, McGill-Queen’s University Press; and, “Burns, Robert”, Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online, 2000, University of Toronto and Université Laval
119. “History”, website of Knox College, a Theological School of the Reformed Tradition, Toronto, Canada
120. “The Underground Railroad”, website of the National Underground Railroad Center, Cincinnati, Ohio
121. For the history of Knox College in Illinois, see: “Our History – We are where we’ve been”, and, “Underground Railroad Freedom Station – Galesburg Colony at Knox College”, website of Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois; and, “Lincoln-Douglas debates”, Encyclopaedia Britannica
122. “Knox and Lincoln – Lincoln Studies Center”, website of Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois
123. “John Podesta appears on The Colbert Report: Knox connections take center stage as Podesta and Colbert talk about fellow Knox honoree, President Obama, and Podesta’s new book”, January 30, 2009, Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois
124. For George Brown’s speech on February 3, 1863, see: Alexander Mackenzie and George Brown, The Life and Speeches of Hon. George Brown, 1882, The Globe printing company; and, “George Brown on Slavery”, Quebec History, Marianopolis College, Quebec
125. Regarding anti-slavery activities of Peter Brown, George Brown, Robert Burns, and Michael Willis, see: Sharon A. Roger Hepburn, Crossing the border: a free Black community in Canada, 2007, University of Illinois Press
126. Amy MacLachlan, “A united effort crowns righteousness”, September 2005, Presbyterian Record; and, “Brown, George”, The Canadian Encyclopaedia, 2009, Historica Foundation of Canada
127. Crownx Inc. and its executive vice president of finance Winston Ling were particularly active trying to expand in the financial market during 1987, but their big moves outside of healthcare – including a takeover attempt at the British firm Mercantile House Holdings and their high-tech business Crowntek – ended with their sell-off instead; see: Sonita Horvitch, “Our financiers buy stakes on big British firms”, January 12, 1987, Financial Post; George Brett, “Crownx Inc. starts battle for U.K. firm”, September 17, 1987, Toronto Star; Reuters, “Crownx ends bid for unit”, September 18, 1987, The New York Times; and, “Crownx quits high-tech at cost of $101 million”, November 9, 1987, The Windsor Star. 1987 happened to be the year of my first formal visit to Canada, in October to the computer science department at the University of Toronto (I had a family visit once before, in the summer of 1983 when Rev. Edward Ling drove me around sightseeing in his Dodge 600), and the year Rev. Edward Ling first made it to a Toronto Star article as a grandfather, see: Leslie Fruman, “In praise of grandfathers; Granddads command special respect on Father’s Day in Metro’s Chinese and Jamaican communities”, June 20, 1987, Toronto Star. By 1992 when my job at the computer science department of UBC in Vancouver was about to end amid my involvement in politics there, Crownx’s subsidiary Crown Life Insurance Co. was moving to Regina, Saskatchewan, and Michael Burns was stepping down as Crownx president; see: “Bertrand Marotte, “Crown Life moves operations to Regina; Haro Financial will acquire 42% of insurer for $250 million”, September 10, 1991, The Gazette; and, Chethan Lakshman, “Crownx gets new president”, April 23, 1992, Financial Post
128. The Anglican Renison College turned 50 on January 17, 1959, and its recent former chancellor Michael Burns was one of only two honorary senior fellows conferred on that occasion (with history professor John English, and with Merilyn Thompson as honorary fellow), see: Jeff Outhit, “Renison University College turns 50”, January 17, 2009, The Record
129. Winston Ling’s other former boss at Crownx, David Hennigar, might be of different profile as he has been reported to be a member of the exclusive, politically influential, but somewhat mysterious and controversial Trilateral Commission based in Washington, D.C., whose small number of select Canadian members included media baron Conrad Black, as well as Brian Mulroney’s law colleague and confidante (and his ambassador to the United Nations during 1989-90) Yves Fortier – “Much of Fortier’s good fortune derives from his friendship with Mulroney”; see: Dale Wharton, “A review by Dale Wharton: Trilateralism: the Trilateral Commission and Elite Planning for World Government, ed. Holly Sklar, Black Rose Books, 1980”, Volume 1, Number 2, Eclectica magazine; “Trilateral Commission – international organization”, Encyclopaedia Britannica; and, Michael P. Goldhaber, “The Three Faces of Yves” (as excerpted online by law firm Ogilvy Renault), August 9, 2007, The American Lawyer magazine
130. As previously mentioned also, historical facts about my great-great-grandfather, who was born in or around the year 1849 when the first Protestant church in the Shantou region of China was founded in his home village, were recorded in this local church’s official Centennial and 150-year celebration publications, which have been referred to by the Christian Weekly magazine of Hong Kong, see: 浩然, “黎力基牧師潮州開基祖“, July 15, 2007, Christian Weekly; and, 浩然, “潮汕教會不忘黎牧開基恩德“, July 22, 2007, Christian Weekly
131. Catherine Dunphy, “Community leader also man of faith; Rev. Edward Ling started church fund; Chinese Presbyterian centre his ‘vision’”, June 14, 2004, Toronto Star
132. “Burns, William Chalmers”, Edinburgh University New College Library; “Horatius Bonar – (1808-1889), Scottish churchman and poet”, Christian Classics Ethereal Library; “Revival fires or holy humbug?”, February 22, 2008, Cumbernauld News; and, “History – Kilsyth Burns and Old Parish Church”, website of the Kilsyth Burns and Old Parish Church, Kilsyth, Glasgow, Scotland
133. For the influences on British foreign missionary work by Swiss Basel Mission founded in 1815, and by German Lutheran missionaries, see: Sheridan Gilley and Brian Stanley, The Cambridge History of Christianity: World Christianities, c. 1815-1914, 2006, Cambridge University Press
134. For the fact that William Burns was the Presbyterian Church of England’s first official foreign missionary, in 1847 going to China, see: “Presbyterian Church Of England Foreign Missions Committee”, The School of Oriental and African Studies Library, University of London; for facts about the two first Basel missionaries to China, Theodore Hamberg and Rudolf LEchler, in the year 1847 after recruitment by the German missionary Karl Gutzlaff, see: “Basel Mission delegates visit Mainland China and Taiwan”, November 27, 1985, Union of Catholic Asian News; and, Daniel H. Bays, Christianity in China: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present, 1999, Stanford University Press
135. Jessie G. Lutz, “The legacy of Rudolf Christian Friedrich Lechler”, January 1, 2007, International Bulletin of Missionary Research; and, 浩然, “潮汕教會不忘黎牧開基恩德“, July 22, 2007, Christian Weekly
136. 佩蘭軒, the house where Rev. Lechler and Rev. W. C. Burns preached and taught school and where my great-great-grandfather was baptized by Burns, became a legend mentioned in regional Christianity-related literatures, see: “「我福之源」在佩蘭軒“, (article with old photo of the house) February 11, 2001, Christian Weekly; the school is also recognized as the first Christian school in this region, see: 陈卓坤, “潮汕教会女学知多少“, February 16, 2009, Shantou Special Administrative Region Evening News
137. Islay Burns, Memoir of the Rev. William C. Burns, M.A., 1870, James Nisbet & Co., London
138. The eastern region of Guangdong province is known for the city of Shantou (Swatow), the modern port city where the Shantou Mission Hospital – today Shantou City Second People’s Hospital – was located, but at the time was more known as the Chaozhou prefecture centered at the city of Chaozhou where the William Burns Memorial Hospital was founded; see: “医院历史” (with old photo of Dr. William Gauld – 吴威廉), website of Shantou City Second People’s Hospital; and, “南关外“番仔楼”” (about original buildings left from the former William Burns Memorial Hospital), gdcct.gov.cn
139. For facts about the elder Mr. Qi LIN who in 1860-61 invited Rev. Burns to revive the village church, and about one his sons receiving medical training from Dr. William Gauld, see: Joseph Tse-Hei Lee, The Bible and the gun: Christianity in South China, 1860-1900, 2003, Routledge; short bios of Rev. Dr. Ling and Dr. Lin, who were among the first Chinese doctors of Western medicine in the Shantou region (with Lin about 8 years Ling’s junior), were recorded in the Centennial publication of the local church, which is among Chinese Churches collections in Shanghai Municipal Archives; see: “中国教会文献目录—-上海市档案馆珍藏资料专题介绍“, website of Shanghai Municipal Archives
140. A. Donald MacLeod, “George Leslie MacKay (1844-1901): ‘Far Formosa Is Dear To My Heart”, Volume 17, Number 1, 2001, Channel magazine
141. George Leslie Mackay and James Alexander MacDonald, From Far Formosa: The Island, Its People and Missions, 1895, Adamant Media Corporation; “Hobe Mackay Hospital”, website of Tamsui Township Office; “Huwei Mackay Hospital”, website of Tamsui Historical Museum; and, “Mackay Memorial Hospital: Historical Roots”, website of Mackay Memorial Hospital, Taiwan
142. For Mackay being elected Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, see: George Leslie Mackay and James Alexander MacDonald, Ibidem
143. For Mackay’s various achievements and his successor Rev. William Gauld, see: George Leslie Mackay and James Alexander MacDonald, ibidem; and, “The beauty of Taiwan Theological College and Seminary”, website of Taiwan Theological College and Seminary; about Dr. William Gauld founding Shantou Mission Hospital, see: “Dr Lewis Paton album of missionary work in China”, Cambridge University Library: Royal Commonwealth Society Library; and, “Presbyterian Church of England Foreign Missions Committee: Lingtung/Swatow”, The School of Oriental and African Studies Library, University of London
144. “Tamsui through History”, website of Tamsui Township Office; and, Hsin-yi Lu, The Politics of Locality: Making a Nation of Communities in Taiwan, 2002, Routledge
145. For the name of the village in Shantou region where Rev. Lechler founded a church, and its meaning, see: Joseph Tse-Hei Lee, Ibidem; for the fact that Shantou city had been a fishing village until nearly the mid-19th century, see: “Shantou”, Encyclopaedia Britannica
146. Donald Matheson, John Macgowan, and John Carnegie, Narrative of The Mission to China of the English Presbyterian Church. with Remarks on the Social Life and Religious Ideas of the Chinese, and Notes on Climate, Health and Outfit, 1866, James Nisbet & Co., London
147. For photos of the 2009 parade at Yanzao village, see: “广东汕头盐灶村 人山人海“抢财神”“, February 17, 2009, people.com.cn. A recent academic research article with data on the history of localization of Christianity in Yanzao village, has included mention on current Christian attitudes toward the ritual of ‘dragging-the-idol’, see: 林春雨 (LIN Chun-yu), “基督教本土化进程及方式——以汕头市盐灶乡为个案“, Journal of Shantou University (Humanities Edition), Volume 19, Supp, 2003
148. “Free Church of Scotland: Scottish Protestant denomination”, Encyclopaedia Britannica
149. William Fitch, “Knox Church, The Early Years”, adapted by Vickie Wood from Knox Church Toronto; Avant-Garde, Evangelical, Advancing, 1971, John Deyell Ltd. and, Ian S. Rennie, “A Brief History of Knox Church”, 1995, website of Knox Presbyterian Church, Toronto
150. Daniel H. Bays, Christianity in China: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present, 1999, Stanford University Press; Carl T. Smith and Christopher Munn, Chinese Christians: elites, middlemen, and the Church in Hong Kong, 2005, Hong Kong University Press; and, Jessie Gregory Lutz, Opening China: Karl F. A. Gutzlaff and Sino-Western Relations, 1827-1852, 2008, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
151. “Stevie Cameron”, website of author Stevie Cameron
152. Claire Hoy, “This time Mulroney has reason to gloat”, November 20, 1997, Star-Phoenix
153. Arthur Milnes, “Parties held for Sir John A.”, December 16, 2000, Kingston Whig-Standard; and, Michael Bliss, “’Chretien knew the drill’”, November 8, 2003, National Post
154. Joan Bryden, “18 more months; Chretien to retire in February 2004 to ‘end fighting’”, August 22, 2002, The Windsor Star; and, Renata D’Aliesio, “Time for PM to go, young Liberals say: The Liberals: What now?”, August 23, 2002, Edmonton Journal
155. Martin Regg Cohn, “India Sikhs fete PM at holiest site; Thousands shower Chretien with ‘love’; Golden Temple caps last trip to Asia”, October 26, 2003, Toronto Star; Mike Blanchfield, “PM marks 10 years in office as Liberals bicker”, October 26, 2003, The Ottawa Citizen; Susan Delacourt, “Liberals prepare for transition of power; No exact retirement date yet, PM says Paul Martin is starting to exert more control”, October 29, 2003, Toronto Star; Robert Fife, “PM sends signals he’ll quit within a month”, October 31, 2003, The Ottawa Citizen; and, Anne Dawson, “Chretien tells Martin he’ll step down Dec. 12 – but only after a last foray on international stage”, November 19, 2003, The Gazette
156. At the Commonwealth summit, Chretien was part of a leaders’ panel deciding on what to do with Zimbabwe, and although Chretien expressed hope for compromise, he and Australian Prime Minister John Howard on the panel stood by the western principles of human rights and democracy and recommended continued suspension, while along a racial line the African member nations protested the decision as “undemocratic’; on the subject of corruption Chretien also took a strong position which he knew would not make him popular in Africa; see: Randall Palmer, “PM to seek compromise on Zimbabwe suspension; Proposes committee to monitor progress; Country’s readmission tops agenda in Nigeria”, December 4, 2003, Toronto Star; Anne Dawson, “Canada tells Africa to end corruption”, December 5, 2003, The Ottawa Citizen; Alan Freeman, “Chretien named to task force on Zimbabwe”, December 6, 2003, The Globe and Mail; Anne Dawson, “Zimbabwe quits Commonwealth”, December 8, 2003, Times-Colonist; Bruce Cheadle, “Debate posed ‘danger’: Chretien”, Kingston Whig-Standard; and, Anne Dawson, “Zimbabwe ‘bulldozed,’ Africans say”, December 9, 2003, National Post
157. Bruce Wallace, “Italian PM: I’m ‘too busy’ for Canada”, November 25, 2003, The Ottawa Citizen; and, Anne Dawson, “Chretien’s whirlwind farewell”, December 13, 2003, The Vancouver Sun
158. Susan Delacourt, “Liberals talk law and order; Party introduces plan to combat violent crime as fear becomes campaign issue”, April 23, 1993, The Globe and Mail; Terrence Wills, “A new era: PM urges shattered Tories to rebuild”, October 26, 1993, The Windsor Star; and, Jim Bronskill, “RCMP vindicate Mulroney”, April 23, 2003, The Gazette
159. David Stonehouse, “Mulroney says PM is cheating Martin: ‘Unfortunate’ reluctance to step down appears to be aimed at frustrating ex-minister”, August 29, 2002, The Ottawa Citizen; Peter C. Newman, “If it weren’t so silly, it would be funny: PM makes longest goodbye since the Rolling Stones”, December 28, 2002, National Post; and, “Prime Ministers of Canada – Gallery”, Government of Canada
160. When Jean Chretien eventually stepped down on December 12, 2003 he was the only modern Canadian prime minister to retire in December; the only other ones to do so had been John Thompson in 1894, and Arthur Meighen’s first stint (not really retirement) in 1920; Chretien’s intent to retire in February 2004 then stepping down three months early in December 2003, two years later might be an example for former Supreme Court Justice John C. Major, a friend of Karlheinz Schreiber, to follow, who retired on Christmas 2005 ahead of his mandatory retirement at 75 on February 20, 2006 (Justice Major’s retirement is mentioned in the Notes of an earlier part of this blog article, not only for his association with Schreiber but also for the fact that my late father – two years his junior – shared birthday with Mr. Major); the last Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada to retire in December was Mr. Bora Laskin on December 27, 1973; see: “Prime Ministers of Canada – Gallery”, Government of Canada; “Supreme Court justice to retire; Departure date Christmas Day; John Major joined top court in 1992”, August 4, 2005, Toronto Star; and, “Judges of the Court – Current and Former Puisne Judges”, Supreme Court of Canada
161. Tony Reinhart, “Chretien’s track record on law-and-order issues criticized by Reformer”, May 8, 1993, The (Kitchener-Waterloo) Record; and, Kenneth Whyte, “Election ‘93 The Vote: Reform works a small miracle; Essay: Winning seats in Parliament is only the beginning for Preston Manning. He’s determined to succeed where Alberta’s Peter Lougheed and western Conservatives failed, and change the country’s political system to better represent regional interests”, October 26, 1993, The Globe and Mail
162. Susan Delacourt, “Liberals talk law and order; Party introduces plan to combat violent crime as fear becomes campaign issue”, April 23, 1993, The Globe and Mail
163. Rosemary Speirs, “Rock’s battle for control over guns hasn’t ended yet”, November 5, 1996, Toronto Star; Ingrid Peritz, “Mothers urge public to defend gun control; Two speak out as anniversary of Montreal massacre nears”, December 5, 1996, Edmonton Journal; Joan Bryden, “Chretien champions gun control: Conservative leader defends stance while conceding need for some type of registry”, May 22, 1997, The Record; and, Hubert Bauch, “Chretien takes shot at Charest on gun control: PM accuses Tory leader of hunting for Reform votes”, May 22, 1997, The Ottawa Citizen
164. Rosemary Speirs, “Tories called ‘bully boys’ toward natives”, April 25, 1989, Toronto Star; and, Claire Hoy, “PM’s stance on Constitution guarantees hostility”, September 2, 1992, The Windsor Star
165. Stevie Cameron, Blue trust: the author, the lawyer, his wife, and her money, 1998, MacFarlane Walter & Ross
166. Other sources of information indicate that Raynold Langlois, the lead lawyer for Lynne Walters Verchere from around March 1992 to the time of her husband’s death in August 1993, recovering money from her husband Bruce Verchere, was son of a former Liberal senator, was himself a former chairman of the constitutional committee of the Quebec Liberal Party, and had earned a lot of legal fees from the former Trudeau government; see: “Ottawa spends millions on outside legal work, lists show”, September 12, 1985, The Globe and Mail; and, L. Ian MacDonald, From Bourassa to Bourassa: wilderness to restoration, 2002, McGill University-Queen’s University Press
167. In the Notes of an earlier part of this blog article it is mentioned that one of Mulroney’s lawyers for his 1995-97 Airbus Affair lawsuit against the Liberal government and the RCMP was Roger Tasse, a former deputy justice minister under Jean Chretien in the Trudeau era; in recent years there have been more such mixed use of lawyers between the Mulroney people and the Chretien people in political cases: in 2003 Raynold Langlois was embarrassed to learn that Eric Simard, a lawyer assisting him in 2002 representing the Business Development Bank of Canada in a case related to a controversial loan made to then prime minister Jean Chretien’s electoral riding, who was also a regional vice president of the Quebec wing of the federal Liberal Party, had been sharing a bank account with Jean Carle, former director of operations in the Prime Minister’s Office, and using the money to defend Chretien’s Liberal leadership just one week before Chretien’s sudden announcement of intent to step down; in 2007, Raynold Langlois represented Judge John Gomery to fend off a court appeal from Jean Chretien and associates over the inquiry into the Liberal sponsorship scandal, where the lawyer representing Chretien’s former chief of staff Jean Pelletier in the inquiry and in the appeal was Guy Pratte – today Brian Mulroney’s lead lawyer in the Oliphant inquiry into the Mulroney-Schreiber affair; see: Andrew McIntosh, “Lawyer, ex-aide to PM shared bank account”, October 15, 2003, National Post; Kathryn May, “Chretien’s aides linked to scandal, Guite says”, November 4, 2004, Times-Colonist; Jack Aubry, “Chretien’s lawyer wins access to Gomery e-mails; Judge was preoccupied with media coverage of sponsorship inquiry, appeal court told”, March 30, 2007, National Post; and, Norma Greenaway, “Mulroney tried to scuttle payments story: writer; Author felt ‘duped’ and ‘disturbed’”, April 24, 2009, the Gazette
168. Stephen Bindman, “Minister considers ban on handguns in Canada”, April 12, 1994, Calgary Herald; David Vieneau, “Gun law shoots through”, Jun 14, 1995, Toronto Star; and, “Federal gun registry has not improved public safety despite costing taxpayers more than $2 billion”, July 5, 2007, Canada NewsWire
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