Thank You Link Byfield

...one of the Wildrose party's "trouble" candidates:

As a personal note, Joanne and I are thrilled to have met so many fine new friends. Together we can all be proud that we fought a clean campaign, we almost won, and we will win next time.

And I'm sure Alison Redford also thanks you.  And those of us who first discovered your Alberta Report this time out, but didn't have near time to extract and publicize all the crazy shit in it,we thank you too.

Link Byfield Going Down?

 Westlock County Councillor Maureen Kubinec placed highest among our poll takers with 41.43 per cent of the vote. Kubinec was followed by former Alberta Report publisher Link Byfield with 30 per cent of the poll vote.

An "informal" poll, unfortunately, so it doesn't tell us much.  More links on Link here and here.

WildRose Candidate Once Ran Afoul Of Human Rights Commision

After posting this on the 1999 meetup of Wildrose candidate Link Byfield and White Nationalist Paul Fromm, I got to thinking of an old on-line document I stumbled over once while doing something else.  This one in particular.  It pertains to a 2002 Alberta HRCC (Human Rights and Citizenship Commission) complaint brought by Harvey Kane of the Jewish Defense League against The Alberta Report and several of its employees, including Link Byfield and his brother Michael.  It concerns an article, A Canmore mall project ends in a bitter feud, which ran in The Report on October 13th of 1997, during which time Link Byfield served as the publication's editor.  Kane felt that the content of the article was anti-Semitic.  One can see his point; it concludes thusly:

One professional planner comments on the failed project: "North American commercial real estate is dominated by firms that often happen to be Jewish-owned [e.g., Oshawa and Canmore Development]. The retail sector is much the same. Like cliques everywhere, some of these people tend to deal with each other, and Mr. Schickedanz is an outsider."

Mr. Kane's complaint bounced around the Alberta legal system for awhile: if I am reconstructing the time-line correctly, it was dismissed, appealed, won by Mr. Kane, overturned, and I believe was due to be heard again before the trail of on-line documents goes dead.  In any case, during the to and fro, Mr. Byfield penned a classic of spittle-flecked fury to the chief commissioner of the AHRC:

...you have thus raised yourselves to a position of unprecedented power over social discussion. No one may now publicly offend the feelings of those whom you decide to see as "vulnerable": Natives, single moms, gays, drag queens, wiccans, immigrants, nerds, feminists, Muslim extremists, abortionists, overly emotional teachers, violent black rap singers, incompetent soldierettes, the overweight, anorexics, drug addicts, welfare recipients and vagrants, victims of transsexual mutilation...but rather than making us all guess, perhaps you could send us a list of stereotypical victims whose feelings may never be hurt.

Nor were these necessarily the weirdest things that made it into the The Report during Byfield's time at the helm.  In  its May 2000 B.C. edition Kevin Michael Grace penned "Is It Kosher?" (see page 116 through link), which contains a number of quotes from "an oddball Ukrainian Nationalist" named Lubomyr Prytulak.  For example:

Kosher labels, which are arcane and various, are authorized by various Jewish organizations. The costs to producers and consumers is largely secret, although a 1975 New York Times article cited by Mr. Prytulak claims that costs levied at that time ranged "from $250 for 'mom-and-pop' operations to $40,000 for a multi-plant corporation." Given that non-Jews consume most kosher food, Mr. Prytulak characterizes kosher labelling as a "Jewish tax." He adds, "I've got to admit that the kosher tax is unlike other taxes in more ways than one. For example, if the government levies a tax, then at least the consumer knows how large it is and can pretty much see what the tax revenue is being spent on, whereas he knows neither of these in the case of the kosher tax."

And:

Mr. Prytulak would be happy with what he calls "truth in labelling": "I simply advocate that the presently meaningless kosher labels be accompanied by the word 'KOSHER' and the Magen David or six-pointed star. Package labelling should inform all consumers, and not send a secret message to a small group."

This latter piece triggered a complaint by, of all people, Ezra Levant:

At first, the magazine stonewalled him. But in the end, he got his way. The editor printed a rebuttal, and even admitted publicly that publishing the Jew-tax article had been dumb.

So there you have it.

The Cold Hand Of Censorhip, Conservative Style!

Writer, Columnist, and Senator in Waiting Link Byfield, on Mark Steyn:

We may not like talk like that, or opinions like Mark Steyn's. But just because they offend us does not mean governments in a free society should stop them. Governments can no more control public opinion than King Canute could hold back the tide.

Now, Link Byfield is an executive of the Wildrose Party of Alberta. The Wildrose Party of Alberta is currently in the process of merging with their former Nemisis, the Alberta Alliance Party, into the "Wildrose Alliance". And (and here's my point) the remnants of the Alberta Alliance Party are issuing legal threats against an Alberta-based blog (the Alberta Alliance Watch) for reporting on this merger in unflattering terms. Specifically:


The response I did receive [from the AAAP] came in the form of a complaint about yours truly filed with another website. I hold an account on scribd.com, otherwise known as the "youtube for documents". It allows members to publish, share, and discuss all sorts of written files. As this post indicates, I uploaded some completely accurate copies of publicly available Alberta Alliance documents, namely, a copy of the Alberta Alliance's 2006 constitution, and 2006 Policy Book. The Alberta Alliance is now asserting that this amounts to a copyright violation, and are demanding that scribd.com pull the files.

The Alberta Alliance's complaint can be read here. They are apparently quite proud of it. Notice how Jane Morgan has redacted the URLs, and cc'd the thing to the Party President, Randy Thorsteinson.

The AAP wants to silence this guy. To that end, they're trying to stop him from hosting older version of documents that, in the case of their policy book, they have in the past and continue to give away for free via their websites.

Surprisingly, there's a plug for free speech pretty high up among their core principles.

So, Link, your new party is making a fool of you, and a mockery of its own principles. Step up and give 'em heck! And as for everyone else, LOOK! More hypocrisy from Conservatives over Free Speech! Oh My! I am SO shocked!

h/t buckets.

Update: Jane Morgan of the AAP speaks in the comments:

To set the record straight. One email was sent to "request" the old documents be removed. Period, end of story.Let me be crystal clear; NO legal action what-so-ever has been or will be taken.

Jane Morgan, CFO Alberta Alliance Party#3,

Thought the guy at AA Watch would panic, did you?