Freedom Flyer March - April 1984 Cover

Freedom Flyer 2

the official newsletter of the
Freedom Party of Ontario

March - April 1984




Article electronically reproduced from:

The London Free Press

February 18, 1984


Marc Emery: He's against big government and thinks most people agree

By Chip Martin
of The Free Press

"I like myself. I really do. It's no secret that I adore myself, really."

This is Marc Emery. Never at a loss for words. And this is how he explains his nonsmoking and near-abstinence. Such activities, he believes, might affect his ability to be "lucid" and properly express his strong philosophical views.

The maverick London bookstore owner and publisher has an inate ability tro antagonize or motivate others in his fight for individual freedom and against government encroachment. He tends to polarize people. It's hard to ignore him.

"Supporting the freedom to read smut just doesn't sound good."

Emery admits this as he argues against restrictions on pornographic material that are sought by London feminists. Emery believes people should be free to do and read what they want, then live with the consequences, free of government intervention. He's a dedicated believer in author Ayn Rand who espouses freedom and warns of the dangers of individuals becoming enslaved to the state. He also loves George Orwell for his novel 1984.

"I was born to do this."

This is Emery's explanation of why he feels compelled to spread his gospel of individualism through his political activities and as a publisher.

***

The 26-year-old owner of City Lights Bookshop on Richmond Street has made headlines because he is in constant conflict with the government-assisted group of local businessmen known as the London Downtown Improvement Area.

He took the group to court and fought it at city hall for "confiscating" money from core businesses and then implementing improvement schemes without the support of those businesses. He calculates he lost $20,000 in his unsuccessful three-year war.

Emery defends freedom of speech and objects strongly to any plan to regulate or license stores that sell sexually explicit magazines and books. In so doing, he finds himself defending pornography. He is strongly opposed by the London Status of Women Action Group, which argues that material such as he sells encourages exploitation and degradation of women and encourages violence toward women and children.

Tackling both groups has given him his media exposure and he positively revels in his role as a high-profile example of individual freedom.

"I consider myself my adversaries' worst nightmare," he says. "I regard myself as a principled idealist who just won't give up his mind.

"I won't compromise on anything. I find there is no purpose to it. In the long run, it's the people with principles who triumph over everybody else. Because if everybody else is willing to compromise, they are going to come my way. And if I remain firm, I am going to lure them."

Emery says his used bookstore does about $110,000 in business a year and he earns another $5,000 a year by operating 15 downtown sidewalk kiosks for the city.

He's proud of the business acumen he discovered as a youngster. Emery parlayed profits from a paper route into a mail order business in used comic books he operated while in high school. The success of this business prompted him to leave Sir Wilfred Laurier Secondary School before completing Grade 12.

He was itching to get out of school and into the business world where he was sure he would be a success. Mother Eileen (who had wanted him to attend Harvard and become a doctor) used to write covering notes when he cut classes to tend to business.

He's a high school dropout who is proud of that fact. "I was one of those excellent students who was inordinately bright, but so bright that I was bored. I would be bringing the house down all the time. My idea of a good time was to take away the control from the teacher and install myself as the main influence in the class."

Marc is one of four children of Alfred and Eileen Emery. An older brother, Steve, is a history student at the University of Western Ontario. Younger brother Matthew works at General Motors in Oshawa and younger sister Jacqueline is a store clerk.

Emery describes his father as a strong disciplinarian who would nevertheless let his children have plenty of freedom provided they pais the consequences of bad judgement.

When the young Emery quit school, he sold his mail order business for $6,000. His father, a supervisor at 3M Canada Ltd., borrowed $10,000 so his son could acquire the Richmond Street property for his bookstore.

In April, 1975, Emery began his used book venture and things were tough at first. He had to earn $90 a day to break even, without beginning to pay back his father. He was making about $22 a day at first

But he dug in his heels and worked 16-hour days.

"A lot of people out there would love to see me fail," he recalls reminding himself at the time.

"I just said to myself I'm not going to have to ever say that I failed. There's no way they are ever going to be able to say I didn't accomplish it. I just refused to concede to it.

"I just reshaped the store into my image, that was the key thing. I had to use my personality to attract my kind of customer. Within three months the place was a beehive of activity."

Within six months he was "making a real killing," he says. And he paid his father back. Soon after, he bought a modest house on Oxford Street East.

He says he is now financially able to maintain a "pretty meagre" lifeatyle and finance his political and publishing activities.

"My objective isn't to make money," he says. "I have total freedom. I can literally pursue any philosophical or political adventure at any time without any notice and have enough money to do what is necessary."

Twice he has run for politics. In 1980 he ran as a Libertarian candidate in the federal election in London East. He drew 197 votes and placed a distant fourth ahead of a Marxist-Leninist.

He has since abandoned the Libertarians ("too philosophical") for first his now-defunct Enterprise Party, then more recently the Freedom Party (both oppose big government).

In 1982 he ran as alderman in Ward 3, drawing more than 2,500 votes and placing fourth. He plans to keep running in the east London Ward until he wins.

"I'm young," he points out, adding he hopes electors in that part of the city will eventually reward him for his hard work.

There is no doubt he is a determined young man. Case in point: his vasectomy.

Nearly three years ago he married Sandy, 32, who runs the Maria Montessori school in the London Children's Museum building. She brought with her two sons, Jason, now 9, and Nathan, now 7.

But about two years before that Emery was convinced his political and philosophical notions left no room for children.

"I went to such great efforts at an early age to get a vasectomy and then I end up marrying into children. It took me two years to get one... I never did want children. I realized at an early age I had my whole future mapped out for me. There were things I wanted to achieve, like political activity I'm involved in and my newspaper. And there were so many things I wanted to accomplish that I felt to have children would be to cheat them of the attention children should get."

However, he says he does find time for fatherhood. He is involved in minor soccer, cubs and the Optimists.

Publishing remains his special love. He lost about $30,000 on the London Tribune which he founded, then bailed out from in late 1980. He still shakes his head about how he did "everything wrong" with that ill-fated venture which went on to lose about $250,000 in its nine-month life.

He blames it on compromise. And the fact that he didn't have total control of the paper. Emery said he learned plenty about dealing with people and about the nuances of publishing. "It's the best investment I ever made."

He now publishes London Metrobulletin, a four times-a-year tabloid that warns of the danger of big government and looks at local events from the Emery perspective. He estimates he has lost about $10,000 on its first four issues but he will continue to publish it because he needs a public for his views.

He has hit the occasional snag, like the libel suit a city policeman launched following a story about the bust of a downtown tavern. That suit is still before the courts.

Emery says he tries to take his philosophy, translate it into real-world problems and prove to the silent public that the state is evil.

"I've got to make sure that when I say the state is evil, I've got to make sure they know how it's affecting them. That's just marketing. That's the way we sell a product in our world. That's the way we promote an idea."

The publisher-philosopher concedes he's fighting an uphill battle to win converts to his views, but he insists the silent majority - 90 per cent - of the public shares his dislike for big government and its intrusion into everyday life.

"What we have is a very noisy 10 per cent of people advocating more government involvement and they're professional sociologists and psychologists and busybodies."

Whatever the future holds for him, Emery makes one thing clear. He's going to keep fighting for his ideals and being a thorn in the side of left-wingers and friends of big government. He has his work cut out. And he realizes it will take time to win converts.

"If you keep hammering away, people start to trust you."

What others think of him

Gail Hutchinson, spokesman for the London Status of Women Action Group which wants government control on pornographic material: "He's not much to contend with. He doesn't have a leg to stand on. Every time he opens his mouth, he sways people to our side ... He admits he makes much of his money off pornography. I like it when he opens his mouth."

John Inch, marketing manager for the Downtown London Improvement Area which Emery has spent years and $20,000 trying to undermine: "He's a very bright individual, but sometimes misdirected. I'm not saying he's right or wrong. I give him a lot of marks for his principle ... is that political enough?"

James Weaver, Richmond Street merchant and sometime supporter of Emery: "He keeps things moving. You agree with him or you don't agree. He gets people off the wishy-washy ... He gets other people into action ... He gets troublemaker label from those who oppose him, from people whose boat he's rocking."

Don McQueen, Emery's history teacher at Sir Wilfred Laurier Secondary School: "He's not conventional in his thinking ... I see him looking at problems and then looking at unique solutions ... Other teachers saw him as a smart aleck ... He reads people so well ... He's just really turned on by life ... just a joy to work with."

Rob Martin, University of Western Ontario law professor and 1979 NDP candidate in London East whom Emery helped before his conversion to Libertarian thought: "Marc Emery is a living illustration of the principle that a little education can be a dangerous thing ... The combination of his little education and his enormous ego creates an especially dangerous thing. The reason Marc Emery is so dangerous and so nasty is because he is a complete idealogue. He views the world entirely in ideological terms, rather than looking at the reality of the world ... He's utterly unaware of the vicious effects that his ideas - if they were ever to be implemented which thank God I don't think they ever will - would have on the real lives of real men and women."

...and what he thinks of others

A sampling of the collected thoughts of Marc Emery, laissez-faire capitalist, philosopher- publisher, bane of the establishment:

  • On London insurance executive Colin Brown and the National Citizen's Coalition who want "more freedom through less government":

    "They're pseudo-socialists. Any group that concedes their government has a role to play in economic policy is lending credibility to the socialists. They're not capitalistic enough." Emery also complains it was this group that trod on individual liberties when, during the 1970s, it launched its infamous "Turn In A Pusher" campaign. "But I admire their professionalism in promoting themselves."

  • On the unemployed: "Most people who are unemployed are unemployed by choice. They should develop other work skills to get through bad periods. Everybody has the ability to develop a skill. It's a major mistake to consider that someone else owes you a job."

  • On Ronald Reagan: "His policies are good but that deficit is just too much. He's done terrific things in deregulation."

  • On the Libertarian Party, for whom he once ran for office: "They're too philosophical. It's a philosophy club. You have to be practical, you have to win."

  • On government and the law: "The purpose of government is to protect us from being violated by others. I don't regard anything two people do peacefully as a crime."

  • On morals: "It's up to parents to instill a moral code in their children and enforce it."

  • On author Ayn Rand whose book, The Fountainhead, he reads and rereads religiously: "She most clearly and succinctly epitomizes the social system I would like to see ... if a person reads her work they have a very clear decision to make. Either man is to be free and left to make responsible decisions for himself or man is enslaved to the state which will make those decisions for him."


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