Straight Talk: How are you involved with the Freedom Party of Ontario?

Emery: I'm largely responsible for getting our members together to work in the community. You see, Freedom Party is founded on a principle very different from all the other parties. It's founded on the principle that government has a very specific task: the courts, police, and military --- for our protection, in order to have a functional civilized society.

As a party, it's one thing to be able to say that, but you have to get that message out to people to prove that it works. Our job is to get involved with issues like the Pan-Am Games. We have to get out with the people --- point out the benefits of what we're doing, Work hard for them, save them money, save their freedom of choice, and only then will they come to respect us and look upon us as a viable party.

We have to put our beliefs and our efforts right where the public can see them. When we were involved earlier this year fighting censorship, we were the only party doing so. We've put our reputation on the line because that's the kind of party that we are. Because for us, the next provincial election will barely produce a nominal number of votes --- nothing sensational at all. The next four years after the election are what's important. That's when we'll be working day in and day out to show the public that we really care, more than just about votes, but about getting real events to happen.

The great bulk of (Freedom Party's members) are in London, and that's important because these people are together, working. They're out delivering these (Pan-Am) pamphlets as we speak; they're writing letters to the Free Press, they're giving money, and they're getting involved in the community in a number of ways.

We've also produced literature for outside groups like the employees at Eaton's who didn't want to have a union there. We designed a pamphlet for their benefit to be given out to other employees, an effort which proved to be very, very successful.

It's things like that that we consider to be legitimate 'political' activity. We'll soon have a campus association ratified at the University of Western Ontario, formed by students there who'll be promoting free-market, civil liberty ideals through that association just like we do in the community. So there's lots going on and we're constantly at it.

Straight Talk: How does Freedom Party's approach differ from previous similar efforts?

Emery: Freedom Party's approach is totally different: In addition to our proven marketing strategy, we believe that the only way to earn respect from people in the community is to work with them --- in their interest --- and thus enable them to understand, through our activities, what we mean. Not just by enunciating a philosophy that doesn't really mean anything when it's pie-in-the-sky theory.

Straight Talk: Are you pleased with the results of the federal election?

Emery: Well, I think that Canadians simply voted for a change without really having too many expectations about what they were getting. Of course, some disappointment is going to set in really quickly where we see the Conservatives raising the very taxes that they previously criticized, or where we see Sinclair Stevens now bailing out compaines when he formerly criticized that approach as being the wrong thing to do with companies.

So the Conservatives are adopting many Liberal policies and a lot of Liberal tactics. They may appear to be better 'managers', but this country's economic malaise will still continue.

Additionally, I think that we're going to see a much greater degree of censorship in this country, and that's very frightening. It was certainly bound to happen under the N.D.P. or the Liberals, but I think it's going to accelerate under the Conservatives. Unfortunately, we won't really see any meaningful changes at all.

Straight Talk: Will that spill over to the provincial election?

Emery: People vote not so much on issues or on what is right or wrong, as on 'who wins' elections, or whether they 'like' a candidate or not, whether they 'trust' him (trusting a politician, to me, seems like such a ludicrous concept) --- but these are the things that people actually think about before going to the polls. What Freedom Party will attempt to do is to try to attract those people who actually believe that there is a right and wrong in issues, that there is a moral purpose to government: that government's role is to be a peacemaker and referee and not to be one of the players, playing against you half the time, playing with you some of the other times, or in the stands cheering or booing you the other part of the time. We think that government has a very distinct role, and we know that there are people out there who believe that and we know that we're eventually going to appeal to them and get them on our side. It's a slow process though, and we have to continually maintain a realistic perspective on expectations.

Straight Talk: Is there any particular issue that you would like to see addressed?

Emery: Clearly, the most ominous and visible sign of our continuing loss of freedom in this country is the corresponding increase in censorship. The degree of rhetoric I've seen from all areas of our political spectrum --- from the N.D.P., Liberals, Conservatives, from the public --- is almost unprecedented. We've seen letters asking for the works of famous authors like Leon Uris to be banned because it's considered 'hate' literature. There's even been an investigation into the movie Red Dawn to determine if it is 'hate' material, under the claim that it incites hatred against the Communists. There are numerous examples of various sexually-explicit and non-sexually-explicit material falling under the censor's razor. Even anti-war videos have been censored.

It's really scary. And it's going to get worse until people really get together and shout 'Enough is enough!' You cannot draw a line with censorship. You have to be against any kind of government prior restraint, without variation. Once you make a concession to any kind of censorship, you've opened the floodgates.

People must be firm on this issue. It's either one or the other: Either we're going to live in a controlled society or we're not goirig to have a controlled society. This will become a big issue for a lot of people in the coming decade because things are going to get much worse.

Straight Talk: Marc Emery, Action Director of the Freedom Party of Ontario, what would you like to leave us with?

Emery: I'd like to say that anybody who'd like to help out with Freedom Party in any way is more than welcome to do so. We don't demand that you have to agree with us on everything; in fact, we're always glad to help out people who just want to concentrate on single issues. There's lots to do for people of all backgrounds and interests. We've offered information and research to students to help them out with projects. We've testified before many government commissions, giving us a lot of good material and experience to draw on for anyone interested in freedom.

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Page last updated on April 28, 2002