When Freedom Party launched its limited-run prototype 1988 Calendar of Individual Freedom back in December 1987, we had no idea that our members and the public would find it to be such a fascinating product. Little did we realize that within the year, we would be marketing 9,000 1989 calendars as part of our renewed emphasis on education.

Possibly no other single undertaking by Freedom Party has accomplished more in terms of expanding the party's reputation --- not only in Ontario, but across Canada, the United States, and around the world. (See letters section of this issue for sampling of responses, criticisms, reactions, etc.)

Although it is a wall calendar, Freedom Party's 1989 Calendar of Individual Freedom is an item you could sit down with and actually read. Each date has been highlighted to commemorate either a positive or negative event in the history of individual freedom. The colour red was used to indicate our assessment of a negative event and the colour green to indicate a positive event.

All in all, the calendar makes for a remarkable chronicle of freedom's past, and may even serve as an indicator of freedom's future. Did you know, for example, that Canadian women were not legally declared to be "persons" until October 18, 1929? --- or that Ontario's Health Insurance Plan (OHIP), already well on its way to bankruptcy, was passed into law as recently as February 18, 1966? --- or that the world's first income tax was introduced in Great Britain on January 7, 1798?

Those are but a few of the hundreds of interesting items and facts chronicled in the 1989 Calendar of Individual Freedom, which has been printed in both a Canadian and American edition. But the calendar is much more than a listing of events. Each month features a profile of one of freedom's greatest advocates --- an individual whose work or influence has played a positive role in the advancement of individual freedom.

Who are these champions of individual liberty and freedom? Here's our 1989 list: Milton Friedman (January), Walter Block (February), Adam Smith (March), Ludwig Von Mises (April), William Lyon MacKenzie (May-Canadian only), Josiah Warren (May-US only), Henry David Thoreau (June), Thomas Jefferson (July), Murray Rothbard (August), Margaret Thatcher (September-Canadian only), Walter E. Williams (September-US only), Maria Montessori (October), Percy Bysshe Shelley (November- Canadian only), Clarence Seward Darrow (November-US only), Ayn Rand (December).

Complimentary copies of the 1989 Calendar of Individual Freedom have been mailed to every daily newspaper in North America and to a host of free-market organizations around the world. Regrettably, we often have no way of knowing if any of those organizations or publications have made use of our calendar, though eventually many do manage to come to our attention (see endorsements accompanying this article).

Needless to say, interest in our calendar has increased awareness and interest in Freedom Party itself. If you haven't got your copy yet, now's the time to do it. Although originally sold at $6.95 each, you can now get a copy at bulk rate prices: $2.99 post-paid!

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Page last updated on June 3, 2002