John H. Long
Encyclopedia
John H. Long is a Canadian
political figure. He has sought election to the Canadian House of Commons
and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario
on five occasions and has run for the leadership of the Social Credit Party of Canada
, the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada
, and the Canadian Alliance
. He is strongly influenced by social credit
economic theories and has often called for reform of the Bank of Canada
.
, when he ran as a Social Credit candidate in Waterloo—Cambridge. He sought the party's leadership two years later, following the resignation of Réal Caouette
. Long received thirty-one votes out of 1,143 on the first ballot and withdrew from the contest before the second round. A Montreal Gazette article from this period described him as manufacturer based in Cambridge
, Ontario.
He ran for Cambridge
in the 1977 Ontario provincial election
, appearing on the ballot as an independent candidate. He was presumably still aligned at this time with the federal Social Credit Party, which did not have a provincial affiliate in Ontario. (The official provincial wing of the party had previously been taken over by a group of neo-Nazis, to which Long had no connection.)
Long joined the Liberal Party of Canada
in the 1980s and ran for delegate status at the party's 1984 leadership convention. The Cambridge branch of the party subsequently expelled him, saying that he had tried to recruit new members to support a "fusion" candidate who would be supported by both the Liberals and the New Democratic Party
. (This initiative was undertaken without support from either party.) Long later sought the Progressive Conservative nomination in Cambridge
for the 1988 federal election
.
Long also ran mayor
of Cambridge
in 1985
.
. He promoted monetary reform, called for an end to official bilingualism in Canada, and said that he wanted to succeed John Crow
as governor of the Bank of Canada
. Considered a fringe candidate, he nonetheless appeared at a public debate in Montreal
with Kim Campbell
, Jean Charest
, and other contenders. He received no delegate support and withdrew from the contest before the party's convention. He later sought the Progressive Conservative nomination in Waterloo
for the 1993 federal election
but received only two votes.
Long then ran for Guelph—Wellington in the 1993 election as a candidate of the Canada Party
, an ideological successor to Social Credit. He was sixty years old at the time and lived in Guelph
.
He wanted to seek the Reform Party
nomination for a 1995 by-election
in Brome—Missisquoi
, Quebec
but his candidacy was rejected by the party. He instead ran as a candidate of John Turmel's Abolitionist Party
(another ideological successor to Social Credit) and finished a distant last in a field of ten candidates. He later ran as an independent candidate in Cambridge in the 1997 federal election
.
Long supported the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario
in the 1995 provincial election
. He later criticized party leader Mike Harris
and described the party's "Common Sense Revolution
" as having been a "big bank revolution."
Long was the first declared candidate in the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada's 1998 leadership election. He supported a merger of the Progressive Conservative and Reform parties, favoured bank mergers, and said that the Bank of Canada should set up reserve banks that would leave one hundred per cent of their deposit liabilities with the central bank. He also opposed the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement
and sought to peg the Canadian dollar
at sixty-eight cents relative to the American dollar. During this contest, Long described himself as a "product developer, mechanical engineer, environmentalist and homespun economist." He withdrew from the campaign in July 1998, before voting took place.
Long later sought the leadership of the Canadian Alliance
in 2000, describing himself as a populist
and calling for more plebiscites on controversial issues. Describing right wing and left wing labels as passé, he referred to himself as "an ultra-right-wing libertarian
with a great, big, bushy socialist tail." He once again withdrew from the contest before voting took place.
He sought the Progressive Conservative nomination in Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound
for the 2000 federal election
, but was not given a response by the party. Long reserved the rights to the name, "The Common Sense People's Party of Ontario," with Elections Ontario
in 2002, but he did not seek election under the party name. He does not appear to have been active in politics since this time.
One year after buying the property, Long was informed by the Ontario Ministry of Environment and Energy that he would be required to clean up toxic wastes at the site. The cost was estimated at half a million dollars. Long described the charge as politically motivated, said that the site was not producing new contaminants, and refused to pay.
On December 31, 1993, Long transferred ownership of the site to the Assembly of the Church of the Universe, a religious sect based in Hamilton
devoted to nudism and sacramental marijuana use. He argued that he was no longer responsible for the property after the transfer, although the ministry disagreed. In 1997, he was fined ten thousand dollars for an environmental offense.
Long also purchased an abandoned Kanmet Castings foundry in Cambridge
for one dollar during the same period. In January 1996, he was sentenced to three months in jail and fined seventy-two thousand dollars for the improper storage of PCB
s on the site. This controversy took place during the 1997 election.
The Assembly of the Church of the Universe moved its headquarters from the IMICO foundry in Guelph to the Kanmet foundry in Cambridge in 1998, with Long's permission. The city of Cambridge subsequently tried to evict the church from the foundry, without success. In late 1998, the city of Cambridge reluctantly purchased the foundry from Long for fifty-eight thousand dollars and forgave him nine hundred thousand dollars in back taxes and hydro expenses. The church was forced to leave the Cambridge area shortly thereafter.
Long has also served time in prison for infractions of Ontario's Highway Traffic Act and for refusing to pay a fine for improper labour practices. In addition, he has been fined for evading payment of the retail sales tax. When asked about his convictions in 2000, he said, "I'm not a criminal. I'm a firm believer in civil disobedience
. I'm like Mahatma Gandhi
in that regard."
Provincial
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
political figure. He has sought election to the Canadian House of Commons
Canadian House of Commons
The House of Commons of Canada is a component of the Parliament of Canada, along with the Sovereign and the Senate. The House of Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 308 members known as Members of Parliament...
and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario
Legislative Assembly of Ontario
The Legislative Assembly of Ontario , is the legislature of the Canadian province of Ontario, and is the second largest provincial legislature of Canada...
on five occasions and has run for the leadership of the Social Credit Party of Canada
Social Credit Party of Canada
The Social Credit Party of Canada was a conservative-populist political party in Canada that promoted social credit theories of monetary reform...
, the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada
Progressive Conservative Party of Canada
The Progressive Conservative Party of Canada was a Canadian political party with a centre-right stance on economic issues and, after the 1970s, a centrist stance on social issues....
, and the Canadian Alliance
Canadian Alliance
The Canadian Alliance , formally the Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance , was a Canadian conservative political party that existed from 2000 to 2003. The party was the successor to the Reform Party of Canada and inherited its position as the Official Opposition in the House of Commons and held...
. He is strongly influenced by social credit
Social Credit
Social Credit is an economic philosophy developed by C. H. Douglas , a British engineer, who wrote a book by that name in 1924. Social Credit is described by Douglas as "the policy of a philosophy"; he called his philosophy "practical Christianity"...
economic theories and has often called for reform of the Bank of Canada
Bank of Canada
The Bank of Canada is Canada's central bank and "lender of last resort". The Bank was created by an Act of Parliament on July 3, 1934 as a privately owned corporation. In 1938, the Bank became a Crown corporation belonging to the Government of Canada...
.
Early candidacies
Long first sought election to the Canadian House of Commons in 1974Canadian federal election, 1974
The Canadian federal election of 1974 was held on July 8, 1974 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 30th Parliament of Canada. The governing Liberal Party won its first majority government since 1968, and gave Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau his third term...
, when he ran as a Social Credit candidate in Waterloo—Cambridge. He sought the party's leadership two years later, following the resignation of Réal Caouette
Réal Caouette
David Réal Caouette was a Canadian politician from Quebec. He was a Member of Parliament and leader of the Social Credit Party of Canada and founder of the Ralliement des créditistes...
. Long received thirty-one votes out of 1,143 on the first ballot and withdrew from the contest before the second round. A Montreal Gazette article from this period described him as manufacturer based in Cambridge
Cambridge, Ontario
Cambridge is a city located in Southern Ontario at the confluence of the Grand and Speed rivers in the Regional Municipality of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. It is an amalgamation of the City of Galt, the towns of Preston and Hespeler, and the hamlet of Blair.Galt covers the largest portion of...
, Ontario.
He ran for Cambridge
Cambridge (provincial electoral district)
Cambridge is a provincial electoral district in southwestern, Ontario, Canada. It elects one member to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.It was created in 1975....
in the 1977 Ontario provincial election
Ontario general election, 1977
The Ontario general election of 1977 was held on June 9, 1977, to elect the 125 members of the 31st Legislative Assembly of Ontario of the Province of Ontario, Canada....
, appearing on the ballot as an independent candidate. He was presumably still aligned at this time with the federal Social Credit Party, which did not have a provincial affiliate in Ontario. (The official provincial wing of the party had previously been taken over by a group of neo-Nazis, to which Long had no connection.)
Long joined the Liberal Party of Canada
Liberal Party of Canada
The Liberal Party of Canada , colloquially known as the Grits, is the oldest federally registered party in Canada. In the conventional political spectrum, the party sits between the centre and the centre-left. Historically the Liberal Party has positioned itself to the left of the Conservative...
in the 1980s and ran for delegate status at the party's 1984 leadership convention. The Cambridge branch of the party subsequently expelled him, saying that he had tried to recruit new members to support a "fusion" candidate who would be supported by both the Liberals and the New Democratic Party
New Democratic Party
The New Democratic Party , commonly referred to as the NDP, is a federal social-democratic political party in Canada. The interim leader of the NDP is Nycole Turmel who was appointed to the position due to the illness of Jack Layton, who died on August 22, 2011. The provincial wings of the NDP in...
. (This initiative was undertaken without support from either party.) Long later sought the Progressive Conservative nomination in Cambridge
Cambridge (electoral district)
Cambridge is a federal electoral district in Ontario, Canada, that has been represented in the Canadian House of Commons since 1979. Its population in 2001 was 119,140.-Geography:...
for the 1988 federal election
Canadian federal election, 1988
The Canadian federal election of 1988 was held November 21, 1988, to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 34th Parliament of Canada. It was an election largely fought on a single issue: the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement ....
.
Long also ran mayor
Mayor
In many countries, a Mayor is the highest ranking officer in the municipal government of a town or a large urban city....
of Cambridge
Cambridge, Ontario
Cambridge is a city located in Southern Ontario at the confluence of the Grand and Speed rivers in the Regional Municipality of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. It is an amalgamation of the City of Galt, the towns of Preston and Hespeler, and the hamlet of Blair.Galt covers the largest portion of...
in 1985
Ontario municipal elections, 1985
The 1985 Ontario municipal elections were held on November 12, 1985 to elect mayors, municipal councils, school boards, and hydro commissions in cities, towns and other incorporated communities throughout the Canadian province of Ontario....
.
1990s campaigns
Long campaigned for the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada in 1993, following the resignation of Brian MulroneyBrian Mulroney
Martin Brian Mulroney, was the 18th Prime Minister of Canada from September 17, 1984, to June 25, 1993 and was leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada from 1983 to 1993. His tenure as Prime Minister was marked by the introduction of major economic reforms, such as the Canada-U.S...
. He promoted monetary reform, called for an end to official bilingualism in Canada, and said that he wanted to succeed John Crow
John Crow
John William Crow was the fifth Governor of the Bank of Canada from 1987 to 1994, succeeding Gerald Bouey. He was succeeded by Gordon Thiessen....
as governor of the Bank of Canada
Bank of Canada
The Bank of Canada is Canada's central bank and "lender of last resort". The Bank was created by an Act of Parliament on July 3, 1934 as a privately owned corporation. In 1938, the Bank became a Crown corporation belonging to the Government of Canada...
. Considered a fringe candidate, he nonetheless appeared at a public debate in Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
with Kim Campbell
Kim Campbell
Avril Phædra Douglas "Kim" Campbell, is a Canadian politician, lawyer, university professor, diplomat, and writer. She served as the 19th Prime Minister of Canada, serving from June 25, 1993, to November 4, 1993...
, Jean Charest
Jean Charest
John James "Jean" Charest, PC, MNA is a Canadian politician who has been the 29th Premier of Quebec since 2003. He was leader of the federal Progressive Conservative Party of Canada from 1993 to 1998 and has been leader of the Quebec Liberal Party since 1998....
, and other contenders. He received no delegate support and withdrew from the contest before the party's convention. He later sought the Progressive Conservative nomination in Waterloo
Waterloo (electoral district)
Waterloo was a federal electoral district in Ontario, Canada, that was represented in the Canadian House of Commons from 1968 to 1979. From 1973 to 1976, it was known as Waterloo—Cambridge...
for the 1993 federal election
Canadian federal election, 1993
The Canadian federal election of 1993 was held on October 25 of that year to elect members to the Canadian House of Commons of the 35th Parliament of Canada. Fourteen parties competed for the 295 seats in the House at that time...
but received only two votes.
Long then ran for Guelph—Wellington in the 1993 election as a candidate of the Canada Party
Canada Party
The Canada Party was a short-lived political party in Canada that nominated 56 candidates in the 1993 federal election and one candidate in a 1996 by-election. It was unable to win any seats. The party was populist and ran on a platform of banking and monetary reform...
, an ideological successor to Social Credit. He was sixty years old at the time and lived in Guelph
Guelph, Ontario
Guelph is a city in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. Known as "The Royal City", Guelph is roughly east of Waterloo and west of downtown Toronto at the intersection of Highway 6 and Highway 7. It is the seat of Wellington County, but is politically independent of it...
.
He wanted to seek the Reform Party
Reform Party of Canada
The Reform Party of Canada was a Canadian federal political party that existed from 1987 to 2000. It was originally founded as a Western Canada-based protest party, but attempted to expand eastward in the 1990s. It viewed itself as a populist party....
nomination for a 1995 by-election
By-election
A by-election is an election held to fill a political office that has become vacant between regularly scheduled elections....
in Brome—Missisquoi
Brome—Missisquoi
Brome—Missisquoi is a federal electoral district in Quebec, Canada, that has been represented in the Canadian House of Commons since 1925...
, Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
but his candidacy was rejected by the party. He instead ran as a candidate of John Turmel's Abolitionist Party
Abolitionist Party of Canada
The Abolitionist Party of Canada was a Canadian political party founded by perennial candidate John C. Turmel. The party ran on a platform of: monetary reform, including the abolition of interest rates and the income tax, the use of the local employment trading system of banking, and introducing a...
(another ideological successor to Social Credit) and finished a distant last in a field of ten candidates. He later ran as an independent candidate in Cambridge in the 1997 federal election
Canadian federal election, 1997
The Canadian federal election of 1997 was held on June 2, 1997, to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 36th Parliament of Canada. Prime Minister Jean Chrétien's Liberal Party of Canada won a second majority government...
.
Long supported the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario
Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario
The Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario , is a right-of-centre political party in Ontario, Canada. The party was known for many years as "Ontario's natural governing party." It has ruled the province for 80 of the years since Confederation, including an uninterrupted run from 1943 to 1985...
in the 1995 provincial election
Ontario general election, 1995
The Ontario general election of 1995 was held on June 8, 1995, to elect members of the 36th Legislative Assembly of the province of Ontario, Canada...
. He later criticized party leader Mike Harris
Mike Harris
Michael Deane "Mike" Harris was the 22nd Premier of Ontario from June 26, 1995 to April 15, 2002. He is most noted for the "Common Sense Revolution", his Progressive Conservative government's program of deficit reduction in combination with lower taxes and cuts to government...
and described the party's "Common Sense Revolution
Common Sense Revolution
The phrase Common Sense Revolution has been used as a political slogan to describe common sense conservative platforms in Australia and the U.S. state of New Jersey in the 1990s. Based on the Singapore Model of economics, its main goal is to reduce taxes while balancing the budget by reducing the...
" as having been a "big bank revolution."
Long was the first declared candidate in the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada's 1998 leadership election. He supported a merger of the Progressive Conservative and Reform parties, favoured bank mergers, and said that the Bank of Canada should set up reserve banks that would leave one hundred per cent of their deposit liabilities with the central bank. He also opposed the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement
Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement
The Free Trade Agreement was a trade agreement signed by Canada and the United States on October 4, 1988. The agreement, finalized by October 1987, removed several trade restrictions in stages over a ten year period, and resulted in a great increase in cross-border trade...
and sought to peg the Canadian dollar
Canadian dollar
The Canadian dollar is the currency of Canada. As of 2007, the Canadian dollar is the 7th most traded currency in the world. It is abbreviated with the dollar sign $, or C$ to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies...
at sixty-eight cents relative to the American dollar. During this contest, Long described himself as a "product developer, mechanical engineer, environmentalist and homespun economist." He withdrew from the campaign in July 1998, before voting took place.
Long later sought the leadership of the Canadian Alliance
Canadian Alliance leadership elections
The Canadian Alliance, a conservative political party in Canada, held two leadership elections to choose the party's leader. The first was held shortly after the party's founding in 2000, and the second was held in 2002...
in 2000, describing himself as a populist
Populism
Populism can be defined as an ideology, political philosophy, or type of discourse. Generally, a common theme compares "the people" against "the elite", and urges social and political system changes. It can also be defined as a rhetorical style employed by members of various political or social...
and calling for more plebiscites on controversial issues. Describing right wing and left wing labels as passé, he referred to himself as "an ultra-right-wing libertarian
Libertarianism
Libertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...
with a great, big, bushy socialist tail." He once again withdrew from the contest before voting took place.
He sought the Progressive Conservative nomination in Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound
Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound
Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound is a federal electoral district that has been represented in the Canadian House of Commons since 1935....
for the 2000 federal election
Canadian federal election, 2000
The 2000 Canadian federal election was held on November 27, 2000, to elect 301 Members of Parliament of the Canadian House of Commons of the 37th Parliament of Canada....
, but was not given a response by the party. Long reserved the rights to the name, "The Common Sense People's Party of Ontario," with Elections Ontario
Elections Ontario
Elections Ontario is a non-partisan Agency of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. They work under the Chief Electoral Officer, an officer of the Legislative Assembly. responsible for the conduct of provincial elections.-External links:*...
in 2002, but he did not seek election under the party name. He does not appear to have been active in politics since this time.
IMICO and Kanmet controversies
In 1992, Long purchased an abandoned IMICO foundry in Guelph for one dollar. The previous owners had fled the country, leaving behind a company that was over one million dollars in debt.One year after buying the property, Long was informed by the Ontario Ministry of Environment and Energy that he would be required to clean up toxic wastes at the site. The cost was estimated at half a million dollars. Long described the charge as politically motivated, said that the site was not producing new contaminants, and refused to pay.
On December 31, 1993, Long transferred ownership of the site to the Assembly of the Church of the Universe, a religious sect based in Hamilton
Hamilton, Ontario
Hamilton is a port city in the Canadian province of Ontario. Conceived by George Hamilton when he purchased the Durand farm shortly after the War of 1812, Hamilton has become the centre of a densely populated and industrialized region at the west end of Lake Ontario known as the Golden Horseshoe...
devoted to nudism and sacramental marijuana use. He argued that he was no longer responsible for the property after the transfer, although the ministry disagreed. In 1997, he was fined ten thousand dollars for an environmental offense.
Long also purchased an abandoned Kanmet Castings foundry in Cambridge
Cambridge, Ontario
Cambridge is a city located in Southern Ontario at the confluence of the Grand and Speed rivers in the Regional Municipality of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. It is an amalgamation of the City of Galt, the towns of Preston and Hespeler, and the hamlet of Blair.Galt covers the largest portion of...
for one dollar during the same period. In January 1996, he was sentenced to three months in jail and fined seventy-two thousand dollars for the improper storage of PCB
Polychlorinated biphenyl
Polychlorinated biphenyls are a class of organic compounds with 2 to 10 chlorine atoms attached to biphenyl, which is a molecule composed of two benzene rings. The chemical formula for PCBs is C12H10-xClx...
s on the site. This controversy took place during the 1997 election.
The Assembly of the Church of the Universe moved its headquarters from the IMICO foundry in Guelph to the Kanmet foundry in Cambridge in 1998, with Long's permission. The city of Cambridge subsequently tried to evict the church from the foundry, without success. In late 1998, the city of Cambridge reluctantly purchased the foundry from Long for fifty-eight thousand dollars and forgave him nine hundred thousand dollars in back taxes and hydro expenses. The church was forced to leave the Cambridge area shortly thereafter.
Long has also served time in prison for infractions of Ontario's Highway Traffic Act and for refusing to pay a fine for improper labour practices. In addition, he has been fined for evading payment of the retail sales tax. When asked about his convictions in 2000, he said, "I'm not a criminal. I'm a firm believer in civil disobedience
Civil disobedience
Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal to obey certain laws, demands, and commands of a government, or of an occupying international power. Civil disobedience is commonly, though not always, defined as being nonviolent resistance. It is one form of civil resistance...
. I'm like Mahatma Gandhi
Mahatma Gandhi
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi , pronounced . 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was the pre-eminent political and ideological leader of India during the Indian independence movement...
in that regard."
Electoral record
FederalProvincial