Pierre Poilievre is Headlining a Fundraising Dinner to Place a Far-Right Alberta Magazine Publisher’s Books in Schools
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and former Prime Minister Stephen Harper will join Poilievre in ‘toasting’ controversial author Ted Byfield
Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre is joining an “all-star Alberta” line-up of speakers for a fundraising dinner to help place a controversial far-right magazine publisher’s books in schools.
The “Albertans Toasting Ted” fundraising event is billed as a “gathering of great Alberta families to remember and honor (sic) Ted Byfield,” a divisive socially conservative figure in Alberta politics who opposed gay rights and abortion and supported South African apartheid.
“Fine dining, fun, fellowship, singing, awards and speeches,” a website promoting the event announces, promising it will be “an evening like no other.”
The fundraising dinner is raising money to place Byfield’s book series about the “first two thousand years” of the history of Christianity in school libraries.
The “all-star Alberta line-up” includes Poilievre, along with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and former Reform Party leader Preston Manning. Stephen Harper, the former Conservative Prime Minister, is also scheduled to deliver video remarks.
Source: Albertans Toasting Ted
Byfield is an influential publisher and columnist who passed away in 2021, is known for injecting a brand of Alberta style of conservatism into the mainstream Canadian right.
The fundraising dinner’s website explains that the “school library sponsorship” to “sponsor a set of ‘The Christians: Their First Two Thousand Years’ into a library” aims to ensure the book is “checked out and read up to five thousand times.”
“Every time one of these books is read, truth is absorbed and young minds are impacted at their most formative stage of intellectual development.”
The website concedes that “getting books into schools by no means guarantees, however, that the books will be read,” which is why funds will also go towards a program that “encourages school staff to champion the books and inspire student readership.”
Pollievre is helping fundraise for a library sponsorship to place Byfield’s history of Christianity in schools.
Byfield’s children’s book series “The Christians: Their First 2000 Years” is sympathetic to the Crusades and concludes with the September 11 attack.
Promotional images on the website of the fundraising dinner headlined by Poilievre and Smith includes a photo of a plane crashing into the World Trade Centre on 9/11.
“Great societies collapse when they lose sight of what built them,” the image states, showing two school-aged children reading Byfield’s book. “Let’s help our young people discover who and what built Western civilization.”
Source: Albertans Toasting Ted
By speaking at a fundraising event in Byfield’s honour, Pollievre in particular is sending a strong and potentially risky message in order to impress an already solidly conservative voting segment of the country, according to one analyst.
“He is just showing his colours I suppose, to someone he considers a stalwart to the western Canadian conservative movement,” Alberta Political Analyst Keith Brownsey told PressProgress. “Poilievre’s conservative support is very broad right now but it’s only a few millimeters deep.
“It wouldn’t take much for that support to vanish.”
Brownsey, who teaches Political Science at Mount Royal University specializing in Alberta and Canadian Politics, says embracing the deeply religious and social conservative politics of a figure like Byfield could be divisive, even among conservative-leaning voters in Alberta and outside the province.
Byfield was famously unflinching in these views, which included:
Source: Albertans Toasting Ted
“They would be considered standard views of maybe two generations ago,” Brownsey said. “Preston Manning, who is well into his 80’s would look back fondly on him, Stephen Harper grew up with him, Pollievre is playing a really dangerous game in speaking at this event. That just doesn’t play well anymore,.”
The book series was a passion project of Byfield’s in his final decades.
Prior to that, Byfield’s controversial magazine The Alberta Report ran from 1973 to 1999 and was once successfully taken to court by The Calgary Regional Health Authority for publishing leaked abortion data.
Source: Alberta Report
Unsurprisingly former Premier Jason Kenney was another one of Byfield’s admirers.
“He was influential with a certain group of people, and having Pollievre there and Smith indicates who he was influential with,” says Brownsey.
Byfield’s legacy remains influential in the province through his son Vince Byfield, who won a seat on the board of the United Conservative Party. This was achieved at least in part through the efforts of the far-right group Take Back Alberta, of which he was a leading organizer.
The Conservative Party of Canada did not respond to a request for comment from PressProgress about Poilievre’s involvement with the fundraising dinner.
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