Paul Hellyer

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Paul Theodore Hellyer, PC (born August 6, 1923, in Waterford, Ontario) is a Canadian politician and commentator who has had a long and varied career.

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[edit] Early political career

First elected as a Liberal in 1949 federal election in the riding of Davenport, he was the youngest person ever elected to that point in the Canadian House of Commons. He served a brief stint as Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of National Defence, and made a good impression. He was then named Associate Minister of National Defence in the cabinet of Prime Minister Louis Saint-Laurent. This post was short-lived, though, as Hellyer lost his seat when the Saint-Laurent government lost the 1957 election a few months later.

Hellyer returned to parliament in a 1958 by-election in the neighbouring riding of Trinity, and became an effective opposition critic of the John Diefenbaker's Progressive Conservative government.

[edit] Cabinet minister and Liberal leadership candidate

When the Liberals returned to power in the 1963 election, Hellyer became Minister of National Defence in the cabinet of Lester B. Pearson. This was the most notable period in Hellyer's career. As Minister of Defence, he oversaw the controversial integration and unification of the Royal Canadian Navy, Canadian Army, the and the Royal Canadian Air Force into a single organization, the Canadian Forces.

Hellyer contested the 1968 Liberal leadership convention, placing second on the first ballot, but slipping to third on the second and third ballots, and withdrawing to support Robert Winters on the fourth ballot, in which Pierre Trudeau won the leadership. He served as Trudeau's Transport Minister, and was Senior Minister in the Cabinet, a position similar to the current position of Deputy Prime Minister.

[edit] A political nomad, 1969–1988

Hellyer resigned from cabinet and the Liberal caucus in 1969 over a dispute with Trudeau over funding for a housing program.

Hellyer sat as an independent for several years. After his 1971 attempt to form a new political party, Action Canada, failed, Progressive Conservative leader Robert Stanfield invited him to join the PC caucus. He returned to prominence as an opposition critic and was re-elected in the 1972 election as a Progressive Conservative. He lost his seat, however, in the 1974 election.

Despite this loss, Hellyer contested the PC leadership convention of 1976. His views were too right wing for most delegates, and alienated many Tories with a speech attacking Red Tories as not being "true conservatives". He finished a distant sixth of eight contestants on the second ballot.

Hellyer rejoined the Liberal Party in 1982, but remained mostly silent in politics. In 1988, he contested the Liberal nomination in the Toronto riding of St. Paul's, losing to Aideen Nicholson, who had defeated Hellyer fourteen years previously when he was a Tory MP in the adjacent riding of Trinity.

[edit] Canadian Action Party

In recent years Hellyer has made headlines for embracing a series of somewhat eccentric or "fringe" political organizations and causes.

In 1997, Hellyer formed the Canadian Action Party (CAP) to provide voters with an economic nationalist option following the collapse of the National Party of Canada [1]. Hellyer was concerned that both the Progressive Conservative and Liberal parties were embracing globalization, and that the New Democratic Party was no longer able to provide a credible alternative. CAP also embraced Hellyer's proposals for monetary reform: that the government should become more involved in the direction of the economy by gradually reducing the creation of private money and increasing the creation of public money from the current ratio of 5% public / 95% private back to 50% public and 50% private. [2] [3].

His party remained a little-noticed minor party, and Hellyer lost bids for a seat in the Canadian House of Commons in the 1997 and 2000 elections.

Following the 2000 election, and a resurgence for the New Democratic Party, Hellyer approached NDP leadership to discuss the possibility of merging the two parties into 'One Big Party'. This process was furthered by the passage of a unanimous motion at the CAP's convention in 2003.

In early 2004, after several extensions of the merger deadline, the NDP rejected Hellyer's merger proposal which would have required the NDP to change its name. Hellyer resigned as CAP leader, but remains a member of the party. Rumours that he might run for the NDP in the 2004 election proved to be unfounded.

[edit] Peace in space and UFO advocacy

On June 3, 1967 Hellyer flew in by helicopter to officially inaugurate an Unidentified flying object landing pad in St. Paul, Alberta. The town had built the landing pad as its Canadian Centennial celebration project, and as a symbol of keeping space free from human warfare. The sign beside the pad reads: "The area under the World's First UFO Landing Pad was designated international by the Town of St. Paul as a symbol of our faith that mankind will maintain the outer universe free from national wars and strife. That future travel in space will be safe for all intergalactic beings, all visitors from earth or otherwise are welcome to this territory and to the Town of St. Paul."

Throughout his life, Hellyer has been opposed to the weaponization of space. He supports the Space Preservation Treaty to ban space weapons.

In early September 2005, Hellyer made headlines by publicly announcing that he believed in UFOs. On September 25, 2005, he was an invited speaker at an exopolitics conference in Toronto where he told the audience that he had seen a UFO one night with his late wife and some friends. He said that though he discounted the experience at the time, he had kept an open mind to it. He said that he started taking the issue much more seriously after watching ABC's Peter Jennings' UFO special in February 2005.

Watching Jennings' UFO special prompted Hellyer to finally read U.S. Army Colonel Philip J. Corso's book The Day After Roswell about the Roswell UFO Incident which had been sitting on his shelf for some time. Hellyer told the Toronto audience that he later spoke to a retired Air Force General who confirmed the accuracy of the information in the book. In November, 2005, he accused U.S. President George W. Bush of plotting an "Intergalactic War." The former deputy prime minister told an audience at the University of Toronto: "The United States military are preparing weapons which could be used against the aliens, and they could get us into an intergalactic war without us ever having any warning" and "The Bush Administration has finally agreed to let the military build a forward base on the moon, which will put them in a better position to keep track of the goings and comings of the visitors from space, and to shoot at them, if they so decide."

Hellyer told the audience that in December 2004, he had enjoyed reading and had endorsed a book by Alfred Webre titled: "Exopolitics - Politics, Government and Law in the Universe". He ended his 30 minute historical talk with a standing ovation by stating: "To turn us in the direction of re-unification with the rest of creation the author is proposing a “Decade of Contact” – an “era of openness, public hearings, publicly funded research, and education about extraterrestrial reality.”


[edit] Writings, and personal life

Hellyer has written several books on Canada and globalization, including One Big Party: To Keep Canada Independent, in which he promoted the merger of the CAP, NDP and various left-wing activists to save Canada from the effects of globalization, and possible annexation by the United States.

He was an early investor in the Toronto Sun, and for a time a columnist for the newspaper.

Paul Hellyer currently resides in Toronto. He has three children and five grandchildren.

[edit] External links


Preceded by:
none		 Canadian Action Party leaders
1997-2003		 Succeeded by:
Connie Fogal
Preceded by:
John R. MacNicol		 Member of Parliament for Davenport
1949-1957		 Succeeded by:
Murray Douglas Morton
Preceded by:
Edward R. Lockyer		 Member of Parliament for Trinity
1958-1974		 Succeeded by:
Aideen Nicholson
Preceded by:
Jack Pickersgill		 Minister of Transport
1967 - 1969		 Succeeded by:
James Armstrong Richardson
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../p/a/u/Paul_Hellyer_ebee.html"
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