New vs Old: Simplicity Regent 18 hp hydro riding lawn mower vs Bolens G174 diesel compact tractor
June 19, 2010
Comparative tests seem to be popular here, so I’ll throw this one in. For the last four years I have used a foot-controlled 18 hp Simplicity Hydro lawn tractor to mow about two acres of lawn, orchard, berms and garden borders at the farm. Far too often it was pressed into service to mow grassed parking lots and occasional stands of tree seedlings for want of another tool to do the job.
That has now changed with the acquisition of a narrow tractor to mow around my 15,000 young trees. I must stress that I currently have a 35 hp tractor with rotary mower for the bulk of the cutting, but as the trees get larger, more and more areas can’t be mowed without casualties.
I decided that the tree farm needed a diesel tractor narrower than 48″. The candidates on Kijiji were a 2WD 15 hp Massey-Ferguson 1010 with a belly mower and this Bolens 17 hp 4WD with a rear-mounted finish mower. I picked the Bolens for its tall stance and versatility.
After a tank of diesel I think I can comment upon the Bolens as a mower. After four years with the Simplicity I have a very good idea of its strengths and limitations.
Simplicity 18 Hydro with 38″ deck:
I paid the extra $300. for the foot-controlled model and it was money well spent. The hydro is so smooth to control around trees and obstructions that a first-time operator likens it to waltzing. It’s an excellent mower on the flat where you have to work around stuff. Only on slopes does it run into trouble with a lack of traction. Strategies develop to deal with the traction problem, so the only galling problem I found with the mower was its ineptitude in dealing with dips in the ground which result in the loss of traction to one back wheel. Much hiking out by the operator proved the solution to these frequent spinning situations. I also learned to hike out over the edge to keep my balance when mowing along banks, a common occurrence on this lawn. This involved a fair amount of effort on my part, but the ballast enabled the light mower to do a pretty good job on angular terrain. I always found this a spooky activity, though, and wouldn’t let anyone else run the mower on steep slopes, regardless of the safety interlocks. The nice thing about the foot control when cutting under trees, of course, is that if you stop driving, the mower halts immediately. This is good when one finds himself skewered by an apple bough.
We don’t have much open lawn to cut, just one 400 by 80′ section. The Simplicity eats it up on cruise control at a top speed of around 5 1/2 mph. Reclaimed from a pasture, this section has a few low-lying rocks which jump up and whack the trailing roller an occasional good one. This is distracting to the operator, but doesn’t seem to have harmed the deck. The surveyor’s stake under a pile of leaves on my sister’s lawn, on the other hand, bent the roller, affecting the cut quality until I devised a way to straighten it by removing the rubber rollers and having at it with a 4′ pipe to bend it back.
I should stress that the Simplicity has done a fine job under difficult circumstances. There are a lot of rocks. I have learned to avoid them and mow most of the lawn at a 3″ cutting height. Two 400′ rows of 15 year-old spruces are a pain, but duty requires that I slalom around them at least every two weeks. The Simplicity has been rammed through a lot of foliage over that time and doesn’t show any ill-effects from the abuse. My body, on the other hand, has developed a deep antipathy to the blue spruce as a species. On a hot summer day it’s like running into a barbed wire fence to come up against one of those things. White spruce foliage is much softer.
Anyway, mowing along the ditch which separates the spruces from the flower beds is always an adventure. Larger wheels would be good for clearing occasional washouts. Mowing the berm behind the flower beds is too hard on the Simplicity, though. Basically this is a pile of boulders dug up by the excavator and piled along a fence row. I removed the fence and determined that the only sensible way to reduce string-trimming time would be by mowing the hay and weeds growing between the rocks. Rough going, mitigated slightly by several yards of topsoil brought in by Ranger to build a road for the mower.
But that’s the easy stuff. Last week I had to mow a slalom around 16, 680′ rows of seedlings, one turn every 10′. Thought I’d grind the steering gear right off the poor thing. That’s when I decided we needed a heavier machine for this kind of work. To its credit, though, over three evenings the Simplicity hung in there for about six hours of sustained, low speed mowing of very long grass in a rough field. That’s not the first time, either.
My main criticisms of the Simplicity? Its 18 hp Kohler engine needs to rev at full speed to work the hydraulic pump property. It’s thirsty on fuel and noisy. The ride’s a bit punishing compared to my larger tractors. On the other hand the lawn looks terrific and the mower hasn’t fallen apart after quite a lot of abuse.
Bolens G174 Compact Diesel Tractor with 48″ Woods RM48YM-2 rear mower:
At 1200 pounds and another 305 for the mower, this is a substantial machine. It rides pretty well if you keep a pillow on the seat and the twin cylinder Mitsubishi 17 makes a lot less fuss than the hysterical 18 hp Kohler single on the Simplicity. Traction is excellent in 2WD, let alone 4WD with differential lock. It’s tall and looks tippy. At one point mowing across a slope under an apple tree I stopped the machine and climbed off, fearing a roll-over. I lifted as hard as I could on the uphill fender, though, and couldn’t budge the thing. Hiking out over the side is out of the question on this machine.
A rear-mounted mower can do a fine job on the flat. Sharply undulating terrain, on the other hand, causes problems of geometry and unmowed patches of grass. Even with its traction problems, the Simplicity does a better job on the uneven lawn. The big problem with the Bolens, of course, is that you are cruising along with all gears turning. You aren’t going to stop suddenly and back up the way you do routinely with the Simplicity. Thus the mowing job will consist of gradual, sweeping turns, leaving a lot undone. There’s a reason why the hydraulic mower has taken over the market.
In the field, on the other hand, the Bolens shines. It will power through very long grass leaving the old Woods mower no choice but to follow along. When the three blades are sharp, it does a very good job. Hit enough rocks and the blades will become dull, but the Bolens still has lots of power to beat the blazes out of the hay, even if it can no longer cut it. Sharp turns swing the mower wide, and casualties result if the operator doesn’t plan ahead. And things go by fairly quickly. The mower runs fast, at the middle pto speed of around 700 rpm. 4th gear of 6 seems to be about right, and about 2/3 rpms. Some horses are clearly larger than others.
Update, 24 June, 2010:
Over its first week at the farm the Bolens has been busy. One six-acre field of seedlings has proven too closely-planted to mow with the wider equipment, so it looks as though it will belong to the 48″ mower for the foreseeable future. This work involved long runs down rows of seedlings, cutting weeds out of the way.
When the contractor sprayed with herbicide last fall in anticipation of the spring planting he dug up the ground with a crude spring-tooth rig to mark each row. This produced an unusable trough down the centre of each cleared area which the planters dutifully avoided with the trees, veering occasionally over almost to the grassy verge in search of plantable soil. Hence the rough ground and the wonky rows.
This meant the Bolens had to work over rough soil for at least half of its passes down the field. 4WD makes steering easier and improves the ride. The mower thus had to power through a fair amount of sandy soil, though rocks are scarce in this field. Long hay was definitely a factor, but the Bolens seems to have plenty of power to tear its way through heavy stuff, albeit in 3rd gear, low range. It’s awkward to go from 1 hi to 3 low when the grass gets heavy because of the complex shifting involved.
The tractor is durable, though. Two tankfuls of diesel this week have resulted in no oil consumption and no maintenance required save the replacement of the ancient drive belt on the mower and three blade sharpenings. One strong advantage of the 3 point hitch mower is the ease with which one may sharpen the blades on the machine. Just raise the mower up, put a jack stand underneath for safety, and have at it with an angle grinder.
Just for the record the tractor’s headlights are highly functional, focusing in a useful manner on where the mower will next cut.
I’ve mowed the lawn twice with the Bolens now and am getting better at it. Learning to trust it on slopes was the big thing. It can climb its way out of awkward situations very well — as long as the mower is down. When the belt broke I lifted the rig and headed for the garage, up a steep slope. Not a good idea. The beast reared and pivoted 90 degrees on me before I could regain control. This is potentially very dangerous, so today I’m off to get weights for the front. I’ve also started planning a weight-distributing hitch to allow the towing of trailers once mowing season ends. No way will I hang a trailer off the end of the 3 pt. hitch. Too unstable. (UPDATE, 30 July, 2011: Turns out I was wrong on the previous statement. I bought a 3 pt hitch trailer hitch and use it whenever I need to wrangle trailers. The Bolens has no trouble with a bunch of hitch weight or a tandem trailer with a half-ton on it. Negative hitch weights are something to watch, though, as the bar can ride up.)
Which is better?
For cool factor, the Bolens wins, hands down.
For a tame lawn with trees and other objects to mow around, the Simplicity is the clear choice. For field and woodlot work where a conventional tractor is too wide to fit, the Bolens is an awesome addition to the collection. The diesel, gear-driven Bolens is easier on fuel than the hydraulic Simplicity.
Coincidentally, we bought the new Simplicity and the 1981 Bolens for the same price. I expect the diesel tractor to be at work on the property long after the gas mower has departed for the junk yard, but a parts shortage or catastrophic failure might change things.
Actually, the real competition is between the Bolens and my TAFE 35 tractor equipped with a new Rhino 160 rotary mower. The Bolens is doing the lion’s share of the mowing because it is so much handier around little trees. So the TAFE, four times its weight and twice its horsepower, complete with new canopy and expensive mower, sits in the yard while I bounce around on this handy little beast.
UPDATE: 30 July, 2011
Last summer I bought a 48″ off-brand rotary mower for the Bolens. At about 400 pounds it’s no problem for the little tractor, but I immediately realized I had to add an overrun clutch to the PTO shaft before I rolled through a building, driven by the flywheel effect of the mower on the drive wheels. No live PTO, eh? With the extra clutch it works fine, and has proven a good deal handier than the larger rig mentioned above for mowing over soft turf, under overhanging black walnuts with brittle branches, and of course down rows too narrow for the wider mower. To my surprise the little rig can cut through long hay just as well as the larger one, though with less groundspeed and coverage.
A three-point hitch dump box sized for this tractor turned up used at the local equipment dealer. I think Walco calls it a 10 cubic foot dump box. It’s pretty handy for cleanup around the property when another implement isn’t already hanging from the 3 pt. hitch. My plan is to use the box for deep incursions into the woodlot after clean firewood. If I drag the same wood out to the road with the winch it’s all coated with grit and a pain to saw into stovewood, so I have decided to go directly to the pile of limbs and trim it there.
The Bolens will carry the 8000 pound winch and the pto will move impressive logs with the cable, but it lacks the lifting power to skid logs after they’re chained to the unit.
UPDATE: 26 March, 2013
The Bolens has spent the winter as a garage queen. Equipped with the 3 pt hitch dump box it’s exceptionally handy to hit the remote I clipped to the hood, back out, close the door, run over to the woodpile, load up and back the load up to the woodpile in the shop for unloading. I even fitted the right fender with a scabbard for my chain saw so that we can make brief sorties into the woodlot for dry ironwoods when conditions permit.
During an interval when the power steering on the TAFE was broken, I pressed the Bolens into service on a 7′ rear-mounted blade in an attempt to clear the driveway. It worked until the snow became too deep. Then it was hopelessly outgunned by the laws of physics. It didn’t have the traction with turf tires, and it lacked the mass to shift heavy snow sideways with the blade angled. I was very happy to obtain the part to put the TAFE (with its winter cab, loader, snowblower and loaded tires) back into operation.
Out of the debacle with the blade, however, I discovered that a pair of tire chains off an army surplus Jeep would fit the rear wheels on the Bolens with a little fixing. The chains greatly increased winter traction without causing any serious problems. Rust on the garage floor and a lumpy ride aren’t so bad in mid-winter.
During sugar season I contemplated using the Bolens to gather sap, but it’s remained on woodpile duty with the dump box. My Polaris Ranger TM (2WD) is still the go-to vehicle for personnel movement and sap hauling. The Bolens is too awkward to get on and off for repeated stops.
Every politician wants to be Grace Park.
June 13, 2010
If you want North Americans to pay attention to what you say, present it as make-belief. The Canadian-made T.V. series Battlestar Galactica ended a four-year run this spring, touted as the smartest thing on television by Rolling Stone, loved by its avid viewers who at some level bought into every one of the humanitarian issues it raised. What’s more, its cast moved on to other lucrative show business positions as soon as they retired from the old Vancouver warehouse where the series was shot.
So the Battlestar Galactica legacy is struck: every politician in Canada wants to be Grace Park and have endless offers of other roles when this gig is finished. A clumsy, makeshift stage set in a cavernous old barn of a warehouse, some intellectually unchallenging but edgy issues raised and dealt with in a 46-minute format, and then the credits roll. Plywood space ships sliding around the floor to simulate crashes? No problem. It’s the characters and the ideas that are of interest, not the special effects or the credibility of the plot.
So Stephen Harper’s myrmidons can hardly be faulted for the Fake Lake, the odd fanciful gazebo, prop lighthouse and an old, creaky ship. It’s as close as they can get to emulating the appeal of Battlestar Galactica. Of course they may not have thought it out too carefully – as with the maternal-health-for-the-Third-World kick. On T.V. the writers can just cut to a commercial and then roll the credits, but in the world of politics there’s still Question Period. As well, unfortunately PMO staff are all too likely to be compared to Cylons, and Harper’s apparent contempt for the environment makes more sense if his supporters all aspire to nabbing seats on the first ship to escape the doomed planet.
Perhaps I overdo it in suggesting that control-freak Stephen Harper would prefer the world were safe on a video screen where his editors could have complete and final control over the message mix. For one thing a brief look at any history of Canadian cinema will make it obvious that the Fake Lake follows a noble tradition of government and corporate propaganda films to promote immigration to Canada from Britain and Western Europe. That’s what the media centre’s for, right? Showcase Canada and encourage immigration, trade and investment.
As early as 1910 the CPR and Sir Wilfrid Laurier worked on films to get people to come here and fill the gap between Thunder Bay and Vancouver. Then as now, the image Canada presented to the rest of the world was much more important than the reality the settlers discovered, once exposed to the Canadian climate, its insects, and above all, its intimidating vastness.
I love the spoof video, “If I Had a Billion Dollars.” It shows genuine wit, and makes excellent use of You-Tube. But the more I think about the Fake Lake the less I feel inclined to ridicule it. This week’s Liberal ad on the subject makes me want to defend the alleged “boondoggle” because I detest attack ads, whatever their source.
In the prequel to Battlestar Galactica the inventor of the Cylons offers this: “In my business if it makes no difference, there is no difference.”
Look at what the organizers are doing: they’re taking a group of urban electronic journalists and allowing them to remain in their chosen milieu: close to the bar and away from bugs, sunburn, bad weather and scarce toilets, a milieu they trust and understand, plunked in front of a giant T.V. feed. A few shiny images of Muskoka will do the job, for the sheer multiplicity of imagery can only confuse the camera. It has to be simple and a bit artificial to work on T.V.
So let’s give Harper and his crew some credit for the imagination to see that all that really comes out of the summits is a few select photos and sound bites, and that significant effort must go into the manipulation of these bits. Most likely the cabinet’s tepid response to opposition baiting in Question Period this week has been due to their unusual position on this issue: for once they aren’t called upon to defend the indefensible, and they simply haven’t gotten around to dreaming up a rational response to legitimate questions about its cost.
So they have created an opportunity with the Fake Lake. It’s a chance to showcase the work of the many animation studios around Toronto as well as the Vancouver and Montreal movie industries. How they use the propaganda machine will to some extent contribute to Canada’s image as a world technological leader, but even more on the domestic front it will determine the Conservative Party’s immediate future. They’d better hope the film-at-11:00 is good. If the Fake Lake bombs, come fall there will be a lot of ex-MP’s lined up with Grace Park at casting calls for the next CBC blockbuster series.
TAFE 351 fuel consumption
June 13, 2010
Without a bulk diesel tank at the farm I run down the highway to the local service station for tractor fuel. Out of curiosity I measured the TAFE’s consumption over a week of bush hogging around 20 acres of seedlings. Note at the end of the article I built in a correction for tach hours.
1995 Tafe 351DI fuel consumption observation
June 9-13, 2010
5′ medium-duty rotary mower, trimming long grass, medium density to light on moderate slopes
8.5 km paved road surface transit
hrs observed 424.5- 412.8 = 11.7
tank topped 28.31 litres
consumption rate 2.41965812 litres per hour at PTO speed
According to the charts I found on the Internet, it must be using between 16 and 18 hp to do its thing with the 710 lb. cutter, loader, loaded tires and all.
Here’s the lastest raw data. Again I was mowing medium to light hay and grass, though I ran the TAFE in high range, first gear today to see how the new mower would cut at a ground speed of about 6 mph. No problem. That’s not a misprint below: the thing seems to use $2.00 worth of diesel per indicated hour at June, 2010 diesel prices in Ontario.
| june 29/10 | 436.6 | hr | filled at | 436.3 | |
| 0.929 | 25.4 | litres | 11.8 | hours | |
| 2.152542373 | litres per hour at PTO speed | ||||
| Cost of fuel per hour | $2.00 | ||||
UPDATE: The manual states that the tach/hour meter measures at 1500 rpm. Pto delivers 604 at 2000 rpm, so that means it runs at 1788.07947 to deliver 540 pto rpm. So if you multiply the consumption rate by 1.19 you’ll get a more accurate figure, somewhere between 2.5 and 2.8 litres per hour. Still good, but not unbelievable.
july 18/10 449.3 449
30.88 12.7
2.431496063 litres per hour at PTO speed
Corrected, that’s 2.89 litres/hour for this interval.
| august 9/10 | 468.8 | 468.5 | ||
| 32.64 | 19.5 hours on this tankful | |||
| 1.673846154 | litres per hour, at 1500 rpm | |||
| loader work, highway runs, limited mowing with pto | ||||
| corrected consumption: | 1.991876923 | l/hr at mixed speeds | ||
| for PTO at 1870 rpm | ||||
| That’s an honest 2 litres per hour. | ||||
Getting the seeds in straight
June 6, 2010
As you approach Crosby from the east on Hwy 15 you can’t help but notice the precision lines drawn with corn in the huge expanse of land to your right. The whole field is as straight as a die, quite a piece of work.
I tracked Bob Chant down and asked who was the craftsman on the corn planter.
“Burt Mattice does our seeding for us. He sights on a tree and drives straight for it. Then he follows a line the guide on the seeder makes. We have used that 1948 John Deere to do 480 acres of seeding so far this year. I think it’s important that we farmers take pride in our work, and sometimes the old equipment is what you need to do the best job.”
I put up a bit of film on You Tube of Burt in action. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3YWG4x1sBA
http://picasaweb.google.com/rodcros/PlantingTheCornAtChantlandFarmsCrosby#
I hope neither Bob nor Burt gets a look at our garden before I can trim the rows up with the tiller. This year I suggested that Roz plant the root crops in the grooves left by the disk. They were generally running the right direction, and this saved a lot of tedious measurement and stringing of twine from stakes and such.
Our young friend Roz is a much better seeder than I. Addicted to tools, I can’t resist using this wheel-on-a-stick arrangement my dad tried once and discarded many years ago. It consists of a small aluminum wheel with a box attached with adjustable holes from which the seeds drop as it rotates. Most of my planting efforts result in a dense tangle of growth in the first three feet of the row, then nothing. To compensate I usually start another packet of something at the other end of the row and run back. Squash and melons go in the middle of the garden where there is ample space to spread because of the absence of other seed.
Surprisingly enough, when I look back at photos of gardens past, it seems as though things grow quite well with this system. For a few years the mild winters allowed volunteer growth of tomatoes so dense that they choked the other weeds out. For the indolent gardener the cherry tomato is definitely the weed of choice. Who can fault lush tomatoes growing all over the place?
Anyway, Roz is keen and inexhaustible. She carefully planted individual carrots and beets, using up an amazing amount of garden space with two packets of seeds.
The goal this year is to have orderly rows which can be cultivated well into the season with the 1979 Troy-Bilt ‘Horse’ I found near Peterborough. It’s a smoke-belching monster, but man, can it till! The operator’s manual for the “Horse” runs to 180 pages, including a 40-page section on how to grow a garden. The Garden Way Corporation of Troy, New York at that time took the job seriously. It’s hard to imagine this kind of effort put into a product for sale in a box store today.
The sweet corn in the lower garden refused to sprout this year until I followed Peter Myers’s suggestion and stomped the seeds down into the dry, fluffy soil so that capillary action could draw moisture up from below and allow the corn to germinate. Maybe those two rains helped, as well. The late corn is now well ahead of the early corn.
My big task this summer is mowing around 8000 new seedlings. Jane McCann’s crew popped the pine, tamarack, white oak, shagbark hickory and yellow birch in with a mechanical planter in a single day of work. Another contractor had sprayed herbicide last fall to prepare the rows for the seedlings. Leeds Stewardship Coordinator Martin Streit arranged this project through the Ontario Government’s 50 Million Trees Program, one of Mr. McGuinty’s green initiatives. The program runs for another twelve years, offering installed seedlings to landowners at very advantageous prices.
Donna O’Connor dropped by with a half-bag of white spruce and a few blight-resistant butternuts left over from another Leeds Stewardship project. These 200 trees took me four days to plant with a shovel, though they are all growing nicely now.
I have gotten a lot better with my electric sprayer after a losing some little walnut trees to overspray mishaps last year. Mom or Bet now drives the Ranger and I walk along beside with the wand in one hand and a plastic deflector in the other.
Saturday evening on the way in from a fishing trip I discovered the downside of a spring of landscaping and mowing with a tractor. As I approached my slip in Newboro an untidy patch of weeds lurked in my way. Without much thought I swung the stern of the Springbok in to chew the weeds up and blow them out into the bay. “Clunk.” Just a little clunk, nothing like the “SMASH! SMASH! SMASH!” which comes when I whack a rock with the blade of the bush hog, but it was sufficient. That little deadhead ripped a chunk out of my prop, so I had to haul the boat out for repairs. I must remember in the future not to confuse an outboard motor with a bush hog.
I want one of those (bicycle dept).
June 2, 2010
Yesterday’s Toronto Star had an article about suspicions that a Swiss competitive rider won two stages in a recent race with a motorized bike. Such a device exists, and looks just like a regular bike. Ingenious. Watch the film attached to the article. There couldn’t be a better advertisement for this motor.
http://www.thestar.com/sports/article/817545–easy-rider-did-swiss-cycling-star-use-motorized-bike
Jack Layton for PM?
May 31, 2010
The buzz has hit the papers this morning. Turns out Quebec voters would flock to the NDP if they believed Layton had a chance to become PM. The Liberals are dying under Ignatieff’s seat-filling leadership.
Maybe Layton as PM wouldn’t be so bad. What’s he going to do? Spend billions on vanity projects? Nationalize a major industry? Sell off Atomic Energy? Tax everything?
Wait! Harper’s already done these things with the H.S.T., the bailouts last summer, Olympics and Summit spending and the new omnibus budget.
So what’s the difference? Layton wants a balanced approach to foreign relations and Harper’s a Zionist all the way. Take a breath, Canada! This guy might be a pretty good deal.
The political spectrum has long since gone the way of the dodo, and with it any valid measure of ideological space between parties.
Far-right Harper blows billions on centre-left stimulus funding because that’s what it takes to remain in power.
If an NDP candidate were threatened by a voting block of anti-abortion crusaders, that candidate would likely vote against abortion to preserve his or her seat.
If we agree it’s about power and little else, then it comes down to choosing up teams. At the moment the Right has combined two teams and so is winning against the other, fragmented squads. This can change if the two most likely Left teams join forces.
Who cares if they call the new Left squad the Newer Liberal-Democratic Coalition? As long as it gets rid of Harper’s gang, I’m for it. Jack Layton might make a very good prime minister. Few others are lining up for the job. Remember what Lenin said, “I saw power lying in the street, and I picked it up.”
I was raised a fifth-generation Tory, but I wish him well.
Review: The Armageddon Factor, by Marci McDonald
May 17, 2010
Every columnist has an opinion about Marci McDonald’s new book, but as she quipped in a CTV interview last Thursday, “They haven’t read it.” It took me a couple of days to get through what amounts to a history of the evangelical movement as a political force in Canada. It’s a very good book, well researched and believable. McDonald has capably defined that elusive group journalists refer to as “the Conservative base.” I’ll run the second half of the review next week.
The legal separation of church and state is an American concept. Because our country was not populated by religious refugees in the manner of the Thirteen Colonies, we have never had the equivalent of the First and Fourteenth Amendments in Canada. In the United States for members of the religious right to assert their power over government they have to bypass the constitution, but there is no such roadblock in Canada.
In fact, the orderly history of Canada relies upon a strong tradition of the church exerting a benign influence over government. Schools, universities, and hospitals were started by churches until well into the twentieth century.
In Quebec the Catholic Church controlled the province until the Quiet Revolution of the 1960’s. Over 2 million acres of clergy reserves in Ontario left the Anglican Church an economic power of great influence.
On the prairies the desperation of the Depression gave rise to the J.S. Woodsworth and Tommy Douglas radio ministries and demands for compassionate treatment from government. The Social Gospel movement became the CCF and later the NDP. Canadians have this populist movement to thank for Canada’s current system of medicare.
Bible Bill Aberhart in Alberta founded the Social Credit, a right wing populist group. After Aberhart’s death Ernest Manning took over, hosting the Back to the Bible Hour while serving as Alberta Premier for a generation. His son Preston founded the Reform Party which later morphed into the Canadian Alliance and later the Conservative Party of Canada.
But when the bill passed in June of 2005, same-sex marriage legislation in Canada came as a galvanizing defeat to social conservatives. In its aftermath many threads of the religious right coalesced around the Conservative Party, determined never to allow a defeat like this again. The strident theo-conservatives from the United States moved north, responding to invitations from ambitious individuals in Canada seeking the benefit of their organizational expertise and image.
Ralph Reed is widely credited with engineering George W. Bush’s White House victories. Rev. Charles McVetey of Canada Christian College invited him to Canada and the American Republican influence gave new intensity to the organized activities of Christian evangelicals.
As Reed told his audience in Toronto, “Democracy is often a game played by a motivated few: in the nitty gritty of grass roots organizing, it can take only a handful of citizens to commandeer a nomination contest.” Several prominent members of the Conservative Party were in the audience.
Preston Manning reinvented himself after losing the helm of the Canadian Alliance. Although he remained loyal to the party and to those who had supplanted him, embodying the Christian tradition of his upbringing, he apparently realized that his straightforward approach to politics would no longer work, and so he opted for a much more covert approach to leadership. His Manning Centre for Building Democracy now trains Conservative party operatives using the twin metaphors of the serpent and the dove.
McDonald likens the new Conservative legislative strategy Manning devised to that of the anti-slavery activist M.P. William Wilberforce in the 2006 film Amazing Grace.
Frustrated for two decades in his efforts to end the British slave trade, during a war with France he engineered a “patriotic” bill, the Foreign Slave Trade Act, which forbade trade with the French. It slipped through the British Parliament before the pro-slavery elements twigged to its real intent: by barring British slave merchants from selling their human cargo to French plantation owners in the United States, they had effectively outlawed two thirds of the slave trade and destroyed its economic viability.
Apparently inspired by the film, Preston Manning repeatedly showed clips from it in his training sessions and urged evangelical activists to study Wilberforce’s strategy “backward and forward,” counseling them to employ both his patience and his subterfuge.
“If Harper’s sly circumvention of Parliament (on the issue of grants for Canadian films) bore an amazing resemblance to that of Amazing Grace — right down to undercutting the commercial viability of the Canadian film industry — it was no accident.”
End of Part 1
Link to Part 2
https://rodcroskery.wordpress.com/2010/05/24/all-the-christianity-that-fits/
The Armageddon Factor: notes
May 17, 2010
I’ll upload more notes as I go.
Notes for a review of The Armageddon Factor, by Marci McDonald, Random House. 2010
The separation of church and state enshrined in law is an American concept. Because our country was not populated by refugees who believed they were fleeing religious oppression in the manner of the pilgrims to the Thirteen Colonies, we have never had laws like the First and Fourteenth Amendments in Canada. In the United States for members of the religious right to assert their power over government they have to bypass the constitution, but not in Canada.
In fact, the orderly history of Canada relies upon a strong tradition of churchmen exerting a benign influence over government. Schools, universities, and hospitals were started by churches until well into the twentieth century. In Quebec the Catholic Church controlled the province until the Quiet Revolution of the 1960’s. Over 2 million acres of clergy reserves in Ontario left the Anglican Church an economic power of great influence. p. 52
On the prairies the desperation of the Depression gave rise to the J.S. Woodsworth and Tommy Douglas radio ministries and demands for compassionate treatment from government. The Social Gospel movement became the CCF and later the NDP. Canadians have this populist movement to thank for Canada’s system of medicare.
Bible Bill Aberhart in Alberta founded the Social Credit, a right wing populist group. After Aberhart’s death Ernest Manning took over, hosting the Back to the Bible Hour while serving as Alberta Premier for a generation. His son Preston founded the Reform Party which later morphed into the Canadian Alliance and the Conservative Party of Canada. 53
Same-sex marriage legislation in Canada was a great defeat for the religious right, their Alamo, if you will. In its aftermath the movement evolved and strengthened, determined never to allow a defeat like that again. The strident theo-conservatives from the United States moved north, responding to invitations from individuals in Canada seeking to profit from their fundraising expertise and image.
Ralph Reed is widely credited with engineering George W. Bush’s White House victories. Charles McVetey of Canada Christian College 81 invited him to Canada and the American Republican influence gave new intensity to the the organized activities of Christian evangelicals. As Reed told his audience in Toronto, “Democracy is often a game played by a motivated few: in the nitty gritty of grass roots organizing, it can take only a handful of citizens to commandeer a nomination contest.” 76
Preston Manning reinvented himself after losing the helm of the Canadian Alliance. Although he remained loyal to the party and to those who had supplanted him, embodying the Christian tradition of his upbringing, he apparently realized that his straightforward approach to politics would no longer work, and so he opted for a much more covert approach to leadership. His Manning Centre for Building Democracy now trains Conservative party operatives using the twin metaphors of the serpent and the dove.
McDonald likens the Conservative legislative strategy to that of the anti-slavery activist M.P. William Wilberforce in the 2006 film Amazing Grace. Frustrated for two decades in his efforts to end the British slave trade, during a war with France he engineered a “patriotic” bill, the Foreign Slave Trade Act, which forbade trade with the French. It slipped through the British Parliament before the pro-slavery elements twigged to its real intent: by barring British slave merchants from selling their human cargo to French plantation owners in the United States, they had effectively outlawed two thirds of the slave trade and destroyed its economic viability. 98
Apparently inspired by the film, Preston Manning repeatedly showed clips from it in his presentations and urged evangelical activists to study Wilberforce’s strategy “backward and forward,” counseling them to employ both his patience and his subterfuge. 98.
“If Harper’s sly circumvention of Parliament (on the issue of grants for Canadian films) bore an amazing resemblance to that of Amazing Grace — right down to undercutting the commercial viability of the Canadian film industry — it was no accident.” 98
Rocking the Vote: Faytene Kryskow.
Self-styled prophetess and cheerleader for the charismatic Christian right, Kryskow’s activities as a youth organizer have garnered significant media attention and free passage through the corridors of power of the Harper Government. An energetic pro-life campaigner who counts among her mentors Stockwell Day, she has outlasted more lurid performers of her crowd who have fallen to scandal and become a force on Parliament Hill.
One of her projects involved writing a short history of Canada from a Christian perspective. She sent copies to every senator and parliamentarian. Perhaps inspired by her historical researches for the book, she once rented the Dominion Chalmers United Church “trumpeting it as the site where the nation’s first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, ‘got saved.’”
In fact the church was not built until after his death and the man wasn’t known for his religious beliefs, but Kryskow doesn’t seem much inclined to let a lack of facts get in the way of a good story, which might reflect upon her frequent claims of divine inspiration.
Ken Epp, an Edmonton backbencher, sponsored a private member’s bill in 2008 to protect the rights of the unborn in murder cases. The bill passed, in part due to a snowstorm which kept voting opposition members away from the house. Kryskow and her crew burst into cheers in the gallery. When the bill died without a third reading when Harper called an election, Kryskow blamed Harper’s betrayal of her cause for his sudden decline in popularity, the same way she tied drops in the stock market and the Canadian dollar to each successful move by pro-gay legislators.
What’s scary about Kryskow is not so much her visions or her flexible concepts of veracity, but rather the unfettered access she and her gang have to Parliament Hill and Stockwell Day. Her motto of “kicking major devil butt p. 174” says a lot.
Remember when comedian Rick Mercer played the trick on Stockwell Day, getting Facebook kids to ask him to change his name to “Doris?” Our Faytene did one better, swamping a CBC 140th anniversary poll — which asked for teen’s fondest wish — with 9500 votes for the abolition of abortion. 169
Chapter 7: The Joshua Generation
Styled upon the successful Patrick Henry College in Virginia, Western Trinity University is a small British Columbia Christian school which was founded in the 1960’s with a view to producing a generation of Christian leaders for Canadian government. With the opening of the Ottawa Laurentian Leadership Centre in a renovated mansion, its students have a base from which to work as interns on Parliament Hill. Harper’s government members have willingly accepted these interns. “At least thirty of the centre’s young Christian soldiers have won jobs in Ottawa’s permanent policy-making apparatus and every semester produces new recruits.” 244
MPs Chuck Stahl and Diane Ablonczy are Western Trinity alumni. Jared Kuehl went straight to Harper’s office after graduation. Mark Penninga became spokesman for Focus on the Family Canada, then founded the Association for Reformed Political Action.
Before he was prime minister, Harper railed against the liberalism of the civil service and Trinity Western is not alone in attempting to help him reverse that tilt. More than a dozen well-regarded Christian colleges and universities now exist in this country, and the Conservatives are quietly fostering their growth. When economic stimulus funds were being doled out, Harper funneled more than $26 million their way, including $2.6 million to Trinity Western – a windfall that was announced by Conservative MP Mark Warawa, a TWU alumnus himself. 245
“In today’s society, there are important issues and Christians have a role to play. I think our students are already influencing the thinking of government.” Don Page, Dean of Graduate Studies, TWU. 245
McDonald steps outside her normal role of historian in the book when she recounts a morning visit to the Laurentian Leadership Centre.
Only weeks earlier the National Post had run a flattering, full-page profile of the Laurentian Leadership Centre, celebrating it as a new haven for the “sharpest edge of intellectual evangelical Christianity, but on the day I visit there is little evidence of that acuity. If this is history filtered through a biblical worldview, it is a version that seems hopelessly skewed by conservative bias and a marked disregard for the facts. When students refer to the Toronto Star as “the Red Star” and deride Canada as a “welfare state,” I feel as if I’ve stumbled into the ornate clubhouse of some fresh-faced relics from the Reagan era. 242
the Walnut Diary 