[1] Larry Gordon, "Dubious Democracy Report," www.fairvotecanada.org.

[2] ibid.

[3] Irving L. Janis, Victims of Groupthink, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1972.

[4] The term gerrymander dates back to 1812 when Massachusetts governor Elbridge Gerry redrew electoral districts to favor Jeffersonian Republican party candidates. One reporter commented that the map of one of the new districts looked like a salamander, another said it looked like a Gerry-mander.

[5] There are dozens of proposed and actual proportional representation systems. On March 29, 2005 my search for the term "proportional representation" on the Google search engine produced about 389,000 hits, including 42,200 from Canada. On May 18/05 citizens of B.C. narrowly defeated a proposal to introduce one form of proportional representation into provincial elections. It would have taken 60% to pass and only 57% of voters approved that specific proposal, but all three party leaders conceded that the electorate obviously wants change.

[6] from Politics, book 2, quoted by Joel Bakan, in The Corporation, Viking Canada, Toronto, 2004, pg 103.

[7] http://www.nationalgeographic.com/tv/specials/airforceone/fast_facts.html.

[8] William Marsden, "Corrupt staff go unpunished, Gomery says," National Post, May 18/05, pg A10.

[9] Because the editor changed my story I took my name off it, and if I kept a copy of it I can't find it now. I included the truckers' reservations in "Front brakes, a wise choice?" in the June/86 issue of Trucking Canada.

[10] Richard Cleroux, "Jelinek condemns circular on deducting bribes," The Globe and Mail, Apr 19/89, pg A1. After a public outcry the government changed the law and bribes are no longer considered a legitimate expense.

[11] I tried to get the Toronto newspapers and a national news magazine interested in this but, in those days, Canadian media was not interested in the possibility of corruption in government.

[12] James Wood, $1M missing in funding for poor, National Post Jan 26/03, pg A4.

[13] Graeme Hamilton, "Lobbyist' Guite made $1M in retirement," National Post, May 5/05, pg A10.

[14] Ronald Wright, A Short History of Progress, House of Anansi Press, Toronto, 2004.