The door
YouExcuse me. Is this the line?
The DoormanIt is a line. Whether it is your line is a separate question. Name?
YouI'm a voter. A taxpayer. I pay into everything in there.
The DoormanVery good. Those are not names, madam. Those are contributions.
A MemberLet her stand there, Henry. She can watch the door open for other people. That's half the fun of a club.
The LedgerFor the record. In two thousand and five, George Carlin stood on a stage and put it in one line. It's a big club, and you ain't in it.
YouHe was a comedian.
The LedgerHe was. So the club has eight rules, and next to each rule I will read the public record that shows it working. Every figure comes from a filing, a register, or a government's own page.
The DoormanThe rules are posted. Members never need to read them. Non-members may read them from behind the rope.
Rule one. The door opens from inside
The DoormanRule one. The door opens from inside.
YouThen I'll apply. Fill in the form, show my qualifications.
The LedgerZbigniew Brzezinski walked through twenty doors in one working life, from a gangway in nineteen thirty-eight to a named chair in nineteen eighty-nine. Three of them were applications. One application was refused.
A MemberAnd the other seventeen?
The LedgerOpened by somebody who was already inside. None of the twenty was an election. And the Senate never once voted on whether he should hold the office he is remembered for.
A MemberYou see? Applying is what you do for the university. For the important doors, somebody simply holds them open.
The DoormanThe Switching Yard keeps the ledger of all twenty, with the name of whoever opened each one.
Rule two. The room is sold by the seat
The DoormanRule two. The room is sold by the seat.
YouBut there are donation limits in Canada. Anybody can give. It's capped.
A MemberCapped, yes. That's what makes the seat valuable. If everyone could give a million, a dinner would mean nothing.
The LedgerElections Canada publishes a guest list for every regulated fundraising event. Six hundred and thirty-four rooms. Forty-six thousand, eight hundred and sixty-two seats.
The LedgerIn the rooms from twenty nineteen to twenty twenty-three, of the guest seats that could be matched to a contributor, fifty-four point six per cent belong to someone who gave that party the legal maximum in the same year.
YouSo the people at the table are the people at the limit.
A MemberMore than half of them. The rest are staff, mostly. Somebody has to pour.
The DoormanThe Guest List has every room, every seat it could match, and the year the gift was made.
Rule three. When a vehicle dies, the money moves house
The DoormanRule three. When a vehicle dies, the money moves house.
YouBut when the government shuts a charity down, the money stops. That's what a revocation is for.
The LedgerIn January twenty nineteen, the Canada Revenue Agency revoked Beth Oloth Charitable Organization. One hundred and seventy-eight registered charities had been funding it.
The LedgerWithin two years, one hundred and fifteen of those one hundred and seventy-eight were funding a single foundation. That foundation had reported four hundred and six dollars in assets for years.
A MemberA small house. Very tidy. Ready for guests.
YouAnd nobody looked?
The LedgerAcross twenty-four revocations, it ranks first, at five point eight times the runner-up.
The DoormanFollow the Money keeps the succession, funder by funder.
Rule four. A salary is for staff
The DoormanRule four. A salary is for staff.
YouEveryone draws a salary. That's how income tax works. You earn, you pay.
A MemberExactly right. You earn. We own.
The LedgerAmazon's founder draws a salary of eighty-one thousand, eight hundred and forty dollars. His Amazon stake was worth roughly two hundred and twenty-three billion dollars when it was checked on the third of October, twenty twenty-six. That is more than two point seven million dollars of stake for every dollar of salary.
A MemberYou don't sell what grows. You borrow against it, and the loan isn't income. And when you die, the cost basis steps up, and the gain that was never taxed is simply never taxed.
YouBuy, borrow, die.
The DoormanThe Circuit files the dispatch, and dates every figure.
Rule five. The top job passes inside
The DoormanRule five. The top job passes inside.
YouThat one at least we vote on. A general election picks the government.
The LedgerFive of Britain's last six prime ministers were chosen by their own party, not at a general election. The latest, in July twenty twenty-six, took office without a contest.
A MemberElections are for choosing the club. Who sits at the head of the table is a house matter.
YouSo my vote picks the building. They pick who's in the chair.
The DoormanThe Inquiry's twentieth volume, The House Edge, traces the relay.
Rule six. Every disclosure rule has a door in it
The DoormanRule six. Every disclosure rule has a door in it.
YouThird parties have to disclose their donors now. That was the point of the new elections bill.
The LedgerBill C twenty-five's rule names no donor whose money is ten per cent or less of a group's revenue, and it only looks at the year before an election.
A MemberSo you give early, and you give in pieces. Ten donors at nine per cent each. Nobody is named, and the group's money is mostly ours.
YouThat's the whole rule?
A MemberThat's the door in it. The rest of the rule is wall.
The DoormanThe Laundering, case thirty-seven. The Threshold.
Rule seven. You are watched. They are not required to look
The DoormanRule seven. You are watched. They are not required to look.
YouIf the police misuse a camera or a database, there's a law for that. A breach gets reported.
The LedgerOf the six provinces in The Network's atlas, five require a police service to report a privacy breach. Not one requires it to go looking for one.
A MemberYou can only report what you've found. And nobody is required to look.
YouSo the system checks me constantly, and checks itself only by accident.
The DoormanThe Network, finding nine. Unwatched.
Rule eight. The instrument points outward
The DoormanRule eight. The instrument points outward.
YouCanada screens research partners now. There's a published list of risky organizations.
The LedgerThe Government of Canada's Named Research Organizations list, updated April twenty twenty-four. Entries from the United States: zero. The United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand: zero. The words do not appear anywhere on that page.
A MemberNaturally. One doesn't screen one's own club.
YouSo the one tool built for this is aimed at the partner Canada doesn't have, and away from the partners it does.
The DoormanThe Unscreened. Four things Canada built an instrument for, and never pointed at itself.
Your card
YouSo that's the club. Doors that open from inside. Seats sold at the limit. Money that moves house. Salaries for staff. Leaders chosen at the table. A door in every rule. Watchers nobody watches. And a telescope pointed out the window.
A MemberYou've read the rules. Most people never do. That's rather the point of posting them.
The DoormanYour card, madam. Name: not a member. Valid: indefinitely.
YouFine. But every one of these rules is a public record. Anyone can read it. And a club whose rules are posted is a club people can change.
The LedgerEight properties. One door each. They are linked below, and each of them is open to everyone.
The DoormanThe rope stays where it is. The rulebook, I'm told, is free.
The LedgerEvery source for this is listed at the end of the page, and every one of them is linked.
A MemberIf something here is wrong, it is wrong in the record, and we would want to know. The corrections address is in the footer.
The DoormanThis was The Rules, from The Club. A Feline Union publication.
