A summary of the principal discourse given by Mrs. Côté-Mercier at Sturgeon Falls
Mrs. Côté-Mercier expounded the theme of the ideal of the Social Crediter: the building of the Social Credit community.
The Social Credit community, she said, will be that in which the citizens, for the most part, will be politically enlightened and will exercise the preponderant influence over their representatives in parliament. Such an influence will be exercise at all times and will be directed towards obtaining legislation which will be beneficial to the whole community.
There can be no Social Credit community without an enlightened and vigilant people.
This community is yet to be founded. Our task is to build it here in Canada.
Every community needs an elite group, not to direct through dictatorial power and the influence of money, but an elite which will guide the people and help to see that the needs of the people are filled. This elite is not at all comparable to what common usage denotes as "elite" today in society a directing class which unfortunately has become a class whose main function is to exploit the others. The true elite is in reality an apostolate which is prepared to sacrifice itself for the people. This is why the Social Crediters of the Institute of Political Action, grouped into the Union of Electors, strive to make themselves apostles in the field of political action. They are selfless, seeking not their own interests. They are devoted and zealous. Their practical program consists of visiting the people, families, going from door to door in town and country, seeking to know the families, their needs, striving to enlighten them and educate them in true politics and true economics, comforting them, encouraging them, and training them to assume their true duties as citizens and to act politically to make their will known to their representatives and fulfilled by them.
The door-to-door visit is the primary work of the Crediter. And with this goes the publications of our movement, Vers Demain and The Union of Electors, the torches which will light the way to the new Social Credit civilization.
Today, gathered together here, said Mrs. Côté-Mercier, all of us will take the firm resolution to set under way an army of Social Credit "legionnaires" who will undertake each week to do two hours, at least, of door-to-door visiting. Let all Crediters who wish to be members of the Social Credit elite enroll as members of this corps of legionnaires. Their program: two hours of door-to-door visiting each week to make known and read our publications: The Union of Electors and Vers Demain. For only these two papers can form true Crediters, citizens who are enlightened and responsible.
It is by this massive program of door-to-door visiting, she continued, that we will prepare the force which will check the ferment of Communism which has been thrust upon us more and more over the past two decades, especially through radio, television and the newspapers; a ferment which has been seizing the minds and hearts of thousands, blinding the people with lies, making liberty-loving individuals seek now for the chains of Communism, even while they do not realize what they are doing.
Here in Canada we shall roll back the Communist movement through thousands of Social Credit legionnaires. For this year of 1960-61, our aim is to set on foot a force of 5,000 legionnaires, men, women and children, who will adopt whole-heartedly our program and we shall have them!