Don't Canada America
Most Americans ignore Canada at their own peril. The American Left wants us to become more like Canada. Especially now.
No posts of my mine receive fewer clicks than ones about Canada. Most readers are Americans, and we (you) have long either taken our northern neighbor for granted or perhaps find the world’s second-largest nation (geographically) north of our 5,500-mile border quaint if not dull.
How uninteresting? Consider our respective nations’ unofficial mottos. We have long enshrined “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” from our Declaration of Independence in America. In Canada, it’s “peace, order, and good government.” Our national emblem is the soaring, sharp-eyed bird of prey, the bald eagle; in Canada, it’s the noble, industrious beaver. Since our war for independence, Canada - whose head of state remains the British sovereign - works hard to be different than Americans, despite common heritage, values, and proximity. Really hard.
My own introduction to Canada came as a 17-year-old high school graduate and Civil Air Patrol cadet who had never traveled north of Kansas. Excited to be accepted into the CAP’s International Air Cadet Exchange Program, I was assigned to traverse Canada for nearly a month during the summer of 1974, via my first trip to Washington, DC. Fellow cadets I knew were selected for France and England. They felt sorry for me; going overseas was so much more glamorous. They couldn’t have been more wrong; it was wonderful.
A few years later, I became Chair of the Canadian American Business Council. I am a confessed Canada-phile. I have long since paid careful attention to recent events north of the 49th parallel. So should you.
The “Freedom Convoy” and allied protests across the nation (did you not notice?) were anything but boring and mild-mannered, topped by the federal government’s Tiananmen Square-style authoritarian response. Very un-Canada-like, but not really - protestors sang and danced, played sports, and were non-violent other than excessive honking of truck and auto horns, which politely stopped when directed.
The Canadian protests have been peaceful. Disruptive, perhaps (temporarily blocking the Ambassador bridge to the U.S. and a few streets in Ottawa), but demonstrably friendly. What prompted this of course was lockdown policies far more draconian than the U.S. that still persist, despite having among the world’s highest vaccination rates. American truck drivers who attempt to cross the border are turned away; Canadian truck drivers must show vaccine cards or face a lengthy quarantine.
Could this new authoritarianism in Canada become a precursor in the U.S.? Some might suggest it already has.
It appears some American truckers are envious of Canada’s “Freedom Convoy” of dozens of big trucks that blocked Ottawa’s Wellington Street for nearly a month. Despite the lack of onerous lockdowns and mandates that inspired Canada’s civil disobedience, it appears trucks are on their way to Washington timed, coincidentally, with Joe Biden’s State of the Union Address on March 1. They seem organized - fundraising appeals are already being texted. Democrats and the media will undoubtedly pounce on that politically to remind us of January 6th. The Capitol remains closed, and fencing is coming back up again. As happened previously, I’m not sure if it will include concertina wire or 25,000 National Guard troops.
I’d rather see the convoy disrupt Big Tech’s operations and headquarters in Silicon Valley.
Thanks to the first-ever invoking of their 1988 “Emergencies Act,” Canada’s Liberal Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, the federal government has used vast police powers not only to forcibly remove and arrest dozens of truckers and remove the offending vehicles but freeze bank accounts of protesters. Ottawa is seizing and selling vehicles.
Officials have also blocked reporters from taking photos. There is no freedom of the press in Canada. Scott Olson is a news photographer with Getty Images, which produces most of the media photography you see in news outlets worldwide (at least the free ones).
Listening to CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) yesterday on a Sirius XM radio, I heard the largely state-owned and subsidized media interview a couple of “experts,” then read anti-protest comments from probably Ottawa residences inconvenienced by the protests.
While I could not jot down their exact words while driving north on I-95 yesterday, the gist was unmistakable: protests are acceptable so long as no one is inconvenienced. The line stops at blocking streets and preventing people from going on with their daily lives. They need to get permits and permission like everyone else.
But it’s the evoking of the Emergencies Act that should grab Americans’ attention. We got a taste of that from governors from our now 24-month-old pandemic - you remember “two weeks to stop the spread” - and the exercise of “emergency powers.”
But in Canada, it includes remarkable financial powers. Canada has, in effect, imposed a Chinese-style social credit system on its citizens. From fellow blogger David Sacks:
Banks, according to this new order, have a “duty to determine” if one of their customers is a “designated person.” A “designated person” can refer to anyone who “directly or indirectly” participates in the protest, including donors who “provide property to facilitate” the protests through crowdfunding sites. In other words, a designated person can just as easily be a grandmother who donated $25 to support the truckers as one of the organizers of the convoy.
Because the donor data to the crowdfunding site GiveSendGo was hacked—and the leaked data shows that Canadians donated most of the $8 million raised—many thousands of law-abiding Canadians now face the prospect of financial retaliation and ruin merely for supporting an anti-government protest.
Already, a low-level government official in Ontario was fired after her $100 donation came to light. A gelato shop was forced to close when it received threats after its owner was revealed to have donated to the protest. On Wednesday, Justice Minister David Lametti went on Canadian television to say the quiet part aloud, namely that anyone contributing to “a pro-Trump movement” should be “worried” about their bank accounts and other financial assets being frozen.
Bienvenue du Canada.
To their credit, Canadian civil liberties groups are outraged over the imposition of the Emergencies Act (more about that later) and are demanding that it be ended. Parliament is scheduled to vote on it this week.
The BBC expertly outlined the law that Prime Minister Trudeau appears to have misused. It is worth reading.
The Emergencies Act outlines four different types of emergencies: public welfare emergencies, public order emergencies, international emergencies and war emergencies. If the legislation is invoked this week, it will likely be under the 'public order' category. Again, the criteria here is strict - lawful protests do not qualify.
Instead, the situation must be considered a threat to the security of Canada, as defined by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act. This law outlines four possible scenarios:
Espionage or sabotage
Foreign-influenced activities
Threats or use of acts of serious violence for political, religious or ideological objectives
Covert, unlawful acts intended to undermine or overthrow the constitutionally established government
It is so far unclear which scenario Mr. Trudeau would rely on to justify the use of the Emergency Act - none of these four scenarios have been clearly present in Ontario.
To invoke the law, the prime minister must also consult with the premiers of any impacted provinces before putting the move before Parliament. If the act does not pass a vote there, the proclamation will be revoked.
On Monday, Ontario Premier Doug Ford said he would support the federal government and "any proposals they have to bring law and order back to our province". The premier of Quebec, Francois Legault, told reporters he didn't want to see the act applied in his province.
For anyone genuinely knowledgeable of the protests in Canada, Trudeau’s exercising of the Emergencies Act was clearly outside the law’s intent and is being rejected by most provincial premiers and, it seems, most Canadians. It might explain why the Conservative Party has suddenly taken an 8-point lead in public polling.
Canadians’ rights come from their Charter of Rights and Freedoms, primarily written by Justin Trudeau’s father, the late former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, and granted by the government. They are interesting, with all kinds of qualifiers. Our rights emanate from a Declaration of Independence (Canada’s head of state remains the Queen of England, represented in Ottawa by a factotum, the Governor General) that recognizes certain unalienable rights endowed by our Creator. These rights are secured by government, with the consent of the governed.
Americans need to pay careful attention to what’s happening in Canada because it is already infiltrating the United States. Elements of our society are already working overtime to institute a social credit system, including deplatforming organizations and companies who express “undesirable” views. From David Sacks, again:
Last summer, I warned readers of Common Sense that financial deplatforming would be the next wave of online censorship. Big Tech companies like PayPal were already working with left-wing groups like the ADL (Anti-Defamation League) and SPLC (Southern Poverty Law Center) to define lists of individuals and groups who should be denied service. As more and more similarly minded tech companies followed suit (as happened with social media censorship), these deplorables would be deplatformed, debanked, and eventually denied access to the modern economy altogether, as punishment for their unacceptable views.
That prediction has become reality.
This is from a guy who helped create PayPal.com that is actively deplatforming conservatives. More proof? Just ask the social media platform, Parler.com.
The President of the United States doesn’t appear to have the same emergency powers that the Prime Minister of Canada does. However, past presidents have suspended certain rights during times of an actual insurrection or invasion (war). But that hasn’t stopped partisans from getting private actors, such as private financial service operators like PayPal and banks, to deplatform deplorable Americans. Just ask the pillow guy, Mike Lindell, an apparent “reputation risk.”
Or, ask the thousands of Canadians and Americans who donated to Canada’s Freedom Convoy via GoFundMe.com. How did that work out? At least they finally agreed to refund the contributions. An alternative, GiveSendGo.com, also essentially capitulated to Canadian government demands.
These people mean business. While smug Canadians often thumb their noses at our often unruly and ill-mannered antics and proclivities, Americans should be alarmed at Canada’s descent into totalitarianism. We’d better tend to our own versions of the same tactics.