Is Canada heading to Revolt?

 

The words. How to put into words the sacrilegious assault on freedom and democracy that we witnessed in Ottawa over this past weekend. The one word that comes to mind in the heart and the head is this - betrayal. 

The government, the media, the police, the courts, in other words the Canadian establishment, have shown themselves to be who they really are - the dictatorship of the few.  The last four weeks, if not the last two years, have shown it without any doubt. The establishment has asserted itself upon the rights and will of a significant portion of Canada's population - millions of people - and has done so with arrogance that would shame any other monarchy in resent history. 

The tone was set by the prime minister of Canada, Trudeau. He, and his ministers, particularly Freeland, slandered the millions of Canadians who participated and supported the movement to end vaccine mandates in Canada. They are personally responsible for poisoning the waters of democracy in Canada. Trudeau claimed he was the champion of democracy in that he won the last federal election. That is the most empty, and contemptible claim of all. The truth is Trudeau won less popular vote than the Conservatives by a margin of  33.74 to 32.62, but due to the archaic electoral system in Canada Trudeau was awarded 160 seats while the Conservatives received only 119. The same system Trudeau promised to reform after his win in 2016, but conveniently failed to do so. Furthermore, the turn out for the election was only 62.5 % of the eligible population, meaning the Liberals received 5.5 million votes compared to 5.8 million for the Conservatives. So, of a country of 36 million people, Trudeau took power with 5.5 million votes, and claims the ground of moral supremacy. This is the back drop and the the future.

With this "moral high ground" Trudeau demonized millions of people, created division and hatred in the population, and even in families. He, and his colleges  are guilty of inciting hatred among the very people they are sworn to serve. He has poisoned the name of the Liberal Party from one that has historically advocated for minority rights, including the creation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, to one that is now legitimately and apolitically viewed as an enemy of freedom and individual rights. He has aligned himself and his party with the hysterical "Karens" of the US, and the despotic US left wings' doctrine of domination rather than accommodation.  In other words, Trudeau and his ilk, including the state-run media of Canada, have created a massive chasm in this country that may never be heeled. Indeed, it could get much worse. 

Having poisoned the culture of freedom on which Canada was founded, and upon which Canada has lived all these generations, the establishment in Canada is seeking retribution upon those Canadians that dare to make their voices heard. They did so peacefully, even festively, which seemed to invite even further vitriol from the Canadian government. The final act of betrayal, the grotesque abuse of power, was the enacting of the Emergency Measures Act making protesting illegal in Canada. The police, RCMP  and provincial/local police forces, showed to Canada and the world that they are not much more than goons for the state. The footage of their actions at the protests showed a seeming delight in beating and intimidating peaceful protesters. The disgraceful act of riding massive police horses through peaceful, and completely vulnerable protesters was an act of such cowardice and brutality that the RCMP name is now in the mud with other such forces in Latin America. The removal of peaceful veterans from the National War Memorial was a disgrace without equal, and an act that will destroy the relationships previously enjoyed by the veteran and police communities.

What we are left with is a country deeply, and I mean deeply divided. Afterall, when people have been assaulted over a peaceful expression of protest what is left to them? That remains the question now. The government and courts have chosen to make examples of people like Tamara Lich by leaving her in prison without bail until trial, and seizing her accounts - the very same actions  they condemn Russia for in its treatment of  protest organizer Alexei Navalny. Yes, that is where we are in Canada on this day. The seizing of people's bank accounts for the charge of, wait for it, mischief, is beyond anything that can be reasoned. Yet, the judge who denied Lich bail railed on about her offence of inconveniencing Ottawa citizens, and her prospects of long jail term. Such is the massive abuse of power currently being committed in Canada.

All of this begs the question: where do Canadians go from here? Hence the title of this article. Are we heading to a real rebellion in Canada? Nobody has a crystal ball, and as such nobody really knows the unintended (we presume) consequences of coldly stamping out the flames of freedom in Canada. Will the population cower at the sight of people being demonized, jailed, fined, and financially ruined for protesting for their freedom? Certainly, given Canadians' long history of self-destructing passiveness,  a population cowering in the corner is definitely a possibility. Another possibility is massive political fault. Support or condemnation of the protests has loosely followed political lines - with some exceptions. It resulted in the Western caucus of the Conservative party throwing a luke warm O'Toole from the leadership of the party. Today stories are surfacing in state-controlled media of the "drafting" of Jean Charest as a new leader for the Conservatives. The signal there is the establishment want to retake control of the Conservative Party, and the very likely result of that is the loss of the entire western portion of the party - perhaps to the People's Party of Canada. Then there remains the NDP, who have suffered a massive 10% drop in their polling numbers, and recently lost a provincial seat in Saskatchewan as a result of their consummate ties to the Liberals. Here again we can expect major political costs for the BC dominated federal party. 

Another course that could manifest itself in Canada is an open rebellion against the establishment in Canada. How that might look is debatable. It really is going to depend on the level of alienation and anger towards the establishment that comes from this gross abuse of power. It could result in further blockades. It could result in mass protests by foot that have been witnessed in almost every Canadian city in the last three weeks. We simply don't know how Canadians will chooses to express their outrage. While the term Canadians in this post refers to those who oppose the trampling of their personal freedoms, there does remain an approximately equal group that cheers on the establishment's crack down. Perhaps this is one of the saddest parts of this entirely disgraceful time, and that is the willingness of people to walk over the rights of others because they believe they have the moral high ground and that entitles them to do so. It is a poison that is now flowing through the veins of many Canadians, and a real tragedy.  For a people who inherited so much, to a people who may no longer deserve the free country they once thought they enjoyed.

In Support of Truckers

 Anyone, at any time, who has taken a stand against our governments in Canada lately has found themselves vilified by those very same institutions which purport to defend their individual rights and freedoms. In this way our truckers and their supporters are no different than those that have come before them. Unlike those that have come before them, the Freedom Convoy 2022 has inspired millions of Canadians, and people around the world, by their collective dogged stand. For that they win a special place in history.

Throughout the world governments have been casting aside individual freedoms in the name of collective security (health this time) as if they were acceptable losses for the greater good. The governments of the world have walked over their citizens with impunity, and purpose. Now they have met the resistance to those actions. For every action their is a reaction, and in Canada and other countries in the world that means populist rebellion against those that deem themselves able to create two classes of citizens - those that submit and those that do not. It has played out very deliberately and very obviously over the last two years - step by step by step.

Many of the media types are asking how Canada became so divided, now on a parallel with the US, when they quote a vaccination rate of 85% of Canadians. The answer is quite simple: most of those people did not want to vaccinated but felt they had no choice. That bread resentment, and resentment gave birth to anger, and when anger grew up it became rebellion - as is today. When mandates were put in place just barely half the population was vaccinated, despite being urged to by the Premiers and Trudeau. When the urging didn't produce enough results they created timelines for people to get vaccinated or they couldn't get a vax passport to participate in society, including travel, which is a constitutionally protected right in this country. Essentially they imprisoned the Canadian people with one alternative to get out of jail. When they were done with that, they set out to demonize, shame and degrade those that still refused to be vaccinated - as if they had the right to do so.

It shouldn't be a surprise that a slim majority of Canadians want the mandates removed, because that same group of people either didn't want it or didn't get it in the first place. Now they are fed up with the ultimatums, the demonizing, the dividing. There is also a significant percentage of the population that agrees that individual rights are nothing in the face of collective rights, and that those who did not submit should somehow be excluded from living a normal life in their own country.  Those same people forget that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was created to protect individual rights and freedoms - not collective rights and freedoms. For example, it protects homosexual people from discrimination. Following the current logic, and given that AIDS was initially a disease affecting the gay population, gay men would be forced into isolation and be unable to interact with normal society. That did not happen, nor was it even suggested to happen, yet those that are willing to chance Covid rather than a vaccine are not so lucky. The examples could go on and on. 

One of my favorite examples is former Prime Minister Mulroney. When he was Prime Minister the War Measures Act was struck from Canadian law to stop another atrocity like the placing of Japanese-Canadians in prison camps during the Second World War. Most of us thought it was more aimed at his Quebec base given the use by then Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau of the Act to send troops into Quebec. Whatever the case, Mulroney scrapped the act to protect a group of citizens from being targeted by the state with discrimination. Fast forward to today, and where does Mulroney stand? Well, this was part of a news report released on October 31, 2021 regarding then leader O'Toole's failure in the election:

      "They were doing very well...for the first couple of weeks, and then they lost momentum simply             because... Mr. Trudeau quite brilliantly poked holes in the Conservative positions on exactly what         you and I are talking about: Vaccines, and health care and the problems that were going on in                 Alberta at the time."  

This is the master of division whose policies of demonizing others created the Reform Party and almost saw the West succeed from Canada. That is why he used the term "brilliantly" for stoking the fires of division over vaccines. To them our rights and freedoms are merely some sort of talking point when seeking favour, but not to be taken seriously. This is the truth, and you can see it being played out every day in the media and by the political "elite" who think the ends justify the means. 

Congratulations elite. You have really done it this time. A very dedicated, very patriotic, very principled core of Canadians have stood up in defiance of your arbitrary and unconstitutional actions. The truckers of Canada, and now the world, have taken it upon themselves to lead the defence of freedom, but make no mistake, they are not alone. When you attack them you attack us. When you demonize them you demonize us. When you mock them you mock us. They are not alone. They were never alone. You tried to tae their fuel so they would freeze or leave. That did not work. Now the word is you want to tare children away from their parents who participate in the protest. Have you no shame? Have you no comprehension that what you do to them you do to us? 

To all of you that have dug in your heels at the borders and in Ottawa, thank-you for taking the fight for freedom to those that so willingly seek to deny it to us. Thank-you for your courage of conviction, which they can not meet because they have no courage. Thank-you for remaining calm in the face of provocation after provocation. As was the case with Ghandi, who peacefully brought down British rule over India, and more importantly the example of Christ who told us to turn the other cheek, your example of peaceful protest extinguishes their flames of hate. Finally, when you are sitting in your cab, or gathering on the frozen streets of Ottawa or on the borders, remember we are with you and we support you with our hearts and souls. 

Canada's Popular Revolt

 

It is not everyday that a writer gets to contemplate a momentous event in his own country. In Canada, the land of the laid back, that is even more true. BUT, times have changed.

The Freedom Convoy 2022, which started as one man's vision to fight back against vaccine mandates for truckers to cross into the US has blossomed into an all out revolution of ideals. Two years of suffocating "lockdowns" (normally used in the sense of locking rowdy prisoners in their cells, but used against the entire population), "mandated" (read "forced") vaccinations, and demonization have led to a popular uprising in Canada. It is not an understatement to say that: a popular uprising. 

The tens of thousands of people who line the overpasses and roads of the country as the convoy made its way to Ottawa were the real sign of this movement. They braved, in many cases, -30 Celsius or worse temperatures for hours to show their support, and encouragement for what the truckers and their supporters were doing. As did the people who stood shoulder to shoulder last weekend - again to support the convoy's message that mandates are unconstitutional, violate Canadian's civil rights, and are destroying their quality of life. Mothers, fathers, children, in fact vastly more younger families than any other demographic, waved their flags in defiance of the actions of provincial and especially federal governments, and of course its chief cheerleader Mr. Trudeau.

Like Mary Antoinette of French infamy who arrogantly stated "Let them eat cake", Trudeau referred to these patriots, and all those young families lining the nation's highways, as a "fringe minority espousing unacceptable views". The convoy, and the majority of Canadian supporters, who were already angry at their freedoms being discarded like unnecessary trash,  now were seeing red - Antoinette-style. Trudeau quickly left the capital just before the convoy arrived, and was moved to a "safe place" (likely somewhere out of truck horn distance from Ottawa). 

His government, and to their extreme discredit the national media, attempted to demonize the protesters as everything from nazi or KKK supporters, to a violent mob spitting at old people and stealing food from the homeless shelters. The federal Liberal government has done everything in its power to label these Canadians, who represent average Canadians completely, as something akin to a "mob of the vile".  Or as one establishment lady once said to me: "the great unwashed". It is enough to turn your stomach thinking that people look at others in this way, and believe it to their core. With Trudeau hiding, Freelend, the grand daughter of a nazi sympathizer and publisher in Ukraine during World War 2, has been doing a lot of spinning herself in the Parliament of Canada. Again, portraying these Canadians as viler and unworthy. 

As a Canadian, a veteran, the son of a WW 2 veteran, and a person that has defended freedom in Canada at all times, I do not recognize my country right now. I see the memory of my country in this movement to retake our constitutional rights back from those who so duplicitously absconded with them. A veteran who lost his way, who lost sight of what he defended as an officer in the air force, the Leader of the Conservative Party and Leader of the Opposition, has fallen - removed by the western Canadian caucus of his own party for failing to defend the Charter of Rights and Freedoms strongly enough in support of the convoy. It seems that western Canada is the true bastion of freedom in Canada. The convoy started here. The voices against mandates were the strongest here. The remembrance of Canada as a free nation are most sacred here. The rest of Canada has been inspired by the West that it is only that freedom that makes us who we are, and without it we are nothing. I think that is fair to say.

While nobody aspires to violence in this uprising, one deliberate act of suppression of the protesters by the use of force could send it off the charts. This is not an exaggeration, but a warning of sorts. Trudeau and his like have been tossing the idea of a military action to end the demonstration - yet the demonstrations are happening all over the second largest country in the world. A country that is solely dependent on three or four primary crossing points into the US for its economy - one of which was shut down by trucks for several days - and may be again. The ugly truth is that our very own Prime Minister considers his own country the "first post-national country" - in other words Canada has outlived its usefulness. It is only in a country as laid back as Canada that he could get away with a statement like that. In other countries that would be legitimately considered a treacherous statement - high treason. 

This weekend there will be massive demonstrations across major cities throughout Canada. In Alberta today I witnessed kilometers long convoys of large farm machinery, adorned with new Canadian flags, and hand made signs calling for a return to freedom - an end to mandates. That was Thursday. The real event doesn't start until Saturday. Word is that massive convoys are converging on Quebec City, Toronto, and other major Canadian cities. 

What will be the result of all this? It is hard to say. I suppose it depends on how it ends. What is clear is that either the constitutional rights of Canadians will be returned or their will likely not be a Canada as we know it now. The liberals (small L and big L) have gone too far this time. They have arrogantly told the people of Canada to "eat cake". The only question is whether Canadians are cake eaters or the descendants of those that stormed Vimy Ridge with the resolute bravery that fills the heart of a free man and woman.