Reflections On This “Canadian” Moment

The government of Canada has now officially established the precedent of treating citizens with grievances or dissenting views not as compatriots to be addressed with reason and understanding, but literally as enemy combatants to be publicly vilified, their frustrated group behavior smeared as a “siege” and an “occupation,” and their basic constitutional rights overridden by the government’s invoking of the most extreme wartime measures possible in that country. 

None of that, however, is in itself the worst of what has happened. The worst, by far, is the ease with which this reduction of disgruntled citizens expressing their dissatisfaction, after two years of the most unusual strains, to the status of public enemies was accepted without blinking by the majority of Canadians; specifically, the matter-of-fact satisfaction, and in many cases smug, mocking pleasure, with which mainstream Canada responded to images of their fellow citizens, hardworking men and women with livelihoods and families to worry about, being ordered about and physically removed from the scene by police (and government-commandeered private tow truck operators) working under wartime authorities never before used, and never intended to be used on non-violent, non-life-threatening protesters. This past week, Canadians (such as yours truly) who see clearly what their country has become in recent decades, were treated to the spectacle of their fellow citizens happily choosing tyrannical government as a solution to a short-term problem, and embracing police state powers as a reasonable method of subduing and silencing ordinary working people whose beliefs and behavior they, the inconvenienced majority, find objectionable, or merely uncomfortable. Canada, as it was once understood and appreciated by the freedom-loving people of the world, is no more.