O Canada

 

Back when slavery was still legal in the United States, runaway slaves used to flee to Canada. Then in the 1920s, when alcohol was outlawed in the United States, people smuggled booze in from Canada or went there to drink. During the Vietnam war, some American men who wanted to avoid the draft sought amnesty in Canada. In 1985, Margaret Atwood published The Handmaid's Tale, a novel depicting a dystopian future in which an oppressive theocracy took over in America, and Americans defected to Canada. During the Bush II and Trump years, we often heard liberals saying they planned to run away to Canada, fearing that a Handmaid's Tale-style police state was soon to follow. In recent decades, since America has grown increasingly inhospitable towards the world's tired, poor, and huddled masses, Canada has stepped up to welcome them. If the United States is the Mother of Exiles, Canada is the exiles' cool aunt who they stay with when Mom is mad. I've heard that when savvy American backpackers are traveling abroad, they stick a Canadian flag patch on their backpacks, because so many people around the world hate Americans but feel warmly toward Canadians. Canada appeared to be the last bastion of liberty, the last place people could bug out to when even the Land of the Free was no longer free enough.

But things have changed.

 

 

Gun control in Canada has gotten increasingly restrictive, starting with handgun registration in 1934 and proceeding through to their banning AR-15s and many other types of guns in 2020. Jordan Peterson was an unknown Psychology professor from Toronto who became internationally famous in 2016 when he had the audacity to say that his government shouldn't mandate that people say certain words. And now, in response to protests from truckers and other "essential" workers who have survived COVID-19 while being required to work for the past two years (while their taxes supported everyone else staying home), the Canadian government is seizing the bank accounts of anyone connected to the protests. They're using laws intended for fighting terrorism to suppress political dissent. Police are reportedly going door to door among businesses in downtown Ottawa, the nation's capital, checking business licenses, driver's licenses, etc., and kicking people out--even people who aren't protesting--if the police don't feel that those people have a legitimate need to be there. The level of coercion that Canada is using to silence its people, to punish them for having spoken up in the first place, and to force them back to work is on a scale we typically associate with the likes of Vladimir Putin, not Justin Trudeau.

I once heard a story about a man who had come to the United States from Cuba, or perhaps from the Soviet Union. After he related how bad things had been in his home country, he said that Americans were in an even worse situation, because unlike the people in his country, Americans don't have anywhere to run to if tyranny rears its head here. But we did--Canada. I'm reminded of this story now, looking at how oppressive the Canadian government has become. It's true--we don't have any freer place to run away to anymore. The American people are backed into a corner. If our government tries to suppress us, our only options will be to comply or fight. Let's hope it never does anything so foolish.