The Uncertain Future of Canada

We live now in uncertain times. I have talked about this on my Podcast, however I have been struggling to write something about this on the Sub Stack. It seems that all of the content creators have thrown their opinions into the fold on this issue. I have been trying to absorb as much as I can to write something intelligible on the issue, yet as I write this I am struck by the total unknowable nature of this situation. This is merely some thoughts on this situation not a detailed breakdown.

I had previously wrote in the article I called “American Exceptionalism is Back”, about the impending tariffs threatened by the United States and our weakened political position, born from years of complacency. What I didn’t expect is just how incompetent our governing bodies would be about the entire situation. Instead of treating the situation seriously, our political class and their media pundits fell immediately back into old patterns. These patterns might have worked for previous US administrations and they work well on Canadians but they don’t work in this situation. Instead of thoughtful analysis our media apparatus, aided by the Laurentian Elites, fell back into the pattern of attempting to gaslight Canadians. This involved denying the problems of our borders, insulting our allies, threatening our own tariffs from a weak position as well as appealing to a Canadian patriotism that for the past ten years has been vilified as the worst type of behavior one can engage with in Canada…while pretending that they hadn’t done it, despite the fact that Canadian’s were jailed for it.

I remain utterly shocked at how malleable the Canadian opinion is. Many right leaning pundits abandoned fixing Canada ourselves for a 51st Statehood appeal. While left leaning pundits suddenly “reclaimed” the Canadian flag as a symbol of opposition to American intrusion, a flag they’ve claimed represents the worst in us (in the past). Overnight stickers went up promoting Canadian products to buy (even though many of them are more expensive) in a time when Canadian’s personal financial situations are the worse they’ve ever been. It was like a program went off in people’s heads that suddenly switched goal posts. All this as we remain locked out of Parliament, unable to do regular business while the Liberals hold a leadership race. The race in question has been a complete farce of public spectacle and institutional busybody rot.

To top it all off many people have been reduced to most boorish behavior in an attempt to insult our American allies, the only allies we have that keep us from being totally steamrolled by the rest of the world. We haven’t made very many friends the past ten years and I don’t think engaging in gutter behavior is going to help us here. In a recent attempt to reach out to the American administration as our Federal leaders fail, our Provincial leaders have seemingly made no headway with the exception maybe of Alberta’s Premier. In response to Alberta’s premier breaking from the consensus, pundits have labelled her as everything from Un-Canadian to a traitor. Yet under Confederation, Premiers retain their sovereignty to manage their Provinces as they see fit. The Federal Government is not their boss.

The entire situation is seemingly a repeat of the messaging of COVID all over again. Making an enemy out of anyone who does not explicitly agree with the ruling party and othering them to target them for attack. It’s a playbook that people fall into their respective roles over and over again. This is not a binary issue that can be inferred as a 1 or a 0. This is set of issues that vary in complexity that cannot be managed under a totality framework. The changing nature and tune that we inevitably must play along with the United States whether we like it or not adds to this complexity. This is why I have only one hard stance on this. We need to re-open Parliament as soon as possible and get all of the Members of Parliament back to work. The shutdown is the most harmful thing that we are doing right now because we have a minority Government doing business without the questioning and pushback from all the other MP’s that were democratically elected and that amounts to, in my opinion, ruling via dictatorship.

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Thank you for reading!