Why Canada Must Break Up

 

Nobody speaks of where this current eruption of Western separatism in Canada is coming from. Yes, Alberta has long been dissatisfied, but not to this degree. And now you are hearing Saskatchewan and Manitoba and the BC interior joining in; Saskatchewan as loudly. What has changed? Nobody seems to get it, or say it.

I say this was entirely predictable—because I predicted it. I warned my local Ontario MP of this in 2022. 

It springs inevitably from the attitude towards the Freedom Convoy by the federal government, the Ontario government, and the Ottawa municipal government in February 2022.

The West was willing to hold their tongues so long as it looked as though the Conservatives were going to come into power. Then their voices might be listened to.

 But the East remained indifferent to their concerns. In fact, they seem to show deliberate contempt. “Who do these peons think they are?”

Nor has the East’s attitude softened in the slightest since, in the face of rising calls in the West for independence

The main parallel I drew for my MP was the hanging of Louis Riel by the Macdonald government in 1885. They could and should have extended clemency, as they had for Mackenzie or Papineau in the East. Before that time, Quebec was the main base of support for the Conservative Party. After that, Quebec flipped, and Laurier soon came to power. Ever since, the Conservatives have struggled to garner support in Quebec, and the Liberals have become the “natural governing party.” Western alienation may have also gotten a boost.

I was hoping to appeal to his sense of political self-preservation, as a Liberal. It was a warning he at first seemed to take seriously, but then backed away from in his public statements. Too risky to go against the party policy.

Another parallel I drew was to the British treatment of the Easter Uprising in Ireland, 1916. During the actual uprising, the Irish people were solidly against it. But when the British shot all the leaders as traitors, Irish independence became inevitable. For they had treated the Irish with contempt.

So too with the government’s treatment of the Freedom Convoy. The convoy began in the West; first reports came from BC. Although other truckers from the East joined later, most of the prominent organizers were Westerners: Chris Barber from Saskatchewan, Tamara Lich and James Bauder from Alberta.

And when they arrived in Ottawa, all the Eastern authorities insisted on the term “occupation.” That alone said everything.  “Occupation”: Merriam-Webster: “the holding and control of an area by a foreign military force.” Oxford Learner’s Dictionary: “the act of moving into a country, town, etc. and taking control of it using military force; the period of time during which a country, town, etc. is controlled in this way.” 

They did not consider Westerners fellow citizens. They were foreigners, under foreign control. They were automatically a hostile force who had no right to be in the capital of Canada.

How would you expect the West to react? In effect, it was the East who declared their independence. By refusing to meet with the protesters, refusing to accept their petition, and responding with extreme force, the Eastern establishment made it clear that they looked on the West as a foreign colony they had reason to fear. And which had no rights.

For the West not to declare independence, under the circumstances, would be shameful.

I say all this as an Easterner. I have lived in the West for perhaps three years, but I was born in Ontario, raised in Ontario and Quebec, and live in New Brunswick. I do not want Canada to break up, but the East must change, and they/we seem too arrogant to do so. I tremble for my country when I consider God is just.