The Real Stakes

 

The Emergency Act and its predecessor, the War Measures Act, has only been invoked three times in Canadian history. The video says a bit about how our government used it the first time.

Of course the Emergency Act will pass; Trudeau would not have announced it without getting a guarantee from the NDP.

If the Emergency Act is passed, Canada is no longer a democracy. 

It has been well observed, perhaps first by Thomas Jefferson, that for a democracy to work, you need a class of people who are financially self-sufficient, who do not depend on government for their daily needs. Jefferson saw freeholders as the backbone of American democracy: they could survive and feed their families indefinitely in the absence of government. Only such a class can safely organize against the current government. 

This is why democracy does not work in most places until the GDP per capita hits something around $10,000. This is the point at which enough people are not living hand to mouth that they can organize.

The chronic poverty of Canadian First Nations is due to the fact that the reserve system makes everybody dependent on the band council and the federal government for their daily necessities. This makes them unable to organize to defend their interests. They have to do what they are told. 

Truckers owning their own trucks are an ideal group to fight for our freedoms. Unlike people on the factory floor, or professionals obliged to buy into the system at all times, or businessmen dependent on constant liaison and permissions from government, they are relatively free agents. They can come and go, largely off the grid, moving easily with their means of livelihood to a new jurisdiction if necessary,  living in their trucks if necessary. This is why they were available to defend our freedoms.

The Emergency Act seems to deliberately target financial independence from government. It gives the government the power to go into bank accounts or private transactions, and seize assets without court permission, without review, without notice and without legal recourse. It is the perfect wrecking ball to destroy democracy. Under the Emergency Act, should the government choose, nobody can afford to stand against the government of the day.

If it is invoked now, for such trivial reasons, it hardly matters if it is time-limited. Setting the precedent means it can be used again, at a moment’s notice. No organized opposition to government can now form.

If it is invoked now, as it clearly will be, the only way to restore Canadian democracy is to take the Emergency Act off the books. And exact some penalty for those who allowed it to be used.