If Worst Comes to Worst

It does look as though the Trudeau government is taking all the necessary steps to impose a Fascist or even Nazi dictatorship; some of them stealthily, which looks all the more suspicious. It seems possible we will not get another chance to vote the rascals out of office and reverse this slide into totalitarian nightmare. And they are reducing the danger of an armed insurrection by seizing even hunting rifles.

So, is our Canada goose cooked? 

I think not, because of several factors.

Our first defense is Canada’s federal structure. If the feds get overly sassy, provincial governments can sass back, and have a natural incentive to do so. Ontario under Ford looks prepared, even eager, to go along. The Maritimes are, like the press, wholly-owned federal subsidiaries due to transfer payments. But Alberta and Saskatchewan are already resisting to a historic degree. BC, Manitoba, Newfoundland, and Quebec are also capable of such resistance, depending who’s in power, and have shown signs of it in the past. And the aboriginal groups.

Once strains look bad enough, I would expect the feds to pull back. They don’t want to be blamed for the breakup of the country. 

Otherwise, I turn to our second defense: the USA.

We are almost all within an hour’s drive of the border. Assuming the US does not go Fascist at the same time, any one of us can get in the car and get out. If the government shuts down communication, we can all get reception from the US. If the federal government decides to go to war with Alberta or Saskatchewan to prevent separation, Alberta and Saskatchewan can appeal to the US for help. And why wouldn’t the US respond eagerly, in the name of manifest destiny and to acquire two or more grateful, freedom-loving new states?

The US had plans to pile in if Quebec separatism ever came to blows. They’d have more motive this time.

But well before it came to that, if the Canadian government went too authoritarian, wouldn’t American popular opinion press for intervention? If Canadians are flooding the border with horror stories, wouldn’t the public demand it? Do they want a Cuba of the North? 

Even now, American news sources and YouTubers, not to mention Indian sources, UK sources, Australian sources, and so forth, are speaking with alarm of things happening in Canada. Through them, word will still get out to the world, and to the average Canadian, no matter what the Canadian government tries to do to shut down the internet. At worst, VPNs are not that hard to set up, and hard to prevent. It is hard to block broadcast signals at the border—one of the world’s longest borders.

So why does the Trudeau government seem to be trying to do this, if it is pretty likely to fail?

Because they are not that smart; and because they are panicked.

They know something we don’t know, and it must be very bad for them.