Our neighbors to the north are, in a word, unhappy. They're not unhappy because they're governed by Temu Castro and a bunch of Left-wing lunatics, of course.
They're unhappy that President Donald Trump is making it very clear that America -- and Americans -- come first in his administration. To that end, he's enacted tariffs against Canadian goods as leverage in negotiations concerning border security, and has pushed -- although I'm not sure how seriously -- to make Canada our 51st state (I have opinions on that, but it's a topic for another column).
For some reason, Canadians think this is akin to fascism, which tells me they have been so desensitized to what actual fascism is that they don't realize it's Canada and not the United States that's living under fascism.
Where do I even begin with this?
I suppose I'll start in the wayback machine and remind you of Jonathan Yaniv. If that name doesn't ring a bell, Jessica Yaniv might. Yaniv is a 'trans woman' (read: man) who filed sixteen human rights complaints against various salons and their owners -- most of them women and ethnic minorities -- because those women refused to wax his scrotum.
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Yeah, that's a sentence I had to write.
With all of those things, the process is the punishment. Women were dragged through human rights hearings and faced financial and other consequences because of the whims of a delusional man.
Thankfully, sanity prevailed and the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal dismissed her complaints.
Pastor Artur Pawlowski and his brother David were not so lucky. They were arrested by Calgary police in 2021 for 'inciting or inviting others to attend an illegal public gathering' -- what sane people call a 'church service' in violation of COVID-19 orders. In 2023, Pawlowski was found guilty of 'mischief' for delivering a sermon to truckers protesting on the Canadian-U.S. border. He was sentenced to 60 days in jail with credit for time served.
Unlike the United States, Canada does not have a First Amendment. The Canadian Charter of Rights allows the government to stifle free speech to protect rights or 'national interests', which is why they cracked down on Pawlowski after the trucker rally.
Speaking of truckers, remember how Canadian authorities froze the bank accounts of truckers who were peacefully protesting Justin Trudeau's vaccine mandates? Trudeau called protests in favor of changing public policy 'troublesome', but only when certain people do it. Because Trudeau himself said he preferred the BLM protests -- you know, the ones that burned several American cities to the ground and led to 'police reform' that's seen crime in American cities skyrocket.
In December, Canadian leaders announced more sweeping gun bans and confiscations, with the stated purpose of sending those weapons to Ukraine. The gun ban isn't related to the multiple shootings at a Jewish school in Montreal, of course.
And Jewish schools weren't the only target of the Canadian government's malfeasance. For years, Trudeau and other Leftists wrung their hands about the Kamloops Residential School, where it was rumored hundreds of indigenous children had been allegedly killed and buried. For years, churches around Canada were torched -- in part because of the government's insistence on abuse at Kamloops -- only for the country to spend $8 million and not find a single grave.
Last, but definitely not least, is MAiD -- Canada's 'compassionate' medical assistance in dying program. As of December, per capita deaths from MAiD exceeded per capita gun deaths in the U.S. That's not shocking if you've read my other pieces on MAiD. Canada has turned a program for the terminally ill into a wholesale euthanasia program that's being used to remove the poor from welfare programs, save money in Canada's socialized medicine system, and being offered to non-terminal patients for things like depression and eating disorders.
There are no words to adequately describe the insanity that's infected Canadian politics, including the severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome that's currently sweeping the country.
But there are words to address the claims that America is a fascist nation: No, we're not.
Now go cry in your maple syrup.