Canada has long benefited from its close relationship with the elephant in the room, although any time the US economy sneezes our poor little beaver tends to catch a cold. These days we are marvelling how our home-grown protestors have become the nation’s largest cultural export, but we may be taking too much credit that is due elsewhere.
It is a strange coincidence that the Freedom Convoy has erupted at the very moment Russia has begun to channel their own version of lebensraum (for those not of an age, Google will enlighten that the term hastens back to the Nazi pre-war expansion and refers to providing a state with its “natural” elbow room) and is amassing a huge war machine on the borders of the Ukraine. Shades of 1938 are disturbingly familiar to those actually familiar with history. Who else was it that invaded Poland in partnership with the Nazi regime again?
Canada and the Ukraine share a special bond, as many of those who came to settle the Canadian prairies were fleeing the Russian pogroms of the time and came to this land to find… you guessed it, freedom.
With the Russian and Chinese cyberwarfare expertise against which the West has little shield it in these days of social media dominance of our thought-ways, it is not so huge a stretch to suspect a sinister hand behind the global spread of the anti-pandemic mandate movement.
Let us leave conspiracy theories behind for the moment. Although the prospect of nuclear Armageddon should certainly provide riveting distraction. It is distressing that at a time when our athletes, who have devoted their lives to competing for the chance to represent our nation on the global stage at the Olympics, have been upstaged by a vocal and passionate minority who are afraid of needles and a mask. Especially given our Canadian women dominated on the path to the gold medal game while fully vaccinated and N95 masked.
Getting back to the aforementioned conspiracy theories, there is something we should take away from the current state of global affairs. We can no longer depend on the elephant next door to defend or support our interests abroad, or to stand on guard for us. Those days are drawing to a close as the US once again descends into isolationism.
Together with our European allies, we must seek out stronger diplomatic ties with the nations of the world, particularly those whose lands and resources lie close to the elbows of the bear and the dragon.
We are entering a new world order, it behooves those of us who truly cherish our real freedoms to take heed and not enter into that world naked as a babe. We have ignored our defences for far too long and history tells us that wishful thinking provides little defence when living in an aggressive forest.
