26 Replies to “Free Trade”

  1. I’m lucky, I have both passports. The US is looking more and more like the obvious choice, when their government overreaches, they correct. When Canada’s does, the subjects say thank you mommy, more please.

    1. Peter, further to your last sentence, whenever I return to my hometown of Vancouver, I vividly realize how different my views have become than the typical Left Coast Canadian mindset. In point of fact, I don’t think my views have changed much since the days of writing for SDA out of my Vancouver apartment, but my pre-programmed Canadian tendency to mute my views has dissipated.

      A major diverging moment for me was the Jan-Feb 2022 Canadian Truckers Freedom Protest. Turns out that most of my longterm Canadian friends were actually supportive of Trudeau or unwilling to condemn him & his regime. If anyone ever had any questions about why the German people refused to rise up against the Hitler Nazis, this episode in Canadian history was a small example of the same; obviously exponentially different degrees of evil but absolutely in the same direction.

      Finally, I believe 2025 will be very insightful to show us which Americans truly support a major [peaceful] revolution in government. Trump et al clearly have a mandate to massively reform and restructure the American federal government. But will they have the conviction to follow through with these changes or will they succumb to the pressures of the UniParty Swamp and their Legacy Media apparatchiks?!? The answer to this question will determine the future of America.

      1. Robert ,you are echoing many of my thoughts and experiences. I went to view and film the truckers convoy at a small city near where I live. It was the first time in months I did not feel isolated and alone. At that time while the minimum consensus was you must take the jab, most thought you should just be left to die if you refused and became ill or locked in a compound until you relented . Juxtapose to today, where a large number of these people are disappointed Trump was not assassinated. As a dual citizen ,I have experienced the latent disrespect of the U.S. since my parents returned to their hometown when I was a young boy. In short , many Canadians are not nearly as nice or welcoming as they would like you to believe. And many are far to comfortable relinquishing their freedom and rights to the government. The truckers who suffered from the dictatorial actions of our government are the truest heroes of our time.

    2. Peter, its not so much that they say “Mommy please” – which I largely blame on a holdover from our British roots (I defer COMPLETELY to Kevin Kline’s ‘Otto’ character in “A Fish Called Wanda on the subject of the British; also witness how the Brits are behaving now) – it’s that Canadians believe that are somehow preeningly morally superior vis-à-vis the Americans for behaving this way. I never understood this. Even as a young, budding right-wing schoolkid in elementary school history class, I sided with William Lyon Mackenzie against the Family Compact which confused me because as a putative conservative, I thought my team was the Family Compact Tories.

      1. Eric, I don’t think most Canadians believe this in their gut, but they try to believe it to absolve themselves for supporting the national mediocrity that is Canada, and lending it validation it hasn’t earned. When you tolerate everything, you stand for nothing, will be chiseled on Canada’s soon to be erected tombstone.

        1. Peter, I’m sure many don’t – although I can think of many, many people, certainly from my parent’s generation of reflexively-deferential, Church-of-England-lambs-to-the-slaughter types, and certainly a lot of hectoring, schoolmarmish Karens and cowering, permission-asking, rule-following soy-cocks one could easily find say, Toronto’ Annex neighbourhood who manifestly DO believe this humbug – but I think you’re correct that it’s one of the series of Lies We Tell Ourselves.

          As to why we tell ourselves these lies, Canadians just don’t seem want to face the truth about themselves because for whatever reason, don’t seem to be an existentially confident people (again, SDA readers exempted of course). Many foreign observers have noted that for many Canadians there seems to be some almost-unspoken bland national “consensus” and that to deviate from this consensus is to be seen by many as being ‘strange’ (a word I recall more than one Toronto private schoolgirl using to describe anything from outside her sociocultural bubble), anti-social, and in many cases a mark of failure – i.e., “if you had succeeded, you wouldn’t have these strange – that word again, i.e., anything not accepted by the Laurentian Consensus – views.”

          If Canadians – and I may be speaking – presumptively – here of Ontarians only (how very Ontario of me!) – were more existentially self-confident, they would be more tolerant of dissenting (read: more right-wing) views and we would not have to keep telling ourselves lies. And therein lies a path to potential national greatness – astute politicians take note

          I’ve haven’t fleshed this all out intellectually yet, but is what I am saying resonating with anyone?

          1. It resonates with me, and I have spent a lot of time thinking about it. Culture matters, but evolutionary biology does as well. Many of Canada’s risk takers, i.e. self reliant people have for years migrated south as the class structure of Canada keeps people in their place. Supplicating to the king, or your better born are definitely an inheritance from our British, and moreover our Scottish ancestors. Canada is a country for the timid, and the timid survive only by being part of the flock, outliers are eaten first.
            Look south to how many erstwhile Canadians thrive in the US, they were Canada’s best, but were not able by not being manor born to do so in Canada. Looking at you Laurentian elite, you exemplars of big fish in a microscopic pond.

        2. Peter, I agree with you COMPLETELY re national timidity, I’m still not just sure why.

          Re Laurentian Elite, I’m quoting from memory here so forgive any slip-ups but I seem to recall an episode of the old Mary Tyler Moore show where Mary, in attempting to assert her Big City worldliness, blurted out the line, “I’ve been around.” Her listeners were all taken aback given that Mary’s earnest, “babe-in-the-woods” persona was one of the show’s central conceits. “Okay”, she qualified, “I’ve been CLOSE BY.”

          Although having been born three generations deep in rural Ontario sh*tkicker-dom, Strauss has been “close by” to what passes for “the Laurentian Elite” for several decades and to quote a great Canadian philosopher (Shania Twain), “that don’t impress me much.”

          Indeed, I remember studying the makeup of the Family Compact in undergrad and was shocked – based on what I had understood about them from elementary and high school – that many of then were not actually large Upper Canada landowners or industrialists but were in fact, relatively minor officials with delusions of grandeur.

          I don’t think much has changed.

          1. I agree with you on the Laurentian elite, most assuredly self styled. Our Scottish heritage plays a role, no doubt as I believe “beggar thy neighbour” is very much a Scottish thing. Success requires living up to, in my neck of the woods, at least, the sheep don’t like failure, but what they really hate is success. Confidence is an earned thing, Canadians were the colony that never had the confidence (cojones) to tell the king to get stuffed. What is there to be proud of?

      2. I think you guys have very usefully summarised and critiqued the prevailing Ontario wisdom. Anti-Americanism is very much an Ontario thing; it’s an imported plant in the rest of the country and doesn’t always flourish.

        Upper Canada was born out of the American Revolution and the choices they then made. Both the sense of smugness and the sense of inferiority derive from the choice to stay loyal. They want to be proud of it, yet they can’t help regretting it. And so they imagine all kinds of virtue that make them special, while their actual achievements, even when admirable, can never be enough to compete.

        Westerners can’t relate to this at all. The US was largely irrelevant to our history, and we never got to make any choices. The Canadians just knocked us flat, walked in, and took over, and such issues as we have derive from the nature of that takeover, and have nothing to do with the Americans. And we tend to be unequivocally proud of the country we built, and recognise that while Canadians did most of the building, the Americans helped a lot. Certainly modern Alberta could not have been built without them, and I think the world is better for having it built.

  2. I wish X had cc and that I could see the replies.

    *sigh* If wished were horses, beggars would ride.

      1. If wishes were horses, steak would be a rare treat, since the market would be flooded with horsemeat.

  3. Part of the reason Canada had so little population growth until the 1910’s was due to free and open borders with the United States.

    People left in droves.

    If that policy came back today Canada’s population would probably be cut in half within a single generation.

  4. I have been saying for years that our country – I am American – should do something like this with the European Union. We take EU citizens on a one to one trade with Americans who want to live under Euro-Socialism. Willing to do the same to Canada too – I don’t care where our American socialists go, long as they GO.

  5. That would be something to see, entitled white liberals and the welfare class are all that would be left. Lord Of The Flies indeed. The video would be nasty, brutish and hopefully not too short.

  6. We’re condemned to live in a Liberal racist backwater.

    Unfortunately there’s no where else to go besides the US, every formerly civilized country is now run by bigoted progressives, leftist principles of envy, hatred and greed are strongly supported by women, “minorities” by which they mean dark skinned people not actual minorities, the alphabet LGBTQLMNOP… crowd, and legions of grifters. Ugh…

  7. Please no, don’t let them come to Canada. Send them to Ukraine where all they can really do some good.

  8. She made one comment that I disagree with. Liberals want Turd Jr. to go because they don’t agree with him. I think they want Turd Jr. to go because they think that replacing it will win the next election for them.
    Unfortunately they are probably right.

  9. I guess there are lots of examples of Canadian Progs living in the US – Catherine Taint of the CBC comes to mind (blech) – and I’m sure there are American Progs living in Canada.
    No matter where they come from, all Progs are Turds and should be treated as such.

  10. “… slow moving communist craphole …”

    She had me at slow moving communist craphole. Brilliant analysis.

  11. Such an interesting, heartfelt discussion here. I lived in Vancouver for 35 years and while I made friends and had good jobs, I never felt at home. There are ALOT of Americans (the Democrat kind) living in BC and adulterating the province’s DNA. Good people but privileged up the wazoo and unaware of blue collar lives. As Bush used to say, “born on thirdbase and thought they hit a homerun.”

  12. Many first settlers left europe to escape the draconian overlords, the RCC was the overlord. C Columbus was one of those, as the RCC hated Jews.
    People in here really need to learn to be more honest, as religion is the big problem , and that is not just Islam , or Sheikhdom.

  13. In a fit of vapors the libranos convened an emergency meeting to discuss how to deal with the Trumpster. So urgent is the emergency that they put some committee together that hadn’t met in years…. They wished themselves into some disillusion that he couldn’t possibly win….again.

    Trump is now going to make the country grow up. Start paying their way. That happens and we will all get along just fine. It’ll be interesting to see who Trump appoints as Ambassador to Canada. Expect some Texas league hardball.

  14. Trudeau and his obedient media both print and electronic, spent the last four years rejoicing during Trumps legal battles with US enemies within the power structure. You could almost see the pleasure on the “news cookies” face as she read the teleprompter extolling the daily attack on Trump. Trudeau and his minions are now running for cover, the big dog is off the leash and the pussy cats are terrified !

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