The Freedom Convoy & Red Pill Placebos

The Freedom Convoy which crossed the vast expanse of Canada’s frozen landscape and is currently located in the front the Parliament buildings in Ottawa has captured the imagination of patriots and populists throughout the Western world. Conservative outlets from Fox News and Rebel News Canada to YouTube giants like Tim Pool, the Daily Wire and Viva Frei have been unequivocal of their support for the demonstrators who are demanding an end to Canada’s oppressive and economically devastating Covid mandates. Genuinely brilliant intellectuals like Jordan Peterson and Gad Saad have supported the protestors. Even Elon Musk has given shout outs of support. Predictably, Canada’s state owned broadcaster CBC and government subsidized outlets like CTV, Global TV, the once respected Globe & Mail, Toronto Star, and the National Post have had a more negative, pro-government take of the demonstrations. They are creating a false narrative that the truckers are White nationalists who are terrifying the good citizens of Ottawa. Many of most vocal are civil servants who work from home at full salary while working Canadians deal with financial hardship and the physical and mental effects of draconian rules that are ineffective.

Such is daily life in Canada that citizens are required to show proof of vaccination and photo ID to be able to eat at the local diner; at least during those times when indoor dining is permitted. Government workers have maintained their incomes and have seen their savings grow as there were less things to spend their taxpayer generated money. They saved on gas (which has increased by over 50% since the lows of the last couple of years) as they work from home. In contrast, if my neighborhood is any indication, every commercial block seems to have multiple closed businesses with gutted insides. Of course, the Starbucks, McDonald’s, Walmart’s and other giant chain stores remain open. Canadian big cities like Toronto and Vancouver, over the last couple of decades, until the outbreak of the pandemic, had economies built on condos, coffee shops, bullshit tech companies, and rampant real estate speculation fueled artificially by an overreliance on immigration while curtailing the supply of new single family homes. Sadly, little new infrastructure was built and Toronto has gone from one of the most desired cities in the world to a depressing megacity of hideous and cheap looking skyscrapers and and depressing townhouses. A drive up some downtown streets at night reveals a world of junkies, crack whores and drug dealers. Some nights, certain areas look like 1970’s New York in the movie taxi driver.

Canadians populists have been demoralized by the economic and social decay of the nation over the decades. They saw little hope as a strong majority of voting citizens supported socialist parties. In fact, Canada’s House of Commons has representation from four different leftist parties. All embrace the post-modernist narrative albeit with the support of different elites. The governing Liberals are the party of big banks and swanky law firms. It should be noted that the Canadian financial system is controlled by six banks. How strong is the power of these banks? The financial sector makes up about a third of the entire market capitalization of the S&P/TSX. The NDP (New Democratic Party) was slightly to the left of the Liberals until globalist poster boy Justin Trudeau emerged as Prime Minister. The NDP is the party of large labor union bosses, teachers and humanities professors most of whom never worked an honest day in their lives. The Green Party, as their name would indicate, are made up of militant environmentalists, who for some odd reason have a pathological hatred for Israel. In fact, they recently dumped their leader, a woman of color, who unforgivably converted to Judaism. Last and frankly least, we have the nationalist socialist Bloc Quebecois in Quebec whose purpose is to whine and threaten the rest of Canada to acquiesce to the wishes of the pure blood francophones of the province who are descended from French immigrants of the 17th and 18th centuries. These socialist parties combined received over 60% of the popular vote in the last federal election held in 2021. Trudeau called an election early in his mandate in an attempt to secure a majority after handing out cash to Canadians during the early part of the lockdown. Perhaps I am giving too much credit to the Trudeau government but I believe they were also motivated by not wanting to face the electorate when the economic chickens come home to roost and Canadians are faced with high inflation and a serious economic fall which will come sooner or later.

Canadian conservatives and libertarians were elated by the Freedom Convoy. It seems that after years of losing, demoralization and frankly, ridicule and ostracization the tide was turning. Keep in mind that during the 2016 election, over 80% of Canadians supported the inept and corrupt Hilary Clinton. Even the Conservative Party of Canada is made up mostly of centrists. “Conservative” provincial premiers have had church pastors arrested and imprisoned, supported stricter lockdowns than in many blue U.S. states and voted with the Liberals on legislation that would disgust a MAGA conservative. The federal Conservatives did not push back against lockdowns. They only began supporting the Freedom Convoy when it became obvious that the truckers and their supporters were not a “fringe minority” as Prime Minister Trudeau claimed while hiding in an undisclosed location. Only Maxime Bernier, the founder of the nascent People’s Party of Canada (PPC) consistently opposed the suspension, for almost two years, of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The PPC garnered just under 5% of the popular vote and zero seats in the last election.

The PPC is a legitimate conservative/libertarian party. The Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) received 33.7% of the popular vote in the last election. Frankly, the last two CPC leaders were not true conservatives and they certainly were not libertarians. They will soon pick their third leader in only a few years. How many of the one third of the nation that voted CPC are real conservative? How many are moderates or even traditional small “L” liberals? I suspect 60%, at most, of those voters are true conservatives. The 80% Clinton 20% Trump 2016 polls in Canada are insightful. Probably, pre-Freedom Rally, true conservatives made up about 25% of the Canadian voter population, and the momentum was negative as older citizens pass away and younger people, socially conditioned by post-modernist teacher unions and helicopter parents reach voting age.

Like the Polish winged Hussars under John Sobieski riding in to save Vienna in 1683 from the Ottomans, the truckers have rode in to liberate Canada from becoming a authoritarian woke post-nation-state. At least that is what conservatives hoped. But is that true? Curiously, a recent Nanos poll, seems to indicate that neither the CPC or even the PPC have picked up significant support. According to the poll, the PPC is up to 5.7% support. The CPC has actually dropped to 29% support. Support for the two parties is actually down from the last election. The Liberals have only lost 2% in support to 30.6%. Counterintuitively, the far left NDP is up 3.6% to 21.4% support despite having one of the most ineffectual leaders of a major federal party in modern Canadian history. The Green Party has seen its support more than double to 6.1% despite favoring policies that would destroy Canada’s crucial oil and gas and natural resource sectors.

Apparently, if the Nanos poll is to be believed, and there is no reason to not believe them as they have a solid track record, Canadians believe that the cure for authoritarian socialism is to become more authoritarian and more socialist. How is that even possible? This is less surprising than one would think. That is if you understand the peculiarity of Canadians political culture. Do not make the mistake of assuming Canada is just a colder U.S. or a less cultured U.K. Canadians are paradoxically quite libertarian with respect to individual freedom. They want to be left alone by government to fornicate as they please. They love their weed. You can’t walk four city blocks on a commercial street without passing a cannabis dispensary. Canada has as bad as, or worse opioid, crack and crystal meth problems than the U.S. Frequently, people are forced to wait an annoyingly long period to use downtown Starbucks bathrooms while junkies shoot up. Starbucks is kind enough to have special boxes to deposit used needles. I would not be shocked if one day, they actually supplied the needles. Yet Canadians always complain about our relatively high taxes compared to our American cousins. Canadians truly love the hedonistic aspect of freedom. It’s sex, drugs and rock and roll for us Canucks. We don’t want the government to tell us how to live.

Paradoxically, our attitude towards government handouts and protection are the opposite of libertarianism. Canadians want stuff and they demand the government give it to them. Many act as if they believe that government is a magic wish machine. It sometimes feels like all Canadians do is argue about how they deserve more stuff and others get too many handouts. They act like spoiled siblings arguing among themselves while bullying and manipulating their parents. Governments must feel like my mother when me and my brother used to argue over the last piece of her fried schnitzel. Governments are all too happy to bribe Canadians with the money of future taxpayers. Canadians feel they should not have to pay for our welfare state. Despite high taxes by compared to the U.S. , our taxes are at or below European standards. As a result we have a huge government debt to GDP ratio when one combines the debts the the federal and provincial governments. Unlike the Scandinavian countries, Switzerland and some other prosperous nations, Canada expects future generations to pay for their social programs. Imagine running a massive credit card debt and expecting your young children to eventually pay it off for you.

Canadians detest governments impinging on their lifestyles but feel entitled to handouts. The lockdowns seem to go against this narrative but we believe this might be wishful thinking on the part of conservatives and libertarians. The nation that fought so bravely in two world wars has been socially conditioned into being weak, selfish and gullible.

Hopefully conservatives will continue the momentum began by the Freedom Convoy to turn around a nation that has been in gradual decline, not coincidentally, since the current Prime Minister’s father Pierre Trudeau was elected in 1968. Canada was once the third richest nation of the planet. Now it ranks 32nd according to Wikipedia which uses IMF, World Bank and CIA sources. The income gap between Canada and the U.S. has grown dramatically over the decades.

After the Battle of Britain in 1940 was won, effectively preventing Nazi Germany from invading England, Winston Churchill famously said:

“Now this not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

Hopefully Canada will see better days ahead. The struggle is just beginning. It will be long and arduous and there are many defeats and wins ahead. It will require courage, determination and as Gad Saad would say a “honey badger” attitude. The people who tamed a frozen wasteland and turned it into one of the best countries on earth are more than up to the task. The Patriots did not need an overwhelming majority of people to begin the American Revolution and neither does Canada.