Oh Canada- we stand on guard for thee

One of the things that I love most about our country is that we have an inherant sense of fairness. Many people around the world might interpret it as naivity. I am truly grateful that our government has submitted our contention with Russia over arctic sovereignty to the UN for adjudication. Who needs any more military posturing?

I had an American relative who often belittled Canada for our lack of military saying that we counted on the US to protect us. My son said it best when he retorted to him on one occassion. The jist of what he said is -the only country that Canada has ever needed protection from is the United States of America. From their public doctrine of 'Manifest destiny' which says that they are destined to own all of North America to their ongoing 'jokes' on Fox news and in other places about invading Canada they have often made their attitude toward us quite clear. The US is the only country that has ever invaded us. They are the only ones who try to tell us what stance we must take on the world stage. They are our relatives, our friends, our major trading partners but they are not benign to us as a neighbour. In fact, their exploitative interests will always come before our own in our own country. They are a country where 85% of the wealth belongs to 1% of the people and they are a nation that has brainwashed their own people into believing that any sort of union or worker coalition is evil and that any form of government that does not encourage exploiting the poor and the sick is full of 'commies'.

I once had a friend who was an FBI agent and he used to call us 'Pinko commies". He was absolutely irate when the Canadian government ordered his car full of agents out of the country when they illegally entered Canada with their guns to chase down a suspect that they were tailing. Can you imagine what would have happened if a Canadian police force illegally entered the US chasing a criminal?

As my son once said in response to that American relative who said that the US has to protect Canada- If anyone ever tried to invade Canada and they would  learn the same lessons that the Napolean and Hitler learned in invading Russia and that the US learned in Vietnam- namely that they have bitten off more than they can chew. The US only wants to 'protect' Canada as a buffer zone between them and the enemies that they make on the world stage.