No doubt you have heard that Canada has gone down a dark path with the latest shenanigans from Justin Trudeau. According to some, he instituted “Martial Law” as a response to freedom protests led by rabble-rousing truckers who “occupied” Ottawa for weeks.
Trudeau has, in fact, done something startling by invoking the Emergencies Act, and it should not be taken lightly. However, to call it Martial Law would be a bit of an overstatement; although this is not to say that things aren’t in a bad way.
In essence what has happened is that Prime Minister Blackface has invoked a piece of legislation that gave his government unnecessary powers to do unnecessary things. I have read the Act, and as far as legislation is concerned, it is good legislation. For those who know my political leanings, you know that I believe if you have more than about five people in government, then your government is probably too big. However, read from a perspective of Canadian legislative history, it is sound.
The main issue with the Act is not the text itself, or the intent of the text; the main issue is that it was written by sane people with the understanding that sane people would interpret it. It is not unlike any legal or constitutional document in that sense, and just like the American Constitution, strange things can be found in the penumbra by people with a strange neurosis in the penumbra of their shadowy intellect.
The Emergencies Act allows parliament to declare a national emergency when things are so dire that the federal government deems it necessary to act in an extraordinary way.
The Act is supposed to apply to things like terrorist insurgency, unprecedented national disaster, or some sort of massive security issue. In a situation where there is a real emergency—not a block party in downtown Ottawa—it is not hard to reconcile the idea that a national government could respond in an extraordinary way.
When parliament functions properly, and when parliamentarians are not shills for globalist liberalism, it is difficult and onerous for the federal government to command major changes in Canada; this is good. So, the thinking behind the Act is that it is useful for the feds to have the right to commandeer certain industries or security resources in order to deal with a prescient threat. I think most people at least understand the logic of this, even if there are reasons to worry about how it could be applied.
Within the first week of the declaration, the feds have the power to act on the threat and must have a vote in parliament within seven days. That vote happened on Monday, and the Leftists voted the thing through, as the left-leaning parties currently have more seats overall than do the saner parties. It was partisan politicking and shameful—some leftist MPs said they did not support the Act being used but that if they were to strike the thing down it could lead to a “no-confidence” motion, which would bring down the Liberal’s minority government and trigger a snap-election.
At any rate, commentators both within and without Canada have declared that Trudeau’s fake emergency power-grab is the “end of Canada.” I have seen numerous tweets and posts saying things like “RIP Canada” or “Canada is now a totalitarian state.”
Now, I understand why this is, but I think it is a bit disingenuous to claim that Canada has somehow ended, or that all hope is lost.
From a perspective of pure Canadian civics, things are much more complicated than that, and what will happen remains to be seen. A continual justification of the Act is an extremely onerous endeavour for parliamentarians. In addition, there are numerous checks and balances within the piece itself, and it becomes more and more difficult to justify the thing as time goes on. Some may retort that Trudeau is just a tyrant who does not care about the law—and that may be true—but he is using the law nonetheless.
In any case, Canada is not dead, even if she is going through a type of death.
Forgive me if I am a bit too hopelessly romantic about my country, but patriotism is a romantic thing historically, which is why we all shed a tear or two when the national anthem is sung beautifully. Poetical patriots of the past produced stanzas and epics about battles and legends, and they did so because they loved their patria. There is something about the soil of a place that makes the heart of a man beat to a truly patriotic rhythm.
None of this is to say, “my country right or wrong” any more than I would say, “my family right or wrong.” Canada is led by a man who does things wrong, and he is wrong for doing so. But I will not claim that Canada is somehow finished just because the petulant adolescent who presently runs the place has had a national temper tantrum about an emergency of emerging patriotism.
Hilaire Belloc famously said, “Europe is the Faith, and the Faith is Europe.” I agree.
Canada is more a part of Europe than anything else. Of course, geographically we are across the pond, but in our heart of hearts we are within the bosom of Old France and Old England. Europe is as much an idea as it is a land. This is why we say that something is “European” even if it is not in Europe or from Europe. There is a style or a mode of being that evokes sentiments of Europe; it is a bit of an ineffable thing.
It is ineffable because it is mystical or metaphysical, because it is Christian and supernatural.
Europe is not just Europe; Europe is in fact Christendom. Christendom is not just a land inhabited by Christians, but it is a culture animated by Christ. Christ died, and Christ rose from the dead. Christ was sacrificed, and at Mass He offers Himself in sacrifice again and again.
Chesterton wrote: “Christianity has died many times and risen again; for it had a God who knew the way out of the grave.”
It should not surprise people that a nation founded on the animation of Christ in Culture is going through a Passion, any more than it should surprise people that the Church herself is going through a Passion.
Our leader is an apostate, and a wicked man—please pray for him; he has a soul, and Hell is a fiery place—and he is humiliating and chastising the truth made manifest in those seeking to live in the Canada that was founded upon the Truth Incarnate.
When Leif Erikson brought his Vikings to Newfoundland, he brought priests with him. They planted grapes that grew so well that they called the land Vinland, or “Vineland.” There must have been a spat of man-made climate change a thousand years ago because grapes do not grow well in the frozen Maritimes these days. In any case, they used those grapes to make wine, and they used that wine in the Mass. Is there anything more quintessentially Canadian than a Christian Viking?
About 500 years later, John Cabot picked up where Erikson left off, and he brought the Cross back to Canada for the Catholic England of Alfred the Great.
Jacques Cartier brought the Cross deeper into the nation on the eve of Our Lady of Guadalupe’s conquest of Quetzalcoatl in Mexico.
This nation is not just a collection of beavers and hockey players, but instead she is the progeny of Catholic Vikings and Christian Kings.
She is going through her Passion, and those who seek to live in the truth and with the Truth are suffering because of the actions of wicked men and women who seek to “make themselves like gods.”
We know how this story goes, and we know that persecuting true patriots animated by a love of their true patria—that Heavenly Country—will only fail.
In a way, it is a dark time in Canada. It was also dark when Christ was born, and on Golgotha, and in the tomb.
To use one last metaphor and to indulge Mr. Trudeau’s love for gender ideology—perhaps Trudeau is like the White Witch that moment where it seems like it is always winter and never summer, like Lewis wrote in Narnia.
Be careful, Mr. Trudeau, because your actions seem to have awoken a Lion, or at least a lion-heart in people you have sought to cage like animals.
There are many battles left to be fought, and you have shown your hand.
Spring is coming, and the thaw is yet beginning.
[Photo Credit: DAVE CHAN/AFP via Getty Images]
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