Chris Sky est un activiste canadien anti-confinement. Dans ces deux entrevues, il donne un compte rendu de ses démêlées avec les forces policières et les gouvernements au Canada dans le cadre de la « pandémie » de covid-19.
Ceci est une photo datant de 1937 tirée d’un journal de l’époque. On peut y apercevoir au centre William Lyon Mackenzie King, Premier Ministre du Canada, en visite officielle en Allemagne nazie. L’ouvrage de Normand Lester, Le livre noir du Canada-Anglais, Tome I, permet de jeter un regard explicatif à la fois sur cette photo et aussi sur cette période trouble de notre histoire. Les informations qui suivent, à moins d’indications contraires, sont tirées de ce livre, pages 267-272. Selon les recherches effectuées par Normand Lester, Mackenzie King avait un caractère trouble, crédule et irrationnel, à la frontière de pathologies psychiatriques, ce qui en faisait un candidat de choix pour des activités comme le spiritisme, dont il était un fervent adepte. Mais il était également un antisémite convaincu, à une époque où le monde entier s’embrasait dans cette vision haineuse du peuple juif. Mackenzie King vouait une admiration non seulement pour le régime nazi mais également pour Hitler lui-même, au point où il croyait que ce dernier pourrait devenir un sauver du monde, comme il l’écrivit dans son journal personnel, cité par Lester à partir de l’ouvrage None is Too Many de Irving ABELLA et Harold TROPER. Lors de cette visite officielle, Mackenzie King prend contact avec l’Allemagne antisémite et nazie dont les symboles sont affichés partout dans Berlin. Les Juifs sont exclus de plusieurs professions et endroits de la ville…comme c’est le cas également en Ontario, note Lester. Mackenzie King n’est donc nullement choqué de cet état de choses puisque c’est devenu la norme un peu partout dans le monde occidental durant les années trente. En fait, il semble même l’approuver, comme l’indique d’autres passages de son journal intime cité dans Le livre noir. En gros, Mackenzie King semble avoir été un antisémite ayant des sympathies nazies, quoiqu’il n’est pas clair jusqu’à quel point il adhérait à cette idéologie. Il demeurait néanmoins convaincu qu’Hitler et Mussolini étaient des « personnages de qualité ». À vous de juger.
On June 13th 2011, the National Post published the first in a five-part series on the future of the Great Lakes region in advance of a North American summit on the subject. The Mowat Centre and Brookings Institution will hold the « Great Lakes – St. Lawrence Region Summit » on June 21st-22nd in Windsor and in Detroit. Many speakers will be heard from all over the areas concerned, i.e. two provinces, Quebec and Ontario, and 8 American states. The point of holding this conference is that there is a growing awareness in the business and political communities that regions are becoming more and more important around the world because of geographical « clustering » of populations, capital, talent, education centers, private research centers, culture centers, etc, that go beyond official borders. Since a couple of years, new industries have come to replace traditional heavy industry in the region of the Great Lakes, which is a sign that it can only grow up again after a certain period of decrease in the last decades. Canadians and Americans share the area of the Great Lakes and St-Lawrence as a land mass to live on, to prosper, to do business, and basically to be happy and enjoy freedom and democracy. The authors of the article, Matthew Mendelsohn and John Austin, recall that in 2050, 1/3 of the world’s population will live with a short supply of water, which makes the Great Lakes and St-Lawrence region a little treasure to be cherished for the future of our children, and even for us. Skipping down in the article, they mention that apparently, we have « an inability to imagine our shared future » on both sides of the border. It is probably true.
I knew it was coming. In George Orwell’s 1984, whole continents are considered regions and the world is united in a totalitarian fascist-socialist regime. After the marriage of a bunch of european countries to form the European Union, now we can already see certain movements beginning the same process in North America. The summit that will be held this week is a good idea but I think it is the symptom of something else. A political event drew my attention recently. In three U.S. states that are concerned with the Great Lakes issue, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin, moves have been made to attack the middle class and the unions, among other things. For example, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder has made some questionable manoeuvres in the last weeks concerning the future of his state. The next paragraph is an extract of an earlier post, on the seastedding movement:
New Brunswick took a stand recently against the national securities regulatory agency, and so three other provinces. Combined with Quebec and Alberta, that makes a total of six provinces that have rejected this project of national agency. Is this a sign that finally provinces begin to get the idea about the nature of the federal government in Canada? If you look at history, the document that was signed in 1867 by the Province of Canada (Quebec and Ontario), Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, was a confederation document, not a federation one. Because of the two World Wars and others circumstances, the federal government progressively took control of powers and responsibilities that were legally under the jurisdiction of the provinces until then. To this day, these powers and responsiblities have not been given back to the provinces.
Apparently, New Brunswick is beginning to be tired of this centralist federalism that has never ended up advantaging them. The union of these six provinces is definitely the sign that after a century and a half, people have finally awaken and realized that they have been had. Canada as it is today, is not the country that their forefathers wished for and it is not the one neither that was written down in the Confederation agreement. The decisive aspect of this issue is definitely the convergence of voices of other — finally! — provinces in the arena of criticism aimed at the federal government. For decades Quebec has been alone doing that, well, at least we feel it was, but now that has changed. After repeated separatist/sovereignist speeches and discussions, other Canadians in position of power begin to realize that we could get much more out of the Canadian « Federation », if only the funding document of this country was respected.
In an earlier post, I have written that the union of interests and strategy of the provinces of Quebec and Alberta could be the beginning of a new Canada. Well, ideally, the best would be for all provinces to jump in the bandwagon of affirmation and territorial sovereignty. A confederation is a union of sovereign states, binded together by a central institution that acts only as a musical director or choreographer. The musicians or dancers are not the slaves, employees or butlers of the director or choreographer. They are rather artists who deliver art and performance under the guidance and leadership of such figures. It is a huge difference. So I take with great pleasure these expressions of sovereignty by the provinces. I guess they are the ultimate signs that finally, the country, which used to be only a colony in which everybody could pillage the resources and exploit the inhabitants, has taken the path toward political maturity. If this present trend keeps growing and gives fruition, instead of being a mere banana republic in the western hemisphere, Canada will be able to be recognized as a real and mature nation.
First, let me congratulate you, Neil, for having written this piece. By the way, the alchemical reference in the title is terrific. I think you begin to get the picture. Canada, historically, used to be a bipolar entity run by Ottawa, where resides federal power, and by Quebec with its « société distincte » based on language and culture. So Ontario and Quebec used to be the two provinces where decisions were made or where trends were manufactured or developed. Now, in the 21st century, things are changing. With a planet of roughly 7 billion inhabitants, energy is a key element in the composition of a state.
In that regard, it is only logical that Alberta emerges now as the new center for English-Canada. Oil being increasingly determinant in shaping countries’s foreign policy, the province imposes itself as the new voice for stating the political agenda in the country. And Quebec, being already a giant in the production of electricity, may keep its position as a leader of influence, and even more if you consider that the province decided to add the oil-and-gas-industry to its portfolio and to undertake the exploitation of the Old Harry pit and of shale gas deposits in the St-Lawrence valley. If Ontario and Quebec used to be the two main voices in Canada until today, now it is Alberta and Quebec. Why Ontario isn’t anymore a leader in Canada, would you ask? Maybe because Ontario is synonymous with the past, when Canada was considered to be not much more than just a colony where companies could pillage natural resources and exploit the population for its workforce capabilities. In those years, much emphasis was being put on Canada’s inclusion in the Commonwealth and its disguised submission to the british royal family. In other terms, that vision of the country, which was fabricated for the 19th century when the country itself was born, is now outdated.
Like everything else, the political life evolves and countries with it. That is why the arrival of the Conservative Party is something interesting. Overall, they have a vision of the country, of foreign policy, of geo-politics that is much more mature than the one of the other parties. And the Bloc Québécois, after 20 years, begins to show cracks in the wall as many Quebeckers ask themselves about the pertinence to keep a sovereignist party in Ottawa that can’t do the sovereignty anyway and leaves us in the opposition forever. I always voted for the Bloc since its inception. But this coming election, I will vote for the Conservatives. They have a lot of policies with which I disagree…but they support Israel. You see, Israel is the barometer of a country’s foreign policy. You wanna know where a country lies on the geo-political scale? Check its policy toward Israel. It tells all. The fact that the Conservatives support Israel means that they would increase the pressure on Islamists, use tribunals to expulse them out of the country, take measures to protect our culture, our civilization and our values, etc. But, most importantly, it means that they get the picture of the geo-political theater and have a good take on the actors that are playing in it.
The Bloc Québécois was born when MPs from Quebec split away from their parties after the Meech Lake debacle. To use an image, it is almost as if the Progressive faction of the Progressive Conservative Party would have split. It probably has, since the Party slowly disintegrated afterwards. When it was brought back to life through a merger with the Canadian Alliance Party, the Progressive element had disappeared, only the Conservative element remained. You know what? I just had a crazy idea… What if the Conservative Party and the Bloc Québécois create a coalition to allow ourselves to have a majority in the Parliament? Wouldn’t it resemble Alberta and Quebec united? Wouldn’t it resemble a new Progressive Conservative Party? Michel Kelly-Gagnon is right with his analysis. It is time that we move on. And you are right, Neil. The fleur-de-lys and the rose could and can unite. It is probably one of the greatest realization of alchemy if we can achieve it. Let’s keep our eyes on the goal.