Photo source: Ned Tobin | www.nedtobin.com
Everyday our freedom as humans in Canada – and no doubt throughout the first world with any country tied into this profit/growth system – is taken away right from under our masks, so to say.
In 2010 in preparation for the Olympics in Vancouver the government introduced a new bill that gave the authority for police to search your home and arrest you on the premise that some authority simply had a suspicious that you might protest the Olympics, or be a terrorist. Granted, there was a few tonnes of explosive material lost in the north a few months prior to the Olympics… but really? What happened to Private Dicks investigating things? CIA? FBI? (Vancouver Observer, 2013, http://www.vancouverobserver.com/olympics/2010/01/19/podium-politics-and-olympics)
I have read that this month, on June 19, 2013 a certain Bill C-30,9 introduced in Oct 2011 by Member of Parliament (MP) Blake Richards (represent the electoral district of Wild Rose, Alberta), was passed by the House of Commons that now makes it illegal, punishable by up to 10 years in jail, to wear a mask during a protest (a gathering of more than 3 people). (CBC News, 2014, http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2013/06/19/pol-mask-bill-royal-assent.html) (Story Leak, 2013, http://www.storyleak.com/protesters-10-years-prison-wearing-masks-canada/)
Source: http://qz.com
As a proud Canadian, this is extremely troubling to me. We find ourselves in a situation where our government is more concerned with controlling its citizens that providing it’s citizens with liberty. We find ourselves in a situation where our government is enacting laws to make Canadian citizens afraid of raising any sort of opposition, removing one liberty at a time. Collectively, this is a heavy push by the Canadian government to turn Canadians into even more passive citizens, willing to accept everything the government tries to enforce with a smile.
For me, this is particularly scary because rather than concern themselves with enacting laws and policy that would change our country into a place Canadians want to live in, by enacting laws and policy that would effectively avoid any need for a protest in the first place, we find our government worried about their balance sheets, concerned with devaluation, greedily money printing, selling off raw resources, and (but not limited to) taking advantage of Canadians.
Doesn’t it seem funny that in one national political campaign in our country – in a little over a month – there is about 100 times the money spent on the campaign to get a vote than it would require to eradicate homelessness, add the necessary infrastructure to provide cleaner, faster, and cheaper public transportation across the country, or to open, employ, and outfit hospitals across the country… to name just a few things this money could be spent on… And this is just one political party! Last I checked, we had at least 3 major political parties in Canada that do vicious marketing campaigns at election time.
I think the Canadian government is concerning itself too much with big business, with profit margins, with growth percentages and not spending enough time focusing on civil programs and liberties, and our sensitive environmental health. Our government is removing civil liberties in an attempt to make us safer from people who are trying to bring change to Canada, and in the same foul swoop, these social revolutionaries are being silenced in a tax payers jail. Canadian parliament is trying to shut down and silence voices that are trying to make Canada a place worthy of great praise and pride. It is no secret that Nazi Germany was controlled by a constant state of fear, it is no secret that Bush’s USA after 9/11 was controlled by a fear against terrorism, it is no secret that Moa’s China was a Country of very little civil liberties and a lot of oppression.
Please stand with me and demand our government not strip away our liberties as Canadians. Raise your voice in opposition through any channel you have: Facebook, Twitter, friends, or family. Discussion is necessary for change to happen, make change a topic at the dinner table.
Call me silly, but I don’t like the way our countries political situation is. Canada, what has become of you? Have you always been so dismissive? How do you fellow Canadians feel about it? What do you fellow citizens of the world think about this?