Canada

Something is happening across the world right now, something that deserves more attention than it's getting. First, to the Netherlands, where farmers have been protesting, blockading roads with their tractors and staging enormous rallies. The demonstrations have been going on and off since 2019, when the Dutch legislature proposed a crackdown on nitrogen emissions. Nitrogen is heavily emitted by livestock and fertilizer, which means the regulations are hitting Dutch agriculture especially hard. But it wasn't until July that the protests garnered international attention. The Dutch government announced plans in compliance with a court order to cut nitrogen emissions by 50 percent.

While on Bret Baier's Fox News show Special Report, Ohio Democratic Senate candidate Tim Ryan said there should be no abortion restrictions at all, establishing himself as radical even by pro-choice standards. After the overturning of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court, Ohio passed a heartbeat bill that restricted abortion after six weeks. Yet Congressman Ryan believes this is too strict. In fact, he believes any kind of restriction is too strict. Ryan said, "Look, you got to leave it up to the woman, because you and I sitting here can’t account for all of the different scenarios that a woman, dealing with the complexities of a pregnancy, are going through. How can you and I figure that out?

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s latest gun control legislation would restrict the sale and trading of many handguns. But it also does something else: it includes a substantial ban on toy guns and other functioning replicas, such as airsoft guns. This is an ignorant display of power, and far more petty than it is precautionary. If the government can control pseudo-guns, then what is safe from its interference? The actual text of the law itself states under the criminal code that (emphasis added): For the purposes of sections 99 to 101, 103 to 107 and 117.‍03, a firearm is deemed to be a prohibited device if...the firearm is designed or intended to exactly resemble, or to resemble with near precision, a firearm...

From the UK Spectator this week comes a pair of essays by Douglas Murray and Melanie McDonagh praising the American abortion debate. That debate can be difficult to admire when you're standing at the bottom of a culture war looking up. But as both Murray and McDonagh note, at least here in the States it's expected that we'll disagree about abortion, whereas throughout much of Europe it's regarded as a settled matter. Why is abortion in America still such a live issue? One reason, I think, is that in most other first-world countries it's been the subject of democratic deliberation, with people finding middle ground through their legislatures or referenda.

The Canadian truckers might have been driven out of Ottawa, but a copycat protest is brewing in the United States. Cockburn hears that police are preparing for demonstrations that could gridlock the DC area, and they could start as soon as Wednesday. Honk honk! The truckers are coming to Washington — just in time for President Biden's State of the Union address next week. Cockburn has been a fan of truckers ever since he decided to see whether he could hitchhike across America using only Jim Beam trucks (he could, as it turns out). But in this case, the big riggers may be in need of a friendly correction.

The first report cards on democracy and economic freedom for 2021 are out and the results are not good. Economic Intelligence Unit, the sister company of The Economist magazine, found that last year’s Democracy Index had fallen by almost a tenth of a percent. That’s the biggest drop in the index’s 15-year history. The Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom, meanwhile, saw a similar albeit larger decline of 1.6 points out of 100. Heritage looked at economic policies and conditions in 177 countries while the Democracy Index looked at 167 countries. Both reports blame government-enforced COVID restrictions for the declines.

At last, Canada has been freed from the menacing threat of bouncy castles. The bouncy castles first appeared in Ottawa earlier this month, brought in by the truckers who were peacefully protesting Covid restrictions and who Prime Minister Justin Trudeau later compared to Nazis. And you can understand why. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve walked into a McDonald’s PlayPlace and felt the dark night of fascism descending all around me. That people don’t bring bouncy castles to violent insurrections — that there were no bouncy castles at, for example, the Beer Hall Putsch — has apparently been lost on Trudeau, that witless king in the north, who last weekend saw in the Ottawa police to flush out the truckers like they were an occupying militia.

An op-ed in the Washington Post about the Canadian truckers’ protest tells us that the idea of freedom is “White” with a capital W and that the truckers’ belief in freedom is “a key component of White supremacy.” This is about as sensible as saying that the idea of gravity is “English” or that the Post reports the news. True, Newton’s apple fell in England and the Post looks like a newspaper, but gravity is universal. The same goes for stupidity, though that takes many forms, and for the impulse to be free, though that too takes many forms, some of them stupid. Taylor Dysart, the author of this insult to reason, is a white PhD student at private Ivy League university. Color me shocked.

On February 14, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau issued an edict granting himself emergency powers to rule Canada by martial law with the intent of making all those trucks back up. He wants to confiscate them along with freezing truckers’ bank accounts. His soldiery is not altogether with him. Ottawa’s chief of police, Peter Sloly, abruptly resigned. Things aren’t looking bright for North America’s newest autocracy. But, OK.  Let’s back up. On December 18, 2020 a French musician known as HK (Kaddour Hadadi) and his group the Saltimbanks released on video a song titled “Danser encore” (“Dancing Again”).

Quick: what do you think when someone tries to convince you of something by prefacing their remarks with the phase “Experts say”? I think of that rude, two-word imperative of Germanic origin that ends in “You.” As Laplace said in another context, it is par expériences nombreuses et funestes that I have this almost Pavlovian reaction. The “experts,” alas, are not expert, i.e, “possessing a high degree of skill in or knowledge of” a certain subject. For proof of my contention I offer the name of Anthony Fauci or the organization that glories in the acronym CDC, that is, the Centers for Disease Control. They are both a bit like Michael Avenatti, once championed everywhere as a genius and presidential material, but now universally exposed and discredited.

We begin today in the Canadian Parliament, which has its own version of prime minister's questions. And while it isn't as entertaining as the famously unruly UK Parliament or the gem that is the Australian Parliament ("the honorable membah is a grub, Mistah Speakah!"), it can still get pretty rowdy. So it was that last week, Candice Bergen, the interim leader of the Canadian Conservative Party, rose to ask a simple question of the ruling Liberals: would they work with the truckers who have been protesting Covid restrictions in Ottawa to resolve the impasse? She may as well have been talking to a Speak & Spell. The Liberal minister Chrystia Freeland chided and patronized. She condemned swastikas and Confederate flags. What she never did was to answer the question.

Under pressure from the Canadian government, GoFundMe has decided to withhold $9 million of the funds raised by the truckers' Freedom Convoy ($1 million had already been withdrawn). Instead of automatically reimbursing the donors, though, GoFundMe is giving contributors until February 19 to request a refund. This seems unfair, since some people will lack the time, information or ability to put in their requests. Unclaimed cash is then to be donated to “established” and “credible” charities proposed by the convoy's organizers — assuming they obtain GoFundMe’s approval (we serfs need authorization before we’re allowed to spend our money). (UPDATE: GoFundMe has since announced they are "simplifying the process and automatically refunding donations.

I’ve noticed a pattern over the past few years. We saw it when Joker made over a billion dollars at the box office, despite numerous reviews and think pieces assuring us that everyone who enjoyed it was a dangerous alt-right incel. We saw it most clearly in 2016 and again in 2020 when the tens of millions of Americans who voted for Donald Trump were uniformly smeared as white supremacists. To suggest any other motive was unacceptable. Racists! All of them! We saw it twice in the past week. The first of those instances is related to the ongoing Freedom Convoy protest in Canada. More on that later.

This week, my home country of Canada implemented a slew of new travel restrictions in response to Omicron, the newest ideation of what will surely be endless Covid variants. Based on the reports, this variant is mild and nothing to panic about. But hey, why not panic, just to be safe? And by “safe,” I mean “sufficiently naive and fearful so as to ensure we continue to comply with ever-irrational regulations and restrictions, dutifully marching along dressed in useless and humiliating masks that restrict both breathing and communication, and maintaining religious devotion to vaccines that only work in that they reduce symptoms.” Some countries and states have responded to Covid humanely and rationally.

Did you think we were having supply chain issues? Just wait until the vaccine mandates — cross-border and federal — kick in. We haven’t seen anything yet. “The supply chain that stole Christmas” has been dominating headlines all over the place for over a month now, even in The Spectator. Senator Mike Lee’s office is having fun with it too. The senator has just introduced the Surpassing Temporary Obstructions at Ports and Guaranteeing Resources to Increase the Nation’s Commercial Health Act — or STOP the GRINCH Act. More on that in a moment — but first, why are we hearing so much about the supply chain lately? Because of shortages, obviously! But wait. There’s nothing terribly new here.