Country-bred people inevitably grow tired of city life and find themselves driven by a desperate need to get out and into the natural world again and away from all the noise, filth, and excess of humanity.
Elizabeth Nickson (pace Samuel Johnson) grew tired of London (if not of life) and, with a friend, purchased 30 forested acres on an Pacific Gulf island seven hours off Vancouver.
A large part of the island’s acreage was owned by a European investor who eventually sold her 2000 acre holdings to a logging company.
Salt Spring Island, you need to understand, is a Pacific Northwest version of Woodstock, NY, surrounded by water. The predominant population is composed of Trust Fund Bolsheviks of the most tree-hugging variety.
Their money was accumulated by earlier generations, and these kinds of people hate capitalism and economic activity generally. When that sort of thing threatens to mar their views, they become killers.
[A] young woman stood up at the back of the hall. She was tall, lithe, utterly beautiful, and looked at least part native, with long, dead-straight black hair, a weathered suede jacket that nonetheless draped gracefully on her frame, and a wide-brimmed, black felt hat with a band bejeweled in turquoise.
The loggers froze. The residents turned and craned their necks and, from the questioning murmur that arose, I guessed few knew who she was.
“Many people all over the world . . . ,” she paused and repeated herself, her voice clear and strong. “Many people all over the world treasure this place and hold it sacred. Here and now I warn you. If you do what you are planning to do, you will stir up opposition that will cost you hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars. People will come here from all over and camp in your forests—thousands of them—until you leave. You will suffer. Your shareholders will suffer. Your company will not recover. So I tell you again. Leave now.”
If you thought it impossible for predatory capitalists who clear-cut forests to turn pale, you’d be wrong.
The triumph of the crunchies went far beyond the rout of that timber company. It extended to island rule by a regime of enviro-nut fanatics bent on stopping less-enlightened (or less financially worry-free) property owners from doing anything they do not like. And they do not like CHANGE.
Sanctimony and self-entitlement constitute the perfect recipe for ruthless tyranny, as the unfortunate Elizabeth Nickson found out.
The larger point, though, is the Island Trust or Woodstock, NY regime of righteous tyranny is not remotely restricted to those little earthly paradises.
My vacation farm in Central Pennsylvania is located in a rural township long conspicuous for its low taxes and small government. No more. We had a big tax reassessment, and in 2008 our Supervisors adopted a boiler-plate Development Ordinance that would put the usual NIMBY urban suburb to shame. I’m in a spot myself very similar to hers.
Josh Alexander, a 16-year-old student in the 11th grade at St. Joseph’s Catholic High School in Canada, was suspended this month for expressing his religious and moral objections to the school’s transgender bathroom policy.
St. Joseph’s Catholic High School in Renfrew, Ontario, allows males identifying as transgender girls to use bathrooms designated for females.
Alexander was first suspended for protesting the school’s transgender policy in November, on the grounds he was “bullying.”
When he tried attending class on Feb. 6, he was subsequently suspended again and arrested for trespassing.
[I]n case you were wondering just how bad things have gotten in Canada, on to today’s main story.
Catholic student arrested at Canadian Catholic school—for saying that there are only two genders
Defend Josh Alexander, Student arrested after opposing Gender Ideology
In November of 2021, Josh Alexander was suspended from St. Joseph’s Catholic High School in Renfrew, Ontario. Alexander is in the 11th grade, and he had stated the fact that there are only two genders. He didn’t bring up the subject randomly. The class was discussing gender.
“It was about male students using female washrooms, gender dysphoria and male breastfeeding,” Alexander said. “Everyone was sharing their opinions on it, any student who wanted to was participating, including the teacher. I said there were only two genders, and you were born either a male or a female, and that got me into trouble. And then I said that gender doesn’t trump biology.”
Josh Alexander was kicked out and told that he couldn’t return until he changed his mind. St. Joseph’s stated that he couldn’t attend classes until he affirmed that he would not “use the ‘dead name’ of any transgender student and agree to exclude himself from his two afternoon classes because those classes are attended by two transgender students who disapprove of Josh’s religious beliefs.” A “dead name” is transgender lingo for the name given to students at birth; Alexander says this has never come up.
On February 6, Alexander arrived at school to attend classes anyways. The school called the police, and the 11th grader was arrested—for saying that there are two genders at a Catholic school. “They definitely quote Scripture,” Alexander noted. “But at the same time, for every crucifix on the wall, there’s also a Pride flag. And there’s a lot of gender ideology and encouragement of gender dysphoria.”
Even a Canadian Progressive like Tama Ward can be made a little uncomfortable with the role of Post-Colonial Parent.
At breakfast, in the glass-towered city of Vancouver, five-year-old Abigail looks glumly at her half-eaten bowl of cereal.
“What is it, honey?” I brush the bangs back from her face.
She lets out a big sigh. “I wish I wasn’t white.”
I start. Nothing in the parenting manuals has prepared me for that.
“All we’ve ever done is hurt people,” she continues. “I wish my skin was dark and that I had a culture.”
We live in a part of the city where immigrant families abound. Our neighbours are homesick, first-generation Mexicans, which means that salsas and pinatas and Aztec legends feature prominently at shared social gatherings. Our family regularly eats in Little India where we gush over the flavours of curry and dhal, and every February, we attend the Chinese New Year parade in the slanting rain. Plus, my husband and I are children of missionaries and harbour an acute guilt for the cultural imperialism of our forebears. To compensate, we’ve raised our children with a deep appreciation of non-Western cultures.
So when Abigail laments the colour of her white skin, part of me is programmed to protest. Is it not my moral obligation to tell her that her feelings of poor self-worth are nothing compared with the psychological ruin of real racism? Girl, everything about Canadian culture weighs in your advantage and you have no right to snivel!
Instead, I feel a sadness settle over me. We thought we were raising the enlightened child of the 21st century. We thought we were doing our part in setting the history record straight. Yet, in doing so, it seems we have robbed our oldest child of something primal to psychological health, something elemental to her well-being as a human being: cultural roots.
I don’t know what to say.
I consider the you-are-Canadian spiel: “part of a new society made up of the vibrancy of many cultures, etc.” Yet, “Canadian” is precisely the problem. What is Canadian? Her best friend is Canadian and Mexican. Her cousin, Canadian and Bengali. Even our Indigenous neighbours have a First Nation before they have Canada. To play the Canadian card will further neuter her culturally when what she’s looking for are deep roots that ground her to a people and place.
Seized by maternal panic I go in search of our oversized National Geographic Atlas and hoist it up onto the breakfast table. Abigail sits up and she leans in. “It was almost 200 years ago that your people came to Canada from this island.”
Abigail’s face brightens at that word: island. I know what she’s thinking. Islands are places of primal innocence and cultural distinctiveness, such as Haida Gwaii or Never Never Land.
But then when I speak the name of her island, Abigail’s full-body slump returns.
“Great Britain?!” she pouts accusingly. “Aren’t they the bad ones?”
The Government of Canada’s immigration website crashed on Tuesday night as the US election results were rolling in.
The site went down about 10:30 p.m. ET on Tuesday, and there was intermittent accessibility after that.
About 9 ET on Tuesday evening, CNN announced that a number of key states in the election — including Michigan, Ohio, Virginia, and Florida — could all swing in Republican nominee Donald Trump’s favor. (Virginia has since been won by Clinton and Florida by Trump.) …
Google search traffic to the Canada story began to surge.
Stalked by a wolf while picking mushrooms near Fort Smith in Canada’s North West Territories, Joanne Barnaby was forced to retreat farther and farther from the highway and her vehicle. She finally foiled her pursuer by enlisting the aid of a larger predator.
Canada is slightly ahead of us in providing universal, state-funded healthcare. Of course, when the state, meaning other people, are paying for your health care, attitudes and policies toward you members of the aging Baby Boomer generation may not prove to be entirely to your liking.
Bank of Canada is pleading with Star Trek fans to stop “Spocking†its five dollar bills. Since Leonard Nimoy’s death, Canadian folks have been “Spocking†the hell out of the five dollar bill that features a portrait of Canada’s seventh prime minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier.
Sir Wilfrid now sports, on certain bills at least, pointy ears, the signature Vulcan haircut and eyebrows and Spock’s mantra “Live long and prosper.â€
According to Bank of Canada it’s not illegal to do this but:
“…However, there are important reasons why it should not be done. Writing on a bank note may interfere with the security features and reduces its lifespan. Markings on a note may also prevent it from being accepted in a transaction. Furthermore, the Bank of Canada feels that writing and markings on bank notes are inappropriate as they are a symbol of our country and a source of national pride.â€
The Montreal Gazette observes that there is no possible way that Michael Zehaf Bibeau could have legally purchased or owned a firearm in Canada.
A leading firearms expert and criminal defence lawyer says he would have been “shocked beyond words†to learn that Ottawa shooting suspect Michael Zehaf Bibeau had obtained his gun legally in Canada.
Solomon Friedman, who was locked in his downtown office for much of the day Wednesday as Ottawa police attempted to secure Parliament Hill and the surrounding buildings, says several layers of safeguards are in place to ensure that a person like Zehaf Bibeau does not have legal access to firearms. The former Quebecer, who shot and killed a reservist guarding the National War Memorial before moving up to Parliament’s Centre Block and opening fire, had a criminal record that included convictions for drug possession, uttering threats and possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose.
“Anytime you’re convicted of any type of serious criminal offence — anything dealing with drugs or violence — the judge has an opportunity to impose a firearms prohibition on you,†Friedman explained. “They exercise that regularly.â€
RCMP confirmed late Thursday that Zehaf Bibeau had indeed been banned from owning a gun.
“Even if you don’t get a weapons prohibition, you still need to fill out a licence application (in order to purchase a gun) where there’s a rigorous background check. I can tell you from personal experience that individuals with records like that simply get denied,†Friedman said. “I would be shocked beyond words if this individual had a firearms licence.â€
In addition to his criminal record, Zehaf Bibeau had recently had his passport revoked by the federal government. Friedman said that based on a grainy photo of the 32-year-old that began circulating on Wednesday evening, the weapon in his hands was probably a lever-action 30-30 hunting rifle. RCMP have also confirmed that theory.
