New Normal

Just a thought for those Canadians who think our current state of affairs is okay and doesn’t really affect them that much—it’s just the “new normal”: Having spent time in both a communist country and a former communist country currently under an effective dictatorship, I can attest that everyday life in such nations feels pretty “normal”. There’s an initial shock, of course, if you’re new to it, but humans are remarkably resilient and can learn to cope with bad situations pretty quickly (given the options cope, flee or die, most people choose “cope”). People in totalitarian states still eat, sleep, pray, get married, make love, have kids, work jobs, go to the market, see friends, laugh at jokes, cry at tragedies and generally act like humans. 

But here’s the tell-tale difference: as soon as said human wants to make their own decision about where they will live, what job they will do, whom they will associate with and in what manner, how they will worship, what they will read, what medical options they want to try, they will come up against the brick wall of the State. Their appeals will usually fall on deaf ears. When they try to step outside the approved little box of normal everyday life, they are told to stand down or face fines, prison, or worse. 

And THAT is not the world I want my children and grandchildren to live in. I don’t want a life that FEELS normal on a Tuesday morning while I’m in my house with my husband and kids and a job to do, but as soon as I step outside my front door, there are rules about what I must wear, where I can eat my lunch and how often I can honk my car horn. I don’t want my country to be a place I can never leave unless I submit to forced government medical regulations. 

Despite how normal your life may feel today, it does not therefore follow that we are a free nation. And having also studied and spent time in a country recovering from a very recent genocide, I can also attest that it is rather remarkably easy for the government to convince fellow citizens to turn on each other. So please be on your guard for Canada. This land that I love is in graver danger than many people realize.