We Need more Pride as Canadians - New Canadian Media

We Need more Pride as Canadians

Celebrating Canada’s 150th birthday should be cause for celebration, but every single media article that cropped up on my social media feed last week had something to do with how racist we are, how intolerant we are, and how much more we need to improve in order to be a welcoming country that we can be proud of. You know, by the time I was done reading all the articles I had to ask myself, “Why do immigrants even want to come to such a shameful, disgusting country like Canada?” I think we can all say we don’t like associating

Celebrating Canada’s 150th birthday should be cause for celebration, but every single media article that cropped up on my social media feed last week had something to do with how racist we are, how intolerant we are, and how much more we need to improve in order to be a welcoming country that we can be proud of. You know, by the time I was done reading all the articles I had to ask myself, “Why do immigrants even want to come to such a shameful, disgusting country like Canada?” I think we can all say we don’t like associating with people who, needlessly, put themselves down. Well, that’s what we do as a collective group in Canada. It seems that if you are of European descent, you need to feel shame and embarrassment to be Canadian and your citizenship is less valuable than someone else’s. 

Not to my surprise, even Justin Trudeau got in on the act. In an interview, he said he wished he was an immigrant because people who have lived here since birth don’t appreciate being Canadian. So, add unpatriotic to the list of bad things about Canadian people. What I’d like to have happen for Trudeau is that we should fly him first class to Syria and then drop him in the middle of a war torn city and wish him all the best as he begins his journey to Canada. I’m betting within his first day, he will take back that desire to be an immigrant. 

Trudeau also delivered a passionate speech on Canada Day, where he rattled off all the names of the provinces and territories. The only problem is that he forgot Alberta. It’s an honest mistake, Trudeau apologists have been telling me all week. I get it. I mean we have 10 provinces and 3 territories. How can anyone, let alone a Prime Minister, be expected to recall them all? It’s tough! You try it! I bet you forget Ontario. 

On America’s birthday, the Canadian government felt that would be the right time to announce they would be giving Omar Khadr $10.5 million as compensation for… well… Depends on your opinion on this whole matter. I feel they are using some legalese to allow Khadr to profit from crime, which is illegal, actually. But the bleeding hearts will tell you he was tortured as a teenager, his rights were violated, and we should pay him an obscene amount of money to make it better. I don’t think he’s owed a penny for killing a decorated US soldier. Khadr was 15. I have a 15 year old son. He doesn’t need me to teach him anything with regards to knowing whether or not killing another human being is a good or bad thing. We are so stupid in this country. I just find it incredible that we have native communities with no drinking water and we can’t afford to rectify that situation, yet we can just write a cheque for $10.5 million to Khadr and put it in his hands instantly. I’d like to know how we arrived at $10.5 million as opposed to $1 million. Or $100 000. Or $1. This doesn’t pass the sniff test to me at all. Canada is so far in debt we will never see the light at the end of the tunnel in any of our lifetimes. So, ‘sorry’ and ‘hey, we’d give you $10 million if we had the dough, but we don’t; have a nice life’ would work for me.

Now for the real rub on this. There is a hearing in Ontario on Wednesday to see if the American soldiers’ families involved in the Khadr incident can go after his Canadian money. Why was the government in a hurry to get this deal finished and completed before Wednesday? Khadr owes the American families $134 million, so he really should turn over all $10.5 million to them. Yet, it appears to me that there has been some corrupt legal work done behind the scenes where the Canadian government has done Khadr a favor so that, just in case he loses Wednesday’s hearing, the $10.5 million can’t be touched by the Americans because it was given to Khadr before the hearing and any money he gets before that hearing would be off limits. Sneaky. Dirty. Wrong. And, if Khadr has turned into a ‘good guy’ why isn’t he, voluntarily, giving some (or all) of this payment to the Americans who it has been determined he owes? 

This is as underhanded as it gets. Forget the whole ‘giving millions to a terrorist’ argument. There are left wing whackos out there who will say he wasn’t a terrorist at all, but rather a ‘child soldier’ who was clueless as to what he was doing. I’m just not that gullible. I also feel that when it comes to war, there are no rules. So if you want to waterboard or deprive sleep to a 15 year old terrorist in order to get crucial information, you do it. I recognize a lot of you won’t share that opinion and that’s fine. But forget all this. The seedy method of rushing this before Wednesday’s hearing can’t be argued by anyone. It’s Canada siding with Khadr and against the United States and our feelings on that decision need to be made clear when we vote in 2019.

Republished with permission.

Please share our stories!

Mike Stackhouse

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.