A popular book in my youth was Hugh MacLennan’s Two Solitudes, in which the issue of the French and English identity of Canada was explored in the fictional character of Paul Tallard. The identity crisis of mid-twentieth-century Canada was cultural. The identity crisis of Canada in the early twenty-first century remains the story of two solitudes, but the solitudes are ideological. The “peace, order, and good government” of the United Empire Loyalists in southern Ontario, destroyed by the globalist corruption of Laurentia, is now at odds with the “of the people, by the people, for the people” worldview of Alberta. To preserve unity, Westerners accepted peace, order, and good government, but can that broken Humpty Dumpty be put back together again? I don’t think it can.As the independence referendum canvassers spread out across Alberta’s fruited plain, there will be much talk and speculation about why Alberta should or should not become independent. The argument, I suspect, will largely hinge on economic issues such as pipeline development and equalization payments. These are legitimate and proper issues to be litigated, but they are not the important issues. I am more deeply persuaded by issues related to Canada’s two solitudes. I don’t think that the current version of the Two Solitudes can be reconciled, and failing that reconciliation, I no longer want to be part of a country where peace, order, and good government has been transformed into “give up your guns and kill yourself to spare your country while we get rich”. Repeatedly, I am asked how I can turn my back on Canada. But which Canada? The Canada that signed up for two world wars? The Canada that gave freedom and respite to immigrants from around the world? Or the Canada that has been declared to be a post-national country that has no unique identity and should have open borders? Does the Canada of my youth exist or has Laurentia killed the country I once loved? What we have today is an ersatz copy of Canada dragged out by Laurentian poseurs. I think that Alberta is leaving Ersatz Canada for the express purpose of saving and rebuilding Real Canada..Which Canada says to a military veteran demanding statutory compensation for lost limbs that he is asking too much?Which Canada knowingly and illegally enacts the Emergencies Act to force medical mandates that, in their turn, ignore the Nuremberg Code? Which Canada trashes the Nuremberg Code, which was formulated at the Nazi trials to end unethical medical experimentation?Which Canada wants to control the information put on the internet to punish those citizens with opinions contrary to Laurentia?Which Canada opens its borders to millions of immigrants without building the infrastructure for housing, jobs, roads, education, and medical facilities?Which Canada sets up a medical system to be financed from Ottawa, then removes most of the financing while disallowing private sector patches?Which Canada bans citizens from owning guns and attempts to force the seizure of private property?Which Canada tells military veterans, injured in the course of their service, that the medical attention available to them is first and foremost the ability to kill themselves using MAiD?.Which Canada lies about the requirements for building vital infrastructure while ignoring the relevant sections of the Constitution designed to allow the building of that infrastructure?Which Canada professes to want ‘peace, order, and good government’ and ignores the burning of its houses of worship, the abuse of its women and children, and the addiction problems of its downtrodden?Which Canada puts citizens through years of expensive court processes on charges of mischief yet releases others on charges of murder?Which Canada tells its citizens that their scriptures are hate speech and they can be put in jail for unutterable thoughts?Which Canada allows its leaders to protect their investments by twisting the judicial system and who then replaces the independent First Nations minister who refused to turn a blind eye to the corruption?Which Canada has no idea how many non-citizens live within its borders with expired visas?Which Canada allows the production of large quantities of illegal drugs for export to other nations and does not destroy those labs when they are discovered?.Ersatz Canada does all this.Albertans, by wanting to leave Ersatz Canada, are not destroying Real Canada. The Canada that we love was destroyed by a decade of replacing ‘peace, order, and good government’ with corrupt venality and socialist authoritarianism. The Canada we once loved no longer exists, and it is impossible to see how it can be recovered. In Ersatz Canada, Albertans get what is good for Laurentian soy boys. What we want instead is the Canada of Vimy Ridge and Juno Beach. By leaving Ersatz Canada, Albertans will double their national GDP but more importantly, they will create the opportunity to recover Real Canada. It will probably be less a country of ‘peace, order, and good government’ and more a country ‘of Real Canadians, by Real Canadians, for Real Canadians.’That is what an independent Alberta will deliver.
