Well written as always Jen, and reinforces why I am proud to support the Line. I was a good little Canadian during COVID, following all the rules. Going through all of the performative theatre, getting my shots, only to get it anyways and realize how much of it was posturing bullshit. It broke my faith in government and I will never comply again. The latest attempts and hamfisted overreach shows they have learned nothing
What did it for me what the total lack of gratitude from the biggest beneficiaries of the response. Were older people grateful younger people accepted huge limits on basic freedoms and a permanent setback in their formative years, all for a disease they were at little risk from? As a whole, no. If anything, many older people seem to resent the idea that accepting restrictions in their own self-interest was not the same kind of sacrifice young people made.
Have never gotten over the response from those who spent lockdown with home offices and backyards to young people crammed into tiny apartments getting outside in sometimes-crowded urban parks, which even then we were starting to know posed minimal risk.
75 year old person here. I am sorry that lives were so truncated by our government’s over reaction to covid. I did not support what you write about here in your comments, either.
Please do not generalize about my generation, just as I do not like those in my generation who do the same to the younger ones.
Our government did not realize at the beginning that Covid would not kill huge numbers of young people. It quickly became apparent that it would not. But that same government was unwilling to lighten up when it should have. That said, I did of course get all required vaccines into my arm, just as my children did.
"As a whole, no." is not an unfair generalization! Any useful discussion of social bias is going to involve some degree of generalization. And honestly, I don't particularly care about sparing older people's feelings over being honest about young people being continuously put last (and not only in the pandemic).
In my time at CFB Gagetown I was witness to some nasty bush fires around the base. Usually started by an errant artillery shell over shouting their range, once the dry undergrowth got started, predictably in August, it spread quickly and was very hard to contain. Perhaps being a former “grunt” I take orders better than others. If Natural Resources says the best way to avoid starting fires is to keep people out of the woods, then so be it. Besides, there are a lot of guys who want to go deer hunting in the fall. Much better if the woods are still there to actually go hunting in!
A lot of the online criticism of this ban on walking in forests is stupidly disingenuous. Yes, just walking in the woods isn’t a fire hazard. It’s just all the other incidental things that people tend to do that *are* a risk. Some idiot flicking a cigarette ash in the wrong place, somebody who doesn’t see why they shouldn’t be able to use a portable grill - just the usually stochastic stuff that you find among a large number of people. If a fire occurs, the government is going to have a hard time controlling it, and people and property are going to be harmed.
Of course, the expectation seems to be that the cost is socialized. If we could identify the careless person who started a fire, hold them liable for their negligence, that might be different. The problem is that it’s still not sufficient deterrent for people to take this seriously. A fire they destroyed the town of Barriere in BC was started by a guy who carelessly flicked a cigarette butt. He confessed to it right away, but that didn’t stop the fire that burned out 72 homes and the sawmill that was the town’s major employer.
I like the sentiments in this article; IMO Canada is a long way from the objective. Just a note that the authoritarian juggernaut of the woke left is not dead. Woke mentality still emanates from institutions like public education that dominates the young and their elders (pretty well everyone?). The economic and social weaknesses that woke produced are not over. By contrast the authoritarian right is a small, fragmented movement enabled by free media publicity.
Carney adopted the Conservative platform to win; most telling is that the Liberals did not have sufficient ideas on their own. The over age 55 crowd voted Carney in, and so far Carney has produced words and one half hearted change when the feds stopped collecting the carbon tax from individuals. Most telling is that Parliament did not rescind the legislation enabling the tax.
IMO Canada cannot become less polarized until the affordability crisis is truly confined (being declared dead by liberals does not count). We'll know that the affordability crisis is confined when unemployment at lower/middle income levels falls, birth rates rise, the age at first marriage/durable partnership falls, and economic indicators such as GDP per capita rise substantially. Until then we are at the mercy of seniors' voting preferences and so far that's not working.
“I think The Line exists to contribute to the re-creation of that lost social cohesion”—bingo. That’s exactly what we need, and that’s why The Line is succeeding. Happy to be a monthly supporter. Congrats on five years!
Congratulations! With all your added content, I am now rearranging my subscriptions and I am jettisoning the Globe and with sadness, The FP. I appreciate the breath of your content as well.
Ok, I agree with you save the Liberals. I know Carney cannot do everything, but is Cabinet is still filled to the brim with incompetence. Joly is a shining example.
I had to chuckle at the Conservatives in NS jumping into this S. 7 fight. No government would act this way with the prohibition of illegal settlements or camping notwithstanding the Pacific Palisades, like the latest NS fire, were also started by an illegal camp on the beach. Even walking on the Douglas Fur Trail in Calgary I come across full-on settlements with fires irrespective of the fire state. So where is the 25K fire for the NS perp? Waiting, waiting.
Keep up the good work, and don't be too hard on Conservatives, as The Hub has some great conservative content.
For the record, it is not the Conservatives in NS making the most noise about the ban, it’s people outside, mainly in Ontario. Problem is no one in the media actually talks to the people in NS, only constitutional ‘experts’ and other pundits.
The Government has the authority, both constitutionally and legally to enact the bans. One person went so far and found four cases where the ban was implemented between 1950 and 1959. I found three cases since the current law was enacted (1998, 2001 and 2016) without breaking a sweat. The ban is for burning, there are restrictions placed on entering the woods. And they are the same restrictions in place today as they were in all of the other instances, except for the fine. The only other difference is fire were already burning the last time the restrictions were put in place, this time they tried to get proactive. People can still meet up, assemble freely, go camping, swimming, protest, private landowners can still visit their property, maskless with no lockdowns. You just can’t do it in the woods.
As for the one fire started by a homeless person , or maybe an arsonist, they were long gone by the time first responders arrived. Chances of locating them is slim to none. And it wasn’t a beach, it was in a wooded area behind Bayers Lake Industrial Area, home to many big box stores. That’s what probably saved the area because it’s in Halifax, so a full response was available.
Jen is right, COVID changed everything in how we view government overreach. I also think that media is playing into too looking to find that story to link our country to what’s happening in the states. Like Trudeau wanting his ‘January 6’ moment.
Totally agree with your comment on Trudeau. Yes indeed, all he wanted was his very own January 6 moment and be a ‘ strong man’ , like his papa in 1970.
The official inquiry into his invocation of the EA slammed Trudeau for his unnecessary use of it and disgraceful freezing of Canadian’s bank accounts.
The findings of the inquiry did not get nearly the media coverage that it deserved. Very odd, that.
5 years is a great milestone! Congrats! I don’t think I’ve been on board from the beginning, but I have certainly enjoyed your content for a while (particularly once you got into the podcast space, since that’s my particular niche of expertise) Here’s to The Line continuing to grow and shine light on bullshit.
In search of working for the common cause. Noble but highly unlikely in this environment. In BC a Supreme Court ruling found FN land claim rights trumped BC private property rights. The courts in effect expropriated a number of privately held houses and properties. This brought into question all property in the Land Title Office. Your home is not yours anymore. This will be the start of much bullshit but under the NDP, BC is now attacking 95% of the population. This will lead a party to demand UNDRIP be repealed and a movement to amend our constitution (Article 35). If this is not done I see another movement to the 51st state solution. America with their individual rights enshrined in their constitution would never allow this. With this happy post, Happy Anniversary.
Go back and read the Land Act, introduced by the NDP before the last election and withdrawn. This has been the NDP's intention all along. When this fire is lit, it may extinguish what is left of any thread holding Canada together. Mark Carney better a magician to turn this ship of fools around.
The interplay between indigenous title and fee simple ownership in the part of BC where there are no treaties is a complex, nuanced and polarizing issue. As a home-owner in an area with no treaties I don't like the message in the Cowichan decision. However it seems to be the logical next step after a long series of Supreme Court of Canada decisions establishing first aboriginal rights and then unextinguished aboriginal title. I'm no legal mind but if it is established that the land was taken wrongly from the indigenous people, then rights subsequently granted by governments to others must be tainted or constrained. I hope the Line can find someone to give good quality analysis as this issue unfolds. No rush; it will be with us for years.
What property has not been taken from someone through our history. Wrongly is not a word I would use. Each tribe took land from other tribes over the centuries. Is that wrong? Probably. So what? Nothing you post has anything to do with the reality of today. 95% of the population will not allow any private property be given to FN by a judge. That is a certainty based on human nature and the politics of today.
Well, one argument would be that those past events did not have any mechanism to get back stolen land and possessions other than waging revenge and war the other way. In these modern times, legal mechanisms exist and are being used. So, lack of recourse centuries ago doesn't mean there should no recourse today. BC F'd up long ago by not wanting to be part of the numbered treaties (or make their own and instead just literally took things and booted people out of their villages), and those past decisions are haunting BC Today. BC is appealing that Cowichan decision by the way, its not like they are endorsing it.
Agree with bmc9689, also I wonder what legal gymnastics these judges have to put themselves through to ascribe the European concept of title to indigenous peoples.
Aboriginal title has been defined by the supreme court of Canada and has existed in BC for the last 11 years. The legal gymnastics can easily be found in the Tsilhqot'in decision.
One thing that makes Canada today different from other places and times is that we have enshrined aboriginal rights in our constitution.
“The Supreme Court of British Columbia held that occupation was established for the purpose of proving title by showing regular and exclusive use of sites or territory within the claim area, as well as to a small area outside that area. Applying a narrower test based on site-specific occupation requiring proof that the Aboriginal group’s ancestors intensively used a definite tract of land with reasonably defined boundaries at the time of European sovereignty, the British Columbia Court of Appeal held that the Tsilhqot’in claim to title had not been established.”
In other words, the claim succeeded based on something akin to squatters’s rights, NOT pre-existing aboriginal title.
I can agree with that. Because it also means that absent that crucial exclusive use, all the other claims regarding land you hear about used/occupied by “settlers” should fail.
Don't get your hopes up. Remember that these aboriginal rights are CONSTITUTIONAL, and are in the hands of Judges and that they extend not only to "pure blood" aboriginals but also "Metis" who assert that they are "nations" too. It took years to determine that disturbing the great bear spirit was not an impediment to a business expansion; so unless the zeitgeist changes, the country will be killed by legal process.
I may face cancellation, but this court decision crosses the line from insanity to unacceptable. The BC and federal governments need to throw unlimited resources at funding reference cases etc to narrow ingenious rights as much as possible and turn consultation into as prescriptive a process as possible. I oppose all forms of group rights, including indigenous rights as a society founded on anything other than absolute equality of individuals is doomed to fail. Perhaps the only good idea that Pierre Trudeau ever had was to buy out the Treaties.
Another beautifully written piece...the last third pure poetry!
An excellent rehash of the emotional and civil consequences of Covid, so true.
I think refusing entry into parks feels like overreach, but I think we have to give agencies some grace in the face of worrisome disaster (the fires out East). This is not familiar territory for them and they are rightfully scared. I think bozo's personal social media fame from deliberate disobedience is not constructive, and I think paying that $28K fine as well as his legal fees, is going to sting when the cameras are long gone. He can spare the woods for a few days while emergency response is figured out. I dont see that as a major destruction of individual freedoms.
The fine - and the appeals -will be more than covered by go fund me appeals to whatever freedom lovers are left in Canada. The time spent by police enforcing this farce might be better spent seeking and prosecuting the arsonists of various motivations that probability theory tells up that are responsible for at least some of these fires.
Agencies everywhere are made up of civil servants headed by pusillanimous politicians. They live and work in a state of fear whether the territory is familiar or not. Sending out storm troopers to keep the slaves in the barracoon is a way of escaping individual blame.
The police enforce the laws, literally their job. I think you’re being overly dramatic with terms like storm troopers and slaves in the case of this outwardly defiant goof who couldn’t stay out of the woods when asked.
I may be a bit dramatic but it’s to reinforce my point that we have a bunch of totalitarians who use draconian edicts and use the police to enforce tyranny under color of law since they are too afraid to face people directly. If they wanted to be consistent they would remove every one in the woods including homeless and First Nations but that would be politically unacceptable. Easier to go after a single disobedient individual in the tradition of the Colonial English monarchy - which still rules in Canada AFAIK - and “hang one as an example to the rest”.
No wonder police forces in Canada are having major issues finding new recruits.
Life is so dramatic in your mind. "totalitarians", "tyranny", "too afraid to face the people directly", "hang one as an example to the rest". Are you confused? You live in Canada, not Afghanistan, Iran, China. Its a gorgeous, loving beautiful and yes free place. Sadly for you, there are laws, and imperfect as it is, some order that we all agree too. Homelessness and First Nations issues are a complete mess, but have near zero to do with this issue. Take a walk, smell the summer air.
Canada has a lot more in common with China than you think. And it seems to be becoming more influenced by China all the time regardless of federal Liberal politicians protests to the contrary.It may not be a theocracy like Afghanistan or Iran or Quebec until 1960 but restrictions still exist . Read up on the Ottawa truckers convoy treatment in Canada vs a similar and almost concurrent event in the USA. Homeless and First Nations people in the Nova Scotia woods are not being fined $26K each. I came back from the US to house arrest during Covid days and was threatened with dire consequences by bilingual civil service minions for two weeks in the supposedly free country that you describe. Yes Canada still has pretty scenery.
Read up on Aesop’s fable about the Dog and the Wolf. Spend 2 minutes reading the 271 words in the Gettysburg address. Ask yourself if the last sentence “ that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth” applies to Canada. I submit it perished when Pierre Trudeau was first elected.
If you think the Covid restrictions that were broadly applied, by those pesky little “civil service minions” for two oh so long weeks were so catastrophic you need to first get over it, it was 5 years ago in an uncertain time when icu’s and hospitals were not functioning properly, and two, again, lay off the conspiracy drama. If you think the government exists to take your rights and freedoms, you’re free to leave. The rest of Canada, aside from your trucker convoy friends (who also need to get over it; would you want a semi truck honking its horn for 4 months on your doorstep?) have moved on. Politicians and those lame annoying public servants have a challenging job. If only we had those genius “business” guys to solve all our problems with their >90% failure rate. Hating public service and the government and rules is what right wing nutters do. Stay off the dark web.
That 'outwardly defiant goof' was denied public interest standing for a charter challenge last year and, more or less, went into a municipal office this time to request someone follow him into the woods to give him the ticket he needs to have standing. Disagree with his stance if you'd like, but it certainly wasn't a lack of impulse control.
Oh im well aware it wasnt an impulse. This little man was desperate for attention, so he generated his own. An attention seeker yes, a freedom fighter for the masses...no.
Canada is becoming a lot more like China than you imply . And it seems to be becoming more influenced by China as time progresses regardless of federal Liberal politicians protests to the contrary.It may not be a theocracy like Afghanistan or Iran or Quebec until 1960 but restrictions still exist . Read up on the Ottawa truckers convoy treatment in Canada vs a similar and almost concurrent event in the USA. Homeless and First Nations people in the Nova Scotia woods are not being fined $26K each. I came back from the US to house arrest during Covid days and was threatened with dire consequences by bilingual civil service minions for two weeks in the supposedly free country that you describe. Yes Canada still has pretty scenery and breathable air most of the time.
Read up on Aesop’s fable about the Dog and the Wolf. Spend 2 minutes reading the 271 words in the Gettysburg address. Ask yourself if the last sentence “ that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth” applies to Canada. I submit it perished when Pierre Trudeau was first elected.
Why would anyone support a go fund me appeal from a selfish idiot who is more concerned with hie “rights” than his RESPONSIBILITY . People are so irresponsible and self indulgent. Shame on them.
He's also concerned with *your* rights. If no rights were violated, the charter challenge will fail with no serious cost to anybody given that he took a handful of steps into the woods before being given a ticket by an official he himself had asked to come. What's irresponsible and self-indulgent is thinking we can ever be free from the normal and necessary process of recognizing trade-offs and letting the courts, and possibly the legislative process, rather than in-the-moment public anxiety determine what intrusions on rights are proportionate.
Regarding where we are right now as a country, I'm going to have to disagree with some of your observations regarding the Liberal Party having gone through any form of "course correction". I will agree that Carney has brought a change in tone to the table (ie: he is not Justin), but that's about it.
Thus far I have seen nothing which convinces me that the Liberals have actually absorbed a single lesson, or are poised to make any actual policy changes. They won the election, which was their entire goal - and now seem content to fiddle around at the edges, without doing anything bold to set Canada back on a more prudent and more sustainable footing. All they seem to have on offer is accounting tricks, and more virtue signalling (now in a different tone).
...and you accuse the Conservatives of being "all anger and no solutions", which just has me scratching my head. If Poilievre et al offered "no solutions", as you say - why did Carney blatantly steal almost every CPC talking point through the last election...?
The rubber will hit the road when the Libs drop a budget. Let's see how popular they are when they show us all a projected $100 B+ deficit.
I agree with your points above. I am very nervous about the next budget. I think Jen’s comments about how fed up she was with Trudeau are very interesting and I admit similar feelings make me much more inclined to give Carney a lot of latitude. I do think we are all in for some big disappointment from Carney as the days count down on him and he is surrounded by most of the same people Trudeau picked. And everyday we learn of more incompetence by Trudeau’s gang that shows the hole Carney needs to dig us out of is even deeper.
An important lesson of the Trudeau years was the need for a Liberal Party mechanism that would jettison off a Leader who refuses to quit.
That lesson may have been learned by a weak Caucus and Party movers and shakers but it wasn’t put into practice. Trudeau brought the Liberals back into power and many MPs owed their success to him and here they are with another Saviour who rescued them from political oblivion and the Caucus passed on the opportunity to put him on a short leash.
Carney is simply a new user interface on an obsolete back end. The Feds need to make some very unpopular decisions and Carney shows no signs of doing so. That would mean $150B in spending cuts which would likley mean whacking 100K federal employees and walking away from as much as child care, dental care, pharmacare, OAS for those under 68, CBC, media subsidies, regional development agencies and corporate welfare as possible. At the same time, the Feds need to promote economic growth through massive deregulation of supply managed agriculture, telecom, commercial air travel, media and financial services while streamlining major project approvals with something like guaranteed 6 month review timelines. All of this would require an exceptional communicator with a strong will to lead. Canada needs a Reagan or a Thatcher or a John Howard. It would also take a federal legal department with a mandate to take on the Supreme Court.
Another great article. I wish I had something more to say beyond this offering of thanks, but you are a tall glass of water in an increasing dry and thirsty world.
The year 2020 seems so long ago and yet The Line remains and continues to write on the increasingly choppy waves of the Canadian political and cultural landscape. Both Jen and Matt provide eclectic perspectives that keep themselves and the rest of us honest on so many things. Thank you.
The guy who got the 28k fine (or at least one of them) is challenging it and seems to have intended to do so the whole time, so I think the best read on going right into an office to tell them he was going to do it is that he was doubling up ensuring standing for the case and making content to crowdfund for the JCCF who is supporting the case (although he's not raising money for the individual case or his fine).
Civil disobedience, sure, but not that weird for someone trying to bring a charter challenge and maybe a little different than deliberately ignoring it just to literally take a hike.
I mused on Reddit quite a bit in the thick of it all during Covid that one of my biggest worries, given the response was so out of proportion to the actual risk from the disease, was that this might ultimately present a much bigger danger by wasting what was most likely a once-in-a-lifetime naive response from people. That early willingness, born from uncertainty and the simple fact that none of us had experienced anything like this before, was squandered on something nowhere near deadly enough to justify it.
I know some people think the response wasn’t compliant enough, but at least at the start, almost the entire world was basically stun-fucked (to quote the editor ;) into a fugue state of compliance. That might have been the best collective response we’ll ever get - and now we’ve likely squandered it. Even if something much worse comes along, nowhere near enough people will take it as seriously as they should, because they will remember last time the risk was overstated, and that will affect their knee-jerk reaction.
We wasted what should have been saved for the truly big one. We wasted so much social trust, so much money, so many life stages and experiences people will never get back, entire life trajectories likely forever changed - what an unforgivable waste, really. That’s what I’m still really mad about, and I’m definitely reminded of it equally every time people on either side do things like understate the risk of threats such as forest fires, or over-rely on human behaviour to correct systemic failures in the face of them.
We have all lost time since pandemic. Time with friends and loved ones. Time for critically thinking about what the hell is happening to the world. (If that is even possible any longer.) Time to acknowledge that Canada failed its elderly on a massive scale. (Hey, where's the COVID Royal Commission?). Time to look inward and ask what we should do as individuals to learn from COVID. Ten Lost Years by the late Barry Broadfoot talks about our inability to look at, examine and learn from the great depression. I think the same thing is happening post-pandemic. Nobody wants to be reminded of the past few years.
I admire the Line’s bullshit detection role and Kudos to Matt and Jen for their service in that area. Every royal court needs a jester. But hoping for the Carney liberal cabinet to come across for Canada is like a believing a Catholic parish priest who says you’ll get your reward in heaven. You’ll be too dead to find out. So will Canada at the rate they’re going (or not going?)
We can decry this and that and every other thing but what is most distressing to me is the constant undermining of Enlightenment principles that nurture our ability to develop common sense.
Canada is becoming a basket case of irrelevance, where narratives are subbed in for the truth. (See: ground penetrating radar and half mast flags). I fear that our public institutions are weaponized beyond salvaging by people who have no use for the truth and are quite happy to tear down the walls from within.
Also Ms. Gerson makes special mention of the fire ban on the east coast. The anti government crowd can wear their sneakers into the wilderness to prove a point at $28,000 a pop and good for them, but wildfires are nasty business and compliance is a show of public solidarity that can help to keep everyone and their property safe. Fires have levelled cities, prairie towns and properties in isolated areas with equal devastation. Lives are lost and wild animals killed or displaced and habitat destroyed. Let’s work together instead of against each other.
I think we may have hit a critical mass of people whose personal interest and livelihood is directly contrary to Canada being a functional society. Who will do basically anything, whose highest priority it is in their lives, to prevent any changes that will make the country more efficient or better at addressing real problems.
We have a preferred linguistic minority who are totally mercenary in their voting practices and just numerous enough to swing any election. We have media dependent on government subsidies and increasingly willing to openly advocate for the party that will keep those flowing. We have a million fictions and excesses involving our Native Peoples giving them outsized and increasing power despite their almost total dependency on government. We have way too many people supported by either direct government employment or some kind of tapestry of public benefits, beyond the point of all sense. We have huge, massively profitable companies and industries who only exist because of government walls. We have an unchecked judiciary willing to remake laws but only ever in one direction of supporting more government power and more minority rights (and the latter where those conflict).
I worry that April 2025 was the last chance at even the hope of turning any of this around, and we were denied. The critical mass will only increase from here.
Great comments. Pretty hard to improve on that except to add that the Trudeau Liberals made a point of providing funding to select activist groups who were also given seats at the table for policy formulation. A good example is the current EV mandates that are threatening to undermine the Canadian auto industry. Logic and common sense would deliver the course correction needed to ensure that the manufacturing base stays competitive and the public is given the opportunity to choose rather than have it shoved down our throats. The major problem is that the environmental groups that support the adoption of EV use in Canada were also heavily involved in the mandate policy. They are unwilling to bend an inch, despite having no monetary skin in the game except any government funding they receive.
The Liberals love to pay people to tell them what they already want to hear. The longstanding rumour is that they also directly or indirectly fund all the gun control groups who show up to lobby them for more bans on firearms that are never used in crime, every time there is a US mass shooting or a Liberal scandal.
As for EV mandates, again we had the chance to vote against this kind of insanity but Toronto area boomers decided they would rather vote for the party that more convincingly pretended to really really viscerally hate Donald Trump rather than just consider him an unpredictable trade rival. We are now at least 4-6 years past the natural point of self-correction and due for at least several more.
That's a great comment, and circles back to my original comment about common sense and how narratives being peddled sideline the truth.
In your situation, the open cooking in a homeless situation in a heavily wooded area cries out for a shift in policy to reduce risk. Risk for the homeless people and the risk these individuals present to the general public with their actions during a drought.
In just one week during this summer's hot and dry spell in my community, we had four fires in a wooded area next to our local supportive housing unit. But a predominant narrative in the community was that the homeless should be allowed to "cook their meals" in the woods. So I get why people question government directives. Hiking bad; doing drugs perfectly fine. It gets exhausting. (For context, we are in a highly forested community. These small fires could have easily led to massive destruction.)
Well written as always Jen, and reinforces why I am proud to support the Line. I was a good little Canadian during COVID, following all the rules. Going through all of the performative theatre, getting my shots, only to get it anyways and realize how much of it was posturing bullshit. It broke my faith in government and I will never comply again. The latest attempts and hamfisted overreach shows they have learned nothing
What did it for me what the total lack of gratitude from the biggest beneficiaries of the response. Were older people grateful younger people accepted huge limits on basic freedoms and a permanent setback in their formative years, all for a disease they were at little risk from? As a whole, no. If anything, many older people seem to resent the idea that accepting restrictions in their own self-interest was not the same kind of sacrifice young people made.
Have never gotten over the response from those who spent lockdown with home offices and backyards to young people crammed into tiny apartments getting outside in sometimes-crowded urban parks, which even then we were starting to know posed minimal risk.
75 year old person here. I am sorry that lives were so truncated by our government’s over reaction to covid. I did not support what you write about here in your comments, either.
Please do not generalize about my generation, just as I do not like those in my generation who do the same to the younger ones.
Our government did not realize at the beginning that Covid would not kill huge numbers of young people. It quickly became apparent that it would not. But that same government was unwilling to lighten up when it should have. That said, I did of course get all required vaccines into my arm, just as my children did.
"As a whole, no." is not an unfair generalization! Any useful discussion of social bias is going to involve some degree of generalization. And honestly, I don't particularly care about sparing older people's feelings over being honest about young people being continuously put last (and not only in the pandemic).
In my time at CFB Gagetown I was witness to some nasty bush fires around the base. Usually started by an errant artillery shell over shouting their range, once the dry undergrowth got started, predictably in August, it spread quickly and was very hard to contain. Perhaps being a former “grunt” I take orders better than others. If Natural Resources says the best way to avoid starting fires is to keep people out of the woods, then so be it. Besides, there are a lot of guys who want to go deer hunting in the fall. Much better if the woods are still there to actually go hunting in!
A lot of the online criticism of this ban on walking in forests is stupidly disingenuous. Yes, just walking in the woods isn’t a fire hazard. It’s just all the other incidental things that people tend to do that *are* a risk. Some idiot flicking a cigarette ash in the wrong place, somebody who doesn’t see why they shouldn’t be able to use a portable grill - just the usually stochastic stuff that you find among a large number of people. If a fire occurs, the government is going to have a hard time controlling it, and people and property are going to be harmed.
Of course, the expectation seems to be that the cost is socialized. If we could identify the careless person who started a fire, hold them liable for their negligence, that might be different. The problem is that it’s still not sufficient deterrent for people to take this seriously. A fire they destroyed the town of Barriere in BC was started by a guy who carelessly flicked a cigarette butt. He confessed to it right away, but that didn’t stop the fire that burned out 72 homes and the sawmill that was the town’s major employer.
I like the sentiments in this article; IMO Canada is a long way from the objective. Just a note that the authoritarian juggernaut of the woke left is not dead. Woke mentality still emanates from institutions like public education that dominates the young and their elders (pretty well everyone?). The economic and social weaknesses that woke produced are not over. By contrast the authoritarian right is a small, fragmented movement enabled by free media publicity.
Carney adopted the Conservative platform to win; most telling is that the Liberals did not have sufficient ideas on their own. The over age 55 crowd voted Carney in, and so far Carney has produced words and one half hearted change when the feds stopped collecting the carbon tax from individuals. Most telling is that Parliament did not rescind the legislation enabling the tax.
IMO Canada cannot become less polarized until the affordability crisis is truly confined (being declared dead by liberals does not count). We'll know that the affordability crisis is confined when unemployment at lower/middle income levels falls, birth rates rise, the age at first marriage/durable partnership falls, and economic indicators such as GDP per capita rise substantially. Until then we are at the mercy of seniors' voting preferences and so far that's not working.
“I think The Line exists to contribute to the re-creation of that lost social cohesion”—bingo. That’s exactly what we need, and that’s why The Line is succeeding. Happy to be a monthly supporter. Congrats on five years!
Congratulations! With all your added content, I am now rearranging my subscriptions and I am jettisoning the Globe and with sadness, The FP. I appreciate the breath of your content as well.
Ok, I agree with you save the Liberals. I know Carney cannot do everything, but is Cabinet is still filled to the brim with incompetence. Joly is a shining example.
I had to chuckle at the Conservatives in NS jumping into this S. 7 fight. No government would act this way with the prohibition of illegal settlements or camping notwithstanding the Pacific Palisades, like the latest NS fire, were also started by an illegal camp on the beach. Even walking on the Douglas Fur Trail in Calgary I come across full-on settlements with fires irrespective of the fire state. So where is the 25K fire for the NS perp? Waiting, waiting.
Keep up the good work, and don't be too hard on Conservatives, as The Hub has some great conservative content.
For the record, it is not the Conservatives in NS making the most noise about the ban, it’s people outside, mainly in Ontario. Problem is no one in the media actually talks to the people in NS, only constitutional ‘experts’ and other pundits.
The Government has the authority, both constitutionally and legally to enact the bans. One person went so far and found four cases where the ban was implemented between 1950 and 1959. I found three cases since the current law was enacted (1998, 2001 and 2016) without breaking a sweat. The ban is for burning, there are restrictions placed on entering the woods. And they are the same restrictions in place today as they were in all of the other instances, except for the fine. The only other difference is fire were already burning the last time the restrictions were put in place, this time they tried to get proactive. People can still meet up, assemble freely, go camping, swimming, protest, private landowners can still visit their property, maskless with no lockdowns. You just can’t do it in the woods.
As for the one fire started by a homeless person , or maybe an arsonist, they were long gone by the time first responders arrived. Chances of locating them is slim to none. And it wasn’t a beach, it was in a wooded area behind Bayers Lake Industrial Area, home to many big box stores. That’s what probably saved the area because it’s in Halifax, so a full response was available.
Jen is right, COVID changed everything in how we view government overreach. I also think that media is playing into too looking to find that story to link our country to what’s happening in the states. Like Trudeau wanting his ‘January 6’ moment.
Totally agree with your comment on Trudeau. Yes indeed, all he wanted was his very own January 6 moment and be a ‘ strong man’ , like his papa in 1970.
The official inquiry into his invocation of the EA slammed Trudeau for his unnecessary use of it and disgraceful freezing of Canadian’s bank accounts.
The findings of the inquiry did not get nearly the media coverage that it deserved. Very odd, that.
5 years is a great milestone! Congrats! I don’t think I’ve been on board from the beginning, but I have certainly enjoyed your content for a while (particularly once you got into the podcast space, since that’s my particular niche of expertise) Here’s to The Line continuing to grow and shine light on bullshit.
In search of working for the common cause. Noble but highly unlikely in this environment. In BC a Supreme Court ruling found FN land claim rights trumped BC private property rights. The courts in effect expropriated a number of privately held houses and properties. This brought into question all property in the Land Title Office. Your home is not yours anymore. This will be the start of much bullshit but under the NDP, BC is now attacking 95% of the population. This will lead a party to demand UNDRIP be repealed and a movement to amend our constitution (Article 35). If this is not done I see another movement to the 51st state solution. America with their individual rights enshrined in their constitution would never allow this. With this happy post, Happy Anniversary.
Yeah, looking for someone to write about that one. JG
Go back and read the Land Act, introduced by the NDP before the last election and withdrawn. This has been the NDP's intention all along. When this fire is lit, it may extinguish what is left of any thread holding Canada together. Mark Carney better a magician to turn this ship of fools around.
Glavin's just written about it. He would make a good guest for On the Line...
A number of articles in the NP on this issue in last 48h. What a total disaster.
I'd be very interested in seeing Timothy Huyer's take. https://morehousing.ca/timothy-huyer
The interplay between indigenous title and fee simple ownership in the part of BC where there are no treaties is a complex, nuanced and polarizing issue. As a home-owner in an area with no treaties I don't like the message in the Cowichan decision. However it seems to be the logical next step after a long series of Supreme Court of Canada decisions establishing first aboriginal rights and then unextinguished aboriginal title. I'm no legal mind but if it is established that the land was taken wrongly from the indigenous people, then rights subsequently granted by governments to others must be tainted or constrained. I hope the Line can find someone to give good quality analysis as this issue unfolds. No rush; it will be with us for years.
What property has not been taken from someone through our history. Wrongly is not a word I would use. Each tribe took land from other tribes over the centuries. Is that wrong? Probably. So what? Nothing you post has anything to do with the reality of today. 95% of the population will not allow any private property be given to FN by a judge. That is a certainty based on human nature and the politics of today.
Well, one argument would be that those past events did not have any mechanism to get back stolen land and possessions other than waging revenge and war the other way. In these modern times, legal mechanisms exist and are being used. So, lack of recourse centuries ago doesn't mean there should no recourse today. BC F'd up long ago by not wanting to be part of the numbered treaties (or make their own and instead just literally took things and booted people out of their villages), and those past decisions are haunting BC Today. BC is appealing that Cowichan decision by the way, its not like they are endorsing it.
Agree with bmc9689, also I wonder what legal gymnastics these judges have to put themselves through to ascribe the European concept of title to indigenous peoples.
Aboriginal title has been defined by the supreme court of Canada and has existed in BC for the last 11 years. The legal gymnastics can easily be found in the Tsilhqot'in decision.
One thing that makes Canada today different from other places and times is that we have enshrined aboriginal rights in our constitution.
Thanks for that. From the SCC site:
“The Supreme Court of British Columbia held that occupation was established for the purpose of proving title by showing regular and exclusive use of sites or territory within the claim area, as well as to a small area outside that area. Applying a narrower test based on site-specific occupation requiring proof that the Aboriginal group’s ancestors intensively used a definite tract of land with reasonably defined boundaries at the time of European sovereignty, the British Columbia Court of Appeal held that the Tsilhqot’in claim to title had not been established.”
In other words, the claim succeeded based on something akin to squatters’s rights, NOT pre-existing aboriginal title.
I can agree with that. Because it also means that absent that crucial exclusive use, all the other claims regarding land you hear about used/occupied by “settlers” should fail.
BC's "Supreme" Court is supreme in name only. It is the equivalent to The Court of King's Bench in Saskatchewan. What's in a name?
Don't get your hopes up. Remember that these aboriginal rights are CONSTITUTIONAL, and are in the hands of Judges and that they extend not only to "pure blood" aboriginals but also "Metis" who assert that they are "nations" too. It took years to determine that disturbing the great bear spirit was not an impediment to a business expansion; so unless the zeitgeist changes, the country will be killed by legal process.
I may face cancellation, but this court decision crosses the line from insanity to unacceptable. The BC and federal governments need to throw unlimited resources at funding reference cases etc to narrow ingenious rights as much as possible and turn consultation into as prescriptive a process as possible. I oppose all forms of group rights, including indigenous rights as a society founded on anything other than absolute equality of individuals is doomed to fail. Perhaps the only good idea that Pierre Trudeau ever had was to buy out the Treaties.
Congratulations Jen and Matt!!
Another beautifully written piece...the last third pure poetry!
An excellent rehash of the emotional and civil consequences of Covid, so true.
I think refusing entry into parks feels like overreach, but I think we have to give agencies some grace in the face of worrisome disaster (the fires out East). This is not familiar territory for them and they are rightfully scared. I think bozo's personal social media fame from deliberate disobedience is not constructive, and I think paying that $28K fine as well as his legal fees, is going to sting when the cameras are long gone. He can spare the woods for a few days while emergency response is figured out. I dont see that as a major destruction of individual freedoms.
The fine - and the appeals -will be more than covered by go fund me appeals to whatever freedom lovers are left in Canada. The time spent by police enforcing this farce might be better spent seeking and prosecuting the arsonists of various motivations that probability theory tells up that are responsible for at least some of these fires.
Agencies everywhere are made up of civil servants headed by pusillanimous politicians. They live and work in a state of fear whether the territory is familiar or not. Sending out storm troopers to keep the slaves in the barracoon is a way of escaping individual blame.
The police enforce the laws, literally their job. I think you’re being overly dramatic with terms like storm troopers and slaves in the case of this outwardly defiant goof who couldn’t stay out of the woods when asked.
I may be a bit dramatic but it’s to reinforce my point that we have a bunch of totalitarians who use draconian edicts and use the police to enforce tyranny under color of law since they are too afraid to face people directly. If they wanted to be consistent they would remove every one in the woods including homeless and First Nations but that would be politically unacceptable. Easier to go after a single disobedient individual in the tradition of the Colonial English monarchy - which still rules in Canada AFAIK - and “hang one as an example to the rest”.
No wonder police forces in Canada are having major issues finding new recruits.
Life is so dramatic in your mind. "totalitarians", "tyranny", "too afraid to face the people directly", "hang one as an example to the rest". Are you confused? You live in Canada, not Afghanistan, Iran, China. Its a gorgeous, loving beautiful and yes free place. Sadly for you, there are laws, and imperfect as it is, some order that we all agree too. Homelessness and First Nations issues are a complete mess, but have near zero to do with this issue. Take a walk, smell the summer air.
Canada has a lot more in common with China than you think. And it seems to be becoming more influenced by China all the time regardless of federal Liberal politicians protests to the contrary.It may not be a theocracy like Afghanistan or Iran or Quebec until 1960 but restrictions still exist . Read up on the Ottawa truckers convoy treatment in Canada vs a similar and almost concurrent event in the USA. Homeless and First Nations people in the Nova Scotia woods are not being fined $26K each. I came back from the US to house arrest during Covid days and was threatened with dire consequences by bilingual civil service minions for two weeks in the supposedly free country that you describe. Yes Canada still has pretty scenery.
Read up on Aesop’s fable about the Dog and the Wolf. Spend 2 minutes reading the 271 words in the Gettysburg address. Ask yourself if the last sentence “ that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth” applies to Canada. I submit it perished when Pierre Trudeau was first elected.
If you think the Covid restrictions that were broadly applied, by those pesky little “civil service minions” for two oh so long weeks were so catastrophic you need to first get over it, it was 5 years ago in an uncertain time when icu’s and hospitals were not functioning properly, and two, again, lay off the conspiracy drama. If you think the government exists to take your rights and freedoms, you’re free to leave. The rest of Canada, aside from your trucker convoy friends (who also need to get over it; would you want a semi truck honking its horn for 4 months on your doorstep?) have moved on. Politicians and those lame annoying public servants have a challenging job. If only we had those genius “business” guys to solve all our problems with their >90% failure rate. Hating public service and the government and rules is what right wing nutters do. Stay off the dark web.
That 'outwardly defiant goof' was denied public interest standing for a charter challenge last year and, more or less, went into a municipal office this time to request someone follow him into the woods to give him the ticket he needs to have standing. Disagree with his stance if you'd like, but it certainly wasn't a lack of impulse control.
Oh im well aware it wasnt an impulse. This little man was desperate for attention, so he generated his own. An attention seeker yes, a freedom fighter for the masses...no.
This little man wants to democratically contest the law, as is his right. If he wanted to 'generate his own' he would have just ignored it.
Canada is becoming a lot more like China than you imply . And it seems to be becoming more influenced by China as time progresses regardless of federal Liberal politicians protests to the contrary.It may not be a theocracy like Afghanistan or Iran or Quebec until 1960 but restrictions still exist . Read up on the Ottawa truckers convoy treatment in Canada vs a similar and almost concurrent event in the USA. Homeless and First Nations people in the Nova Scotia woods are not being fined $26K each. I came back from the US to house arrest during Covid days and was threatened with dire consequences by bilingual civil service minions for two weeks in the supposedly free country that you describe. Yes Canada still has pretty scenery and breathable air most of the time.
Read up on Aesop’s fable about the Dog and the Wolf. Spend 2 minutes reading the 271 words in the Gettysburg address. Ask yourself if the last sentence “ that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth” applies to Canada. I submit it perished when Pierre Trudeau was first elected.
If their going to keep people out of the bush why can't they keep protesters off the streets?
Why would anyone support a go fund me appeal from a selfish idiot who is more concerned with hie “rights” than his RESPONSIBILITY . People are so irresponsible and self indulgent. Shame on them.
He's also concerned with *your* rights. If no rights were violated, the charter challenge will fail with no serious cost to anybody given that he took a handful of steps into the woods before being given a ticket by an official he himself had asked to come. What's irresponsible and self-indulgent is thinking we can ever be free from the normal and necessary process of recognizing trade-offs and letting the courts, and possibly the legislative process, rather than in-the-moment public anxiety determine what intrusions on rights are proportionate.
Not costing him a cent of course some group is covering the whole bill or he wouldn't have done it.
It will cost taxpayers the time and money to arrest him, charge him, prosecute him, etc., etc. Where's our "go fund me"?
Congrats on the 5 year milestone.
Regarding where we are right now as a country, I'm going to have to disagree with some of your observations regarding the Liberal Party having gone through any form of "course correction". I will agree that Carney has brought a change in tone to the table (ie: he is not Justin), but that's about it.
Thus far I have seen nothing which convinces me that the Liberals have actually absorbed a single lesson, or are poised to make any actual policy changes. They won the election, which was their entire goal - and now seem content to fiddle around at the edges, without doing anything bold to set Canada back on a more prudent and more sustainable footing. All they seem to have on offer is accounting tricks, and more virtue signalling (now in a different tone).
...and you accuse the Conservatives of being "all anger and no solutions", which just has me scratching my head. If Poilievre et al offered "no solutions", as you say - why did Carney blatantly steal almost every CPC talking point through the last election...?
The rubber will hit the road when the Libs drop a budget. Let's see how popular they are when they show us all a projected $100 B+ deficit.
I agree with your points above. I am very nervous about the next budget. I think Jen’s comments about how fed up she was with Trudeau are very interesting and I admit similar feelings make me much more inclined to give Carney a lot of latitude. I do think we are all in for some big disappointment from Carney as the days count down on him and he is surrounded by most of the same people Trudeau picked. And everyday we learn of more incompetence by Trudeau’s gang that shows the hole Carney needs to dig us out of is even deeper.
An important lesson of the Trudeau years was the need for a Liberal Party mechanism that would jettison off a Leader who refuses to quit.
That lesson may have been learned by a weak Caucus and Party movers and shakers but it wasn’t put into practice. Trudeau brought the Liberals back into power and many MPs owed their success to him and here they are with another Saviour who rescued them from political oblivion and the Caucus passed on the opportunity to put him on a short leash.
You could interchange Carney with Trudeau in that last paragraph, and it would still be true. That is my point.
Same stuff, different tone.
Carney is simply a new user interface on an obsolete back end. The Feds need to make some very unpopular decisions and Carney shows no signs of doing so. That would mean $150B in spending cuts which would likley mean whacking 100K federal employees and walking away from as much as child care, dental care, pharmacare, OAS for those under 68, CBC, media subsidies, regional development agencies and corporate welfare as possible. At the same time, the Feds need to promote economic growth through massive deregulation of supply managed agriculture, telecom, commercial air travel, media and financial services while streamlining major project approvals with something like guaranteed 6 month review timelines. All of this would require an exceptional communicator with a strong will to lead. Canada needs a Reagan or a Thatcher or a John Howard. It would also take a federal legal department with a mandate to take on the Supreme Court.
Another great article. I wish I had something more to say beyond this offering of thanks, but you are a tall glass of water in an increasing dry and thirsty world.
The year 2020 seems so long ago and yet The Line remains and continues to write on the increasingly choppy waves of the Canadian political and cultural landscape. Both Jen and Matt provide eclectic perspectives that keep themselves and the rest of us honest on so many things. Thank you.
The guy who got the 28k fine (or at least one of them) is challenging it and seems to have intended to do so the whole time, so I think the best read on going right into an office to tell them he was going to do it is that he was doubling up ensuring standing for the case and making content to crowdfund for the JCCF who is supporting the case (although he's not raising money for the individual case or his fine).
Civil disobedience, sure, but not that weird for someone trying to bring a charter challenge and maybe a little different than deliberately ignoring it just to literally take a hike.
Happy Anniversary!
I mused on Reddit quite a bit in the thick of it all during Covid that one of my biggest worries, given the response was so out of proportion to the actual risk from the disease, was that this might ultimately present a much bigger danger by wasting what was most likely a once-in-a-lifetime naive response from people. That early willingness, born from uncertainty and the simple fact that none of us had experienced anything like this before, was squandered on something nowhere near deadly enough to justify it.
I know some people think the response wasn’t compliant enough, but at least at the start, almost the entire world was basically stun-fucked (to quote the editor ;) into a fugue state of compliance. That might have been the best collective response we’ll ever get - and now we’ve likely squandered it. Even if something much worse comes along, nowhere near enough people will take it as seriously as they should, because they will remember last time the risk was overstated, and that will affect their knee-jerk reaction.
We wasted what should have been saved for the truly big one. We wasted so much social trust, so much money, so many life stages and experiences people will never get back, entire life trajectories likely forever changed - what an unforgivable waste, really. That’s what I’m still really mad about, and I’m definitely reminded of it equally every time people on either side do things like understate the risk of threats such as forest fires, or over-rely on human behaviour to correct systemic failures in the face of them.
We have all lost time since pandemic. Time with friends and loved ones. Time for critically thinking about what the hell is happening to the world. (If that is even possible any longer.) Time to acknowledge that Canada failed its elderly on a massive scale. (Hey, where's the COVID Royal Commission?). Time to look inward and ask what we should do as individuals to learn from COVID. Ten Lost Years by the late Barry Broadfoot talks about our inability to look at, examine and learn from the great depression. I think the same thing is happening post-pandemic. Nobody wants to be reminded of the past few years.
I admire the Line’s bullshit detection role and Kudos to Matt and Jen for their service in that area. Every royal court needs a jester. But hoping for the Carney liberal cabinet to come across for Canada is like a believing a Catholic parish priest who says you’ll get your reward in heaven. You’ll be too dead to find out. So will Canada at the rate they’re going (or not going?)
We can decry this and that and every other thing but what is most distressing to me is the constant undermining of Enlightenment principles that nurture our ability to develop common sense.
Canada is becoming a basket case of irrelevance, where narratives are subbed in for the truth. (See: ground penetrating radar and half mast flags). I fear that our public institutions are weaponized beyond salvaging by people who have no use for the truth and are quite happy to tear down the walls from within.
Also Ms. Gerson makes special mention of the fire ban on the east coast. The anti government crowd can wear their sneakers into the wilderness to prove a point at $28,000 a pop and good for them, but wildfires are nasty business and compliance is a show of public solidarity that can help to keep everyone and their property safe. Fires have levelled cities, prairie towns and properties in isolated areas with equal devastation. Lives are lost and wild animals killed or displaced and habitat destroyed. Let’s work together instead of against each other.
Happy 5 year anniversary!
I think we may have hit a critical mass of people whose personal interest and livelihood is directly contrary to Canada being a functional society. Who will do basically anything, whose highest priority it is in their lives, to prevent any changes that will make the country more efficient or better at addressing real problems.
We have a preferred linguistic minority who are totally mercenary in their voting practices and just numerous enough to swing any election. We have media dependent on government subsidies and increasingly willing to openly advocate for the party that will keep those flowing. We have a million fictions and excesses involving our Native Peoples giving them outsized and increasing power despite their almost total dependency on government. We have way too many people supported by either direct government employment or some kind of tapestry of public benefits, beyond the point of all sense. We have huge, massively profitable companies and industries who only exist because of government walls. We have an unchecked judiciary willing to remake laws but only ever in one direction of supporting more government power and more minority rights (and the latter where those conflict).
I worry that April 2025 was the last chance at even the hope of turning any of this around, and we were denied. The critical mass will only increase from here.
Great comments. Pretty hard to improve on that except to add that the Trudeau Liberals made a point of providing funding to select activist groups who were also given seats at the table for policy formulation. A good example is the current EV mandates that are threatening to undermine the Canadian auto industry. Logic and common sense would deliver the course correction needed to ensure that the manufacturing base stays competitive and the public is given the opportunity to choose rather than have it shoved down our throats. The major problem is that the environmental groups that support the adoption of EV use in Canada were also heavily involved in the mandate policy. They are unwilling to bend an inch, despite having no monetary skin in the game except any government funding they receive.
Yah, I knew I was forgetting some.
The Liberals love to pay people to tell them what they already want to hear. The longstanding rumour is that they also directly or indirectly fund all the gun control groups who show up to lobby them for more bans on firearms that are never used in crime, every time there is a US mass shooting or a Liberal scandal.
As for EV mandates, again we had the chance to vote against this kind of insanity but Toronto area boomers decided they would rather vote for the party that more convincingly pretended to really really viscerally hate Donald Trump rather than just consider him an unpredictable trade rival. We are now at least 4-6 years past the natural point of self-correction and due for at least several more.
That's a great comment, and circles back to my original comment about common sense and how narratives being peddled sideline the truth.
In your situation, the open cooking in a homeless situation in a heavily wooded area cries out for a shift in policy to reduce risk. Risk for the homeless people and the risk these individuals present to the general public with their actions during a drought.
In just one week during this summer's hot and dry spell in my community, we had four fires in a wooded area next to our local supportive housing unit. But a predominant narrative in the community was that the homeless should be allowed to "cook their meals" in the woods. So I get why people question government directives. Hiking bad; doing drugs perfectly fine. It gets exhausting. (For context, we are in a highly forested community. These small fires could have easily led to massive destruction.)
Enlightenment principles - you are 1000000% correct, I think.