This may seem to be an embarrassing question but what, I wonder, would such a guerilla campaign be fighting for? Something to do maybe with the right to be a hyphenated whatever? I'm not sure where 'free' dental care brings out the nationalists in the millions of international 'students'. Are we 'protecting' the Indian extortion gangs running rampant, ensuring China continues to have the means to launder the proceeds from its transnational criminal activity? Are we defending the right for Walmart to do business with Canadian money? What's the motivation: to not be Americans in all but name and yet risk life and limb to maintain the hypocrisy?
If I were a Russian or American special digital operations group running the social media campaign to break up Canada and make it easy pickings, this is exactly the line of argument I’d pick. That Alberta or whatever would be better off as part of the United States.
I don’t think you’re a Russian bot, but you should consider whose interests you’re serving by posting these sentiments on every single thread on The Line. Do you want Canada to fix itself or just roll over and die?
Sounds like he's looking down one tiny hole marked "Hate Trudeau" and is missing a much bigger picture. His notion that "you can see a doctor whenever you want" ignores one tiny detail....income. It ignores that people in the US go bankrupt trying to pay medical bills. How much of their lower cost of living is because it's a much bigger population of people contributing to the costs of basic infrastructure? "Higher income is unsupported nonsense. Look at their minimum wage.
Maybe the Canadian government should have thought about that before they spent 10 years "welcoming the world" and denying that English speaking Canada has a culture other than "not America somehow".
I read this as you saying “I have been so radicalized by Justin Trudeau’s government that I now don’t see Canada as worth defending and will seek to encourage the end of the country”.
Or more charitably, “Justin Trudeau so broke Canada that there is no saving it, and we should do what we can to hasten the breakup of the country and the absorption of the pieces into the USA”
Is that a fair assessment of your view? If not, what is your view on whether we should try to fix things?
Well we tried to fix things by throwing out his government last April but ended up with a sad but boomer-appealing rebrand instead. I'm all out of ideas. And no I don't actively want the US to take over but I put the chances of that at zero.
No, you lost because you picked and kept a complete asshole as a leader. You picked an idiot with Andrew, turned on Erin, and refuse to take responsibility for the mistakes the CPC made.....and continues to make at PP's direction. It's your party that is shooting itself in the foot. How ironic.
Not at all. Trudeau Jr was simply the latest but it predates this by five decades. Every government has helped undermine and alter nationalism into this post-national, anti-Semitic, identity based tribalism in all its illiberal forms. And the way back is hard but doable if and only if the federal government takes the lead and implements and imposes a return to liberal values. That's the only path out because only these values unify a diverse population that has competing local interests. A common bond. How this is done can take many forms, but I suspect the population is so enamoured with group-based concerns that it cannot pivot now. And so the country will continue to devolve under the excuses of tolerance and diversity and personal truths. No amount of military spending and transfers to First nations and increasing immigration within the broken system where students are taught to despise our heritage will help self correct national dissolution. Whodathunk. Just look at the polling data of young people and the justified anger they have at how squandered has been - and continues to be - our inheritance from that heritage. It's gone. That's what has to change if we want a country worthy of being defended. This ain't it, I think, and so I asked that question which, as you see, is basically impossible to answer because it HAS no answer in this day and age. That's how broken Canada is.
To fix itself, Canada needs to face some very hard truths. This means correctly identifying problems if one wishes to support meaningful solutions. Canada's fundamental problem is its devolution from being a liberal constitutional democracy into... whatever this mishmash of special interests and identities is. It doesn't work. There are no unifying principles in play (other than 'Not American, and that is insufficient). Just ask people as I have from coast to coast to coast. We need to return to first principles, supporting what peace, order, and good governance means in a liberal democracy. We need to recognize our suzerain statehood to the US and operate it in alignment with US policy in order to be a valuable and integrated trustworthy ally. This requires waking up and grasping that a hyphenated population that shares no unifying values will not survive as a unified country and cannot thrive because of legislated special interests. We need to uphold liberal values in every institution and stop dismantling them in the name of something else. That is the path to destruction and we are on it full bore. Until we alter this trajectory and get back on the path that led Canada into statehood even with a disparate population, there is nothing 'there' to defend.
That would all make sense if the US were a reliable and trustworthy ally. It clearly no longer is. It's equally clear the PM understands this, as does Europe.
die early, and broke. trade a tax return that costs $500 for a pro for one that costs $3500. become less literate, less safe, pledge 1/3 of our tax dollars for WMD, another 1/4 for interest; sign up for the worst set of financials, and debt service, tenuously supported by a shakier dollar, ICE morons pepper spraying your granny, and less upward mobility than almost any western country...
Nice cherry picking. The outcomes for the poor are way worse in the US, which mess up the rest of the stats. I'm way past the income where I'd be better off as an American. I know Americans who earn half what I do who live better. Who think Canadians are crazy for putting up with what we put up with.
You didn't answer the question. And it's an honest one. But I do note how many young and capable Canadians are leaving the country especially for the States. So I suspect your list just might be missing some key factors in the actual cost/benefit analysis you seem amused by.
I know lots about the US having worked there for 25 years and, despite being paid seven figures, my experience there confirmed I would never retire there willingly. The one and only benefit was lower taxes, in some jurisdictions. (If you include property tax and health insurance, it's not even close in many jurisdictions... it's lower in Canada).
Health care is a fucked up nightmare of over-testing (so you can bill the insurance co) and litigation. Jurisdiction issues x 50 are insane. Things don't work, generally... anywhere. Waits for service make us look efficient. Customer service is mostly hostile, except at 5 star. People park their cars in Washington, DC, for example, and rent a car/take an Uber because they'll lose the spot!
Drive through any major city and you see neighbourhoods that remind you of 2nd world war carpet bombing; actually quite stunning. The Anacortes neighbourhood or East St. Louis are places every Canadian should see. Their news channels are just bizarre... nothing happens anywhere else in the world. It goes on and on.
Hollywood and the amerikkan marketing machine put quite a sheen on it but it's a thin veil, lol.
There are good things. Great entertainment, creativity, some awesome people... but it's not a better country by any measure I can find.
Again, you seem dedicated to say what to fight against but nothing about what to fight for (that's my question). You need both to compare and contrast like with like to be have a position based on the preponderance of evidence (Bayesian reasoning) in reality rather than a narrative based on belief (motivated reasoning).
I've seen different data; brain trust exodus from the US, lots of young people inquiring about Canada. I know the Captain of a former US national team just moved here and applied successfully... he's 35.
Peace, order, and good government. Common law. A constitutional system with a representative parliament, anchored by the Crown instead of a dysfunctional republic based on a Roman model that led to tyranny. That's before we get into the contrasts with a Trump/MAGA kakistocracy run by incompetent authoritarians and laced with corruption.
Thanks, GS. That is the difference in theory. But in practice, what are the trends for the three central values? Are they being supported or undermined? When asked to fight for 'country', are we protecting what should be or what is? Any reasonable person would understand by overwhelming evidence that the political evolution of Canada has moved these values far into the background and that modern federal government is much more similar to an authoritarian state with a Dear Leader deciding what is best for everyone by fiat (see the vote about recognizing a Palestinian state as a recent example of simply overriding Parliament) than a representative parliament, one filled now with floor crossing Yes Men and Women of different political everchanging colours simply following orders. And it's been this way through every iteration of political power. The level of kakistocracy, therefore, I think is a difference without a distinction.
Once upon a time in the not so distant past, I think you could get similar answers from Canadians coast to coast to coast about about what these values meant as a cohesive, unifying force locally expressed. I think those days are long gone. In other words, if asked to fight on behalf of 'country', I think most people would be very hard pressed to describe and/or define what it was they were defending. It sure isn't 'good' government and 'order' is kept only by the civilian population not rising up and not fighting back against the erosion of their shared rights and freedoms by federal legislation, court mandated impositions, and economic transfers that awards privilege over and over again based on immutable characteristics, the polar opposite of equality rights. Peace, in this sense, means going along to get along and keeping one's mouth shut. No one in my long-serving military family believes the principles of these core values exist in practice anywhere in Canada. Quite the opposite. And they're not taking up arms to defend a self-righteous broken and irresponsible people who care nothing about Canada as an independent liberal democratic country.
I would love to have a good government in Canada. The interim PBO officer should be given the job full-time. He was willing to criticize the federal government's budget deficits last summer.
In all seriousness, get out of here with this fifth column BS. The door is that way if you want to move to the United States, nobody’s stopping you assuming you have some marketable skills.
It would be one thing to point out these problems and say we need to fix them, it’s another to say that Justin Trudeau so broke the country that it can’t be fixed.
We now have both major political parties wanting to fix these problems (unlike two years ago), so I think they will be fixed. We can move faster, sure, but it’s not hopeless. The country is a very different place from two years ago in terms of will to get this done.
We need to pull together and not just be defeatist and welcome our conquerors.
I notice you didn't answer my question. I strongly suspect that hyperbole and better 'communicating' won't be up to the task, either, so name calling probably will be your only useful option. And that's fine; you can denigrate those who raise such a question as 'unpatriotic' but my family has served Canada in uniform in all conflicts since Confederation. This is the first one that has produced none and for very good reasons that you simply wave away as if 'almost' being solved. I do not share your confidence because there's no compelling evidence that I should. Yet in your mind you seem to feel confident that raising such a question means 'fifth column bullshit'. It's my experience that when real world problems are articulated but rejected because they don't fit some narrative or ideology, the bullshit lies with the rejection. I also think the argument is strong that allowing for the bullshit to replace reality and what's independently true is what has gotten us into this mess and more of it sure as hell won't get us out of it. You know, 'patriotic' vibes aside.
The principle of public health care for all, that we all get treatment regardless of personal wealth
The national effort and national myth of hacking civilization out of an unforgiving northern wilderness
Incredible technological leadership from a country that punched above its weight on things like candu nuclear or oil-sands extraction technology
What I call the Canadian multicultural miracle, the fact that cities like Toronto are a United Nations of immigrants and people get along, and immigrants are successfully integrated. the patchwork quilt they used to call it when I was a kid in school.
Our private refugee sponsorship program, often done through churches or other faith organizations, that is a leading model for the world
Do I need to go on? I could do five more of these. There is so much worth defending about this country that is more than just “not American”.
It’s an constant mental pain for me that a faction of the right-wing has been so radicalized in the last 10 years that you don’t see any of this anymore, that you think there’s nothing left worth defending in the country.
Other than stating these as if relevant today compared to 40 years ago demonstrates just how out of touch you are with the reality our youth face. Today. Right now. That's not a 'right wing' position; it's reality. Recognizing the loss of these aspects you are justifiably proud of is not a 'radical' position but one that reflects reality. So, dealing with reality rather than a comfortable feel-good narrative based on fond memories requires leaving behind the assumption that they are still true today when they are not. Test this yourself. What you presume to defend has already been lost by domestic policy and altered priorities and not Trump or the Americans or any other conspiratorial notion used to pretend otherwise. Canadians have lost all of these already. That's a problem that needs recognition which, sadly, seems to have to fight tooth and nail to get through to those who believe or feel differently. This is why it's important to have free speech federally protected so that those only too willing to give it up in the name of safety and respect can continue to correctly point out their loss and why it matters to a country in such steep decline. Naming the problem has to be based on reality and not some Just So story. Hearing it articulated is not a disloyalty to the country but the only potential way to start to save it.
How about wealth distribution? How about the only thing that matters in the economy being the shareholder? How about the ability of the rich to buy the power that voters give to the government? Nowhere is that worse than in the US, where state governments controlling elections mixed with the idiocy of the Electoral College, adding to the gutting of the Voting Rights ACt means that the US is no longer a functioning democracy. That is something Canadian worth fighting for.
You save it by reinstating the 1950s tax code, where the rich get deductions for projects that benefit society. Otherwise, they pay. You ban stock buybacks. You shut down, through isolation, the offshore tax havens. But first, you need the governments of the rest of the world on board to take back the power elections grant them, to act in unison, so that individuals, like busniess don't have the option of saying "give us what we want or we'll move". There's more than enough money to go around. It's just in the wrong hands.
I suppose it depends on what the offer on the table is going to be for us?
Are we one big state? If Alberta thought their voice was being ignored before, imagine when American party politics comes into play and the “state” government is gerrymandering the hell out of you to maximize the Democrat vote.
Are we 7-10 states and a couple territories? I can’t see any Republican thinking this is a good idea as it would swing the senate to Democrats immediately. If you’re hoping for this, I wouldn’t hold your breath.
Are we an American territory similar to Puerto Rico? This is probably the most likely end result if it comes about via an armed takeover. We might not even have freedom of movement in this scenario depending on how much of a resistance there is.
Keep in mind that in pretty much all these scenarios there would be massive cuts to government employment. Any American company operating a Canadian head office will downsize immediately. European companies and potentially others would likely start divesting from the US, which would include us. Unemployment would jump substantially.
yes. I will shoot not to be a vassal state of the US. Worked there for 25 years. It is not a better place, by far. They're just good at telling themselves and everyone else they're awesome. Best in the world at marketing.
Things that would have been unthinkable a few years ago are now plausible. Some are even likely.
I'd like to believe Canadians would defend our country with more than elbow slogans, but enough Canadians have been captured by fringe ideologies (or, even if they support our country's continued existence, really believe posting a thumbs-up emoji counts as action) that civilian defence or even a counter-insurgency isn't a sure thing unless we can foster it actively.
The apparent contradiction between confiscating guns from lawful owners, and planning an anti-American-occupation insurgency can be resolved pretty easily. It's all stage-managed bullshit by clever assholes trolling for votes on both ends of the equation, who do not believe a word of any of their own rhetoric.
As a recent Post article pointed out, Canada isn't behaving like a country would if it believed there was any threat of invasion whatsoever. We aren't procuring equipment, we aren't building mine fields and tank traps, we aren't readying to hand out weapons, we aren't conscripting soldiers. We are still doing wasteful shit like DEI hiring in the military. OK the military conspicuously made a show of "thinking about" an American invasion, but militaries famously have vague contingencies in place in case of an extraterrestrial space invasion. Even the timing of this announcement was suspicious.
Indeed, the timing of *everything* was suspicious in the past couple of weeks. Trump makes crazy noises about Greenland which make no sense on any level from any perspective which reaches a crescendo just in time for maximum exposure at the WEF conference in Davos. There, Trump plays pro wrestling heel to the heroic face, Mark Carney, backed up by his chorus of European technocrats, before the whole matter gets more or less immediately dropped in favour of negotiations for a deal that was on the table from the very beginning. It's starting to be pretty clear we are being messed with. Sometimes the leaders including Trump collude with each other, sometimes they just roll with it and riff, but it's all purposeful distraction to stop us from discussing how badly all of these governments have ruined our daily lives with their terrible decisions.
So no, nobody with any power in Canada believes for a second that we will ever be invaded by the US, because there is a zero percent chance of that happening. But they stand to gain by making us think this is a possibility.
On the firearms confiscation plan, it's clear that nobody involved thinks it will work or that significant guns will be collected. They basically told every gun owner to go fuck themselves last weekend so what little intended compliance was in the offering has likely evaporated. I expect the guns will mostly still be there to fight the imaginary insurgency, albeit now in the hands of the least likely people to want to protect this nation and its status quo thanks to the amount of abuse they have endured.
So no contradiction in a government that is both sucking and blowing at the same time. There are votes on both ends thanks to the ample vein of simpletons who still believe a word coming out of the mouths of any of these habitual Liberal liars or their alarmist mouthpieces.
@ KRM wrote "OK the military conspicuously made a show of "thinking about" an American invasion, but militaries famously have vague contingencies in place in case of an extraterrestrial space invasion. Even the timing of this announcement was suspicious."
The comment above brought back some memories for me which I dug into. "War Plan Red" was created by the US Department of War in 1927 and hypothesized a war with the British Empire which in retrospect seems ridiculous. The plan for the invasion of Canada was called War Plan: Crimson. All nicely detailed in Wikipedia. Interestingly, a board game (war game) was issued in 2001 called War Plan: Crimson pitting the Canadian forces of the 1930's against the US forces. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/11277/war-plan-crimson
If Carney continues to speak out of both sides of his mouth we'll know that his Favos speech was purely performative. Time to poop or get off the pot Mr. Prime Minister!
I came to the same conclusion as Matt after reading Terry Glavin's substack yesterday. Hunting rifles aren't any match for a modern military, but they're orders of magnitude better than elbows, stern and utterly majestic (but devoid of action) speeches, and unicorn initiatives. Give it up, Libs... your attempts to disarm the population are a joke, but go ahead, keep taking the blue pill.
I think Canada's workforce of engineers, technicians, and skilled trades can come up with a lot of measures against an occupying force that would be far more dangerous and impactful than rifles, and a lot harder to control.
The urban progressives,older Canadians are willing to lead the charge to defend an attack,from the back. That way they can lead the retreat. Let’s get real,Canada will fold like an old $2 bill. A very few of us will be left hiding in the forests,mountains. Hoping there is no forest fires,to drive us out.
With all due respect Matt you are using the same failed logic arguments and strategy attempted by Canadian gun owners for the last four decades. As any con man will tell you emotion trumps (😆) logic every time. The shrieking harridans of the Poly se Souvient movement dancing on the corpses of the victims of the Montreal massacre and the con job of the Toronto Coalition for gun control have been confounding logic for 30 years.
Compounding this is the addiction of the Liberal party to the fentanyl of the few Quebec seats they manage to scrape every election. Historically Quebec’s response to WW I and II has been conscription riots and WWII zombie regiments which guaranteed no European combat assignments. The fear of firearms associated with this IMO has been an overwhelming characteristic of the French Quebec population (with a few notable exceptions). Perhaps it has to do with the fact that the only armed people in the dark ages between 1759 and 1960 were the conquering Redcoats whose use of arms while necessary was only with the permission of the officers. Hence being armed is a privilege not a right.
Yes you are right it’s only political theater but that is mostly all the Canadian government has accomplished for decades. And it’s all it has. If the government was serious about confiscation it would send ICE style jack booted bucket headed RCMP storm troopers to the homes of all PAL holders starting with the Restricted and Prohibited class registered owners. But then what would they have as a wedge issue for the next election?
I basically consider Poly akin to a hate group. They have no concern for crime reduction, firearm safety, or mental illness. Their alpha and omega is banning legally-owned guns. They appear to know shockingly little about firearms, how they operate, or what makes them more or less dangerous, despite having decades to educate themselves. They operate on pure emotion, say and do incredibly stupid and disingenuous things, and massively abuse victim status to avoid criticism. They appear to have very little membership or grassroots support but outsize political influence because politicians use them as a proxy and a captive lobby.
Yup. And every December, I just roll my eyes now. Canada has so few mass shootings that we help been commemorating the same one for over thirty years. That should tell you that our previous system pretty much worked.
With respect, I think it’s important to be precise about Quebec’s experience rather than reducing it to emotion or political opportunism. Quebec’s modern attitudes toward firearms are largely a product of the Quiet Revolution, when authority shifted away from the Church and informal power structures toward a professionalized, civilian state. Public safety became something delivered collectively through institutions, not informally through armed individuals. That framework still shapes how many Quebecers view gun ownership — not as a question of fear, but as one of social responsibility and regulation.
Quebec’s opposition to conscription during the world wars also needs careful interpretation. Resistance to conscription was not opposition to service or sacrifice; tens of thousands of French Canadians served, often under difficult conditions in an English-dominated military. The issue was compulsory service imposed by a federal government perceived as distant and unrepresentative. That experience reinforced a long-standing skepticism toward militarization and coercive authority, rather than a rejection of duty or courage. Those lessons continue to inform Quebec’s political instincts today.
Finally, Quebec’s strong support for firearm regulation is closely tied to specific, lived events — particularly the Polytechnique massacre — which became a defining public-safety moment across the province. Advocacy groups like PolySeSouvient emerged not from abstract ideology but from a widely shared conviction that the state has a role in reducing risk where possible. One can disagree with the policy outcomes, but dismissing that perspective as manipulation or hysteria misses why it resonates so deeply in Quebec society. In a federation, federal parties respond to those realities just as they respond to regional priorities elsewhere. Understanding that context leads to a more constructive debate — and avoids turning gun policy into a proxy for cultural grievance rather than a genuine policy disagreement.
I have no issue with your detailed description . I have a major issue with values appropriate to the Quebec culture and history and accepted by its citizens being applied to the rest of the confederation where such values are anathema. Canadian legislation used to periodically have clauses saying “this is the law except in Quebec where…”. And Quebec’s perception of the role of the state in reducing risk may be fine for its population but I submit that that perception is not universally shared in the rest of Canada. With the lack of law enforcement endemic to Canada (except where raising revenues from traffic fines is involved) the risk reduction from gun confiscation overwhelmingly applies to thieves murderers rapists home invaders etc… This may be OK for Quebecers - not, I submit, for the majority of Canadians.
The other issue is how the confiscation was ordained - by order in council rather than open discussion and debate in Parliament. Speaking of cowardice, that is a prime example. But where else but in Canada can a small minority (Quebec) dominated group meet in secret and potentially criminalize under force of arms millions of their supposedly fellow citizens?
There are or at least were more registered firearm owners in Canada than played hockey. The old saying was “If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns”. In Canada, for generations, since the PAL system was implemented in the Trudeau era, if you have a gun, you’re an outlaw.
I agree. They will botch confiscation so that they can continue to campaign on it every four years or so and fundraise off it every December. So predictable.
Canadian insurgence - battalions of community activists banding together to write a strongly worded letter….
Yes, the firearms confiscation- a top contender, in the crowded field, for the dumbest and most wasteful federal government program award of the decade …. A solution looking for a problem
The reason the CAF Officers came up with the idea of a prolonged insurgency is because they were grasping at straws for any kind of silver lining in the conversation. They're not allowed to say, "if the Americans invade we're fucked, boys" so they do concede the obvious (conventional fighting ends almost immediately) and then try to bring it back around with talk of an insurgency.
Canadians don't have the stomach for a prolonged insurgency, no do we have stockpiles of old Soviet shells and mines to make IEDs.
The reason why there will be no actionable policy based on the CAF "prolonged insurgency" plan, is because that CAF plan is based on a meeting where a bunch of officers who know better looked at the numbers, shrugged, and said, "well... There's got to be *something* we can do"
"We now support your non compliance with the government we repeatedly voted for taking away your lawful property so you can more effectively die defending us from an invasion that this same government has us perpetually shitting ourselves about."
I know someone with a collection, including an AR15, who has no intention of turning any of them in in case he needs to shoot an invader in the face. His words.
I can't tell you how many times I sat at a table in the US where one American (usually a vet) told another (some dum nano-ball) that they should not confuse Canadian politeness with meekness. "I've fought with them, they are..." was always the admonition.
The reality is that we are confiscating guns with 5 round clips. These were originally to be offered to the Ukraine but no one would last in combat, insurgent or not, using these weapons. If we are serious we should imbed firearms training, including use of automatic weapons, in our schools. We should also use our existing licensing and vetting program to distribute automatic weapons to the population at large. We should also form civil defence units now. This is the bare minimum we would have to do to establish a capability for insurgency. So just stopping the silly gun buyback program, taking guns that would not meet the requirements of the armed gangs presently operating in the country, won't build an insurgent capability. The guns being bought are not good enough for armed combat. They are assault style weapons not real assault weapons.
Peaceful civil disobedience would be far more effective than armed resistance against any hypothetical U.S. occupation of Canada because modern occupations fail on legitimacy, not firepower. An armed civilian insurgency would play directly to the strengths of the U.S. military, invite overwhelming force, and be easily framed as extremism or terrorism. By contrast, mass non-cooperation — strikes, refusal by civil servants and provincial governments to administer authority, and coordinated legal and symbolic defiance — would make the country ungovernable without giving the occupier moral or political cover.
History shows that non-violent resistance can defeat vastly stronger powers. Gandhi’s movement succeeded against the British Empire without modern communications, global media, or economic interdependence. Today, social media would amplify every act of repression instantly, fracture U.S. domestic support, and trigger international backlash. A democratic occupier cannot sustain visible, ongoing violence against peaceful civilians without severe political consequences at home and abroad.
Seen in this light, civilian gun control is largely irrelevant to the question of national resistance. Effective resistance does not depend on an armed populace but on mass participation, institutional unity, and moral legitimacy. Canada’s deep economic and institutional integration with the United States means coordinated, non-violent disruption of logistics, finance, energy, and governance would impose enormous costs without bloodshed. Conflating firearm policy with national defence misunderstands how power, resistance, and legitimacy actually work in the 21st century.
Indeed. An occupation of a democratic Canada by the USA would look really bad on TikTok. So probably not going to happen, unless a future authoritarian America kill-switches the internet north of Pelee Island.
That said, we should still have Finnish-style population defense as a backstop. The best way to prepare for peace is to prepare for war.
If nothing else, it's a nation-building exercise, like national high-speed rail, modern ports in all three oceans, and a secure communications infrastructure that can't be shut off by potential invaders.
Except "strikes, refusal by civil servants and provincial governments to administer authority, and coordinated legal and symbolic defiance — would make the country ungovernable" is our current state. The death of the post-nation state is premeditated suicide.
I think you could easily expect something like the 2022 trucker protest, except with broad public support and far smarter people running the show and setting the strategy. And before people start sneering about "What? You think the *Liberals* are going to be good strategists?", I'll point out that there's real talent and capability to be found throughout Canadian society, running successful companies and industries.
The gun buyback was a stupid idea the day it was introduced. "Military looking" as a justification was stupid. Capability is all that should have ever mattered. I hear that it has been left in place even though the government knows it's stupid to appease Quebec. It's long past time to stop appeasing Quebec. Otherwise, ironically, kill the buyback idea.
This may seem to be an embarrassing question but what, I wonder, would such a guerilla campaign be fighting for? Something to do maybe with the right to be a hyphenated whatever? I'm not sure where 'free' dental care brings out the nationalists in the millions of international 'students'. Are we 'protecting' the Indian extortion gangs running rampant, ensuring China continues to have the means to launder the proceeds from its transnational criminal activity? Are we defending the right for Walmart to do business with Canadian money? What's the motivation: to not be Americans in all but name and yet risk life and limb to maintain the hypocrisy?
"Higher income, lower cost of living, and I can pay to see a doctor whenever I want? Not on my watch!"
If I were a Russian or American special digital operations group running the social media campaign to break up Canada and make it easy pickings, this is exactly the line of argument I’d pick. That Alberta or whatever would be better off as part of the United States.
I don’t think you’re a Russian bot, but you should consider whose interests you’re serving by posting these sentiments on every single thread on The Line. Do you want Canada to fix itself or just roll over and die?
I notice you didn't refute ANYTHING said by KRM, however - every word of which is measurably true.
Typical Canadian reaction: hears the truth, shouts it down for rudeness.
Sounds like he's looking down one tiny hole marked "Hate Trudeau" and is missing a much bigger picture. His notion that "you can see a doctor whenever you want" ignores one tiny detail....income. It ignores that people in the US go bankrupt trying to pay medical bills. How much of their lower cost of living is because it's a much bigger population of people contributing to the costs of basic infrastructure? "Higher income is unsupported nonsense. Look at their minimum wage.
it's likely some version of cia human runny-shit is working on the same. i think therefore you are awesome for calling this out, lol
Maybe the Canadian government should have thought about that before they spent 10 years "welcoming the world" and denying that English speaking Canada has a culture other than "not America somehow".
I read this as you saying “I have been so radicalized by Justin Trudeau’s government that I now don’t see Canada as worth defending and will seek to encourage the end of the country”.
Or more charitably, “Justin Trudeau so broke Canada that there is no saving it, and we should do what we can to hasten the breakup of the country and the absorption of the pieces into the USA”
Is that a fair assessment of your view? If not, what is your view on whether we should try to fix things?
Well we tried to fix things by throwing out his government last April but ended up with a sad but boomer-appealing rebrand instead. I'm all out of ideas. And no I don't actively want the US to take over but I put the chances of that at zero.
We’re going to have to agree to disagree on whether Mark Carney‘s government is just a boomer-appealing rebrand of Justin Trudeau‘s.
To me, it’s a reset of the Liberal Party of Canada back to something more like the 1990s, which is where I want them.
They’re not going to become Conservatives (either PC or Reform wings), but I think we are firmly out of the world of 2012-2022 craziness.
No, you lost because you picked and kept a complete asshole as a leader. You picked an idiot with Andrew, turned on Erin, and refuse to take responsibility for the mistakes the CPC made.....and continues to make at PP's direction. It's your party that is shooting itself in the foot. How ironic.
Not at all. Trudeau Jr was simply the latest but it predates this by five decades. Every government has helped undermine and alter nationalism into this post-national, anti-Semitic, identity based tribalism in all its illiberal forms. And the way back is hard but doable if and only if the federal government takes the lead and implements and imposes a return to liberal values. That's the only path out because only these values unify a diverse population that has competing local interests. A common bond. How this is done can take many forms, but I suspect the population is so enamoured with group-based concerns that it cannot pivot now. And so the country will continue to devolve under the excuses of tolerance and diversity and personal truths. No amount of military spending and transfers to First nations and increasing immigration within the broken system where students are taught to despise our heritage will help self correct national dissolution. Whodathunk. Just look at the polling data of young people and the justified anger they have at how squandered has been - and continues to be - our inheritance from that heritage. It's gone. That's what has to change if we want a country worthy of being defended. This ain't it, I think, and so I asked that question which, as you see, is basically impossible to answer because it HAS no answer in this day and age. That's how broken Canada is.
yikes.
smells like white is right lol
Yah if I don't want unlimited immigration it means I'm just racist. Got it.
It was your isolation of "English speaking" that gave me pause... it's just a language. It's not values.
To fix itself, Canada needs to face some very hard truths. This means correctly identifying problems if one wishes to support meaningful solutions. Canada's fundamental problem is its devolution from being a liberal constitutional democracy into... whatever this mishmash of special interests and identities is. It doesn't work. There are no unifying principles in play (other than 'Not American, and that is insufficient). Just ask people as I have from coast to coast to coast. We need to return to first principles, supporting what peace, order, and good governance means in a liberal democracy. We need to recognize our suzerain statehood to the US and operate it in alignment with US policy in order to be a valuable and integrated trustworthy ally. This requires waking up and grasping that a hyphenated population that shares no unifying values will not survive as a unified country and cannot thrive because of legislated special interests. We need to uphold liberal values in every institution and stop dismantling them in the name of something else. That is the path to destruction and we are on it full bore. Until we alter this trajectory and get back on the path that led Canada into statehood even with a disparate population, there is nothing 'there' to defend.
That would all make sense if the US were a reliable and trustworthy ally. It clearly no longer is. It's equally clear the PM understands this, as does Europe.
die early, and broke. trade a tax return that costs $500 for a pro for one that costs $3500. become less literate, less safe, pledge 1/3 of our tax dollars for WMD, another 1/4 for interest; sign up for the worst set of financials, and debt service, tenuously supported by a shakier dollar, ICE morons pepper spraying your granny, and less upward mobility than almost any western country...
lol
Nice cherry picking. The outcomes for the poor are way worse in the US, which mess up the rest of the stats. I'm way past the income where I'd be better off as an American. I know Americans who earn half what I do who live better. Who think Canadians are crazy for putting up with what we put up with.
ok, agree to disagree, lol.
Worked there for 25 years and retired with a seven figure income.
Very glad to be home.
Place is a shit show, especially financially.
You didn't answer the question. And it's an honest one. But I do note how many young and capable Canadians are leaving the country especially for the States. So I suspect your list just might be missing some key factors in the actual cost/benefit analysis you seem amused by.
suspect all you want.
I know lots about the US having worked there for 25 years and, despite being paid seven figures, my experience there confirmed I would never retire there willingly. The one and only benefit was lower taxes, in some jurisdictions. (If you include property tax and health insurance, it's not even close in many jurisdictions... it's lower in Canada).
Health care is a fucked up nightmare of over-testing (so you can bill the insurance co) and litigation. Jurisdiction issues x 50 are insane. Things don't work, generally... anywhere. Waits for service make us look efficient. Customer service is mostly hostile, except at 5 star. People park their cars in Washington, DC, for example, and rent a car/take an Uber because they'll lose the spot!
Drive through any major city and you see neighbourhoods that remind you of 2nd world war carpet bombing; actually quite stunning. The Anacortes neighbourhood or East St. Louis are places every Canadian should see. Their news channels are just bizarre... nothing happens anywhere else in the world. It goes on and on.
Hollywood and the amerikkan marketing machine put quite a sheen on it but it's a thin veil, lol.
There are good things. Great entertainment, creativity, some awesome people... but it's not a better country by any measure I can find.
Again, you seem dedicated to say what to fight against but nothing about what to fight for (that's my question). You need both to compare and contrast like with like to be have a position based on the preponderance of evidence (Bayesian reasoning) in reality rather than a narrative based on belief (motivated reasoning).
Tildeb,
I don't NEED to do anything, lol.
I'll shoot invaders to remain Canadian... good enough by far.
I've seen different data; brain trust exodus from the US, lots of young people inquiring about Canada. I know the Captain of a former US national team just moved here and applied successfully... he's 35.
Peace, order, and good government. Common law. A constitutional system with a representative parliament, anchored by the Crown instead of a dysfunctional republic based on a Roman model that led to tyranny. That's before we get into the contrasts with a Trump/MAGA kakistocracy run by incompetent authoritarians and laced with corruption.
Thanks, GS. That is the difference in theory. But in practice, what are the trends for the three central values? Are they being supported or undermined? When asked to fight for 'country', are we protecting what should be or what is? Any reasonable person would understand by overwhelming evidence that the political evolution of Canada has moved these values far into the background and that modern federal government is much more similar to an authoritarian state with a Dear Leader deciding what is best for everyone by fiat (see the vote about recognizing a Palestinian state as a recent example of simply overriding Parliament) than a representative parliament, one filled now with floor crossing Yes Men and Women of different political everchanging colours simply following orders. And it's been this way through every iteration of political power. The level of kakistocracy, therefore, I think is a difference without a distinction.
Once upon a time in the not so distant past, I think you could get similar answers from Canadians coast to coast to coast about about what these values meant as a cohesive, unifying force locally expressed. I think those days are long gone. In other words, if asked to fight on behalf of 'country', I think most people would be very hard pressed to describe and/or define what it was they were defending. It sure isn't 'good' government and 'order' is kept only by the civilian population not rising up and not fighting back against the erosion of their shared rights and freedoms by federal legislation, court mandated impositions, and economic transfers that awards privilege over and over again based on immutable characteristics, the polar opposite of equality rights. Peace, in this sense, means going along to get along and keeping one's mouth shut. No one in my long-serving military family believes the principles of these core values exist in practice anywhere in Canada. Quite the opposite. And they're not taking up arms to defend a self-righteous broken and irresponsible people who care nothing about Canada as an independent liberal democratic country.
2nd world theocracy?
junta?
posts keep moving, lol
I would love to have a good government in Canada. The interim PBO officer should be given the job full-time. He was willing to criticize the federal government's budget deficits last summer.
In all seriousness, get out of here with this fifth column BS. The door is that way if you want to move to the United States, nobody’s stopping you assuming you have some marketable skills.
It would be one thing to point out these problems and say we need to fix them, it’s another to say that Justin Trudeau so broke the country that it can’t be fixed.
We now have both major political parties wanting to fix these problems (unlike two years ago), so I think they will be fixed. We can move faster, sure, but it’s not hopeless. The country is a very different place from two years ago in terms of will to get this done.
We need to pull together and not just be defeatist and welcome our conquerors.
I notice you didn't answer my question. I strongly suspect that hyperbole and better 'communicating' won't be up to the task, either, so name calling probably will be your only useful option. And that's fine; you can denigrate those who raise such a question as 'unpatriotic' but my family has served Canada in uniform in all conflicts since Confederation. This is the first one that has produced none and for very good reasons that you simply wave away as if 'almost' being solved. I do not share your confidence because there's no compelling evidence that I should. Yet in your mind you seem to feel confident that raising such a question means 'fifth column bullshit'. It's my experience that when real world problems are articulated but rejected because they don't fit some narrative or ideology, the bullshit lies with the rejection. I also think the argument is strong that allowing for the bullshit to replace reality and what's independently true is what has gotten us into this mess and more of it sure as hell won't get us out of it. You know, 'patriotic' vibes aside.
The principle of public health care for all, that we all get treatment regardless of personal wealth
The national effort and national myth of hacking civilization out of an unforgiving northern wilderness
Incredible technological leadership from a country that punched above its weight on things like candu nuclear or oil-sands extraction technology
What I call the Canadian multicultural miracle, the fact that cities like Toronto are a United Nations of immigrants and people get along, and immigrants are successfully integrated. the patchwork quilt they used to call it when I was a kid in school.
Our private refugee sponsorship program, often done through churches or other faith organizations, that is a leading model for the world
Do I need to go on? I could do five more of these. There is so much worth defending about this country that is more than just “not American”.
It’s an constant mental pain for me that a faction of the right-wing has been so radicalized in the last 10 years that you don’t see any of this anymore, that you think there’s nothing left worth defending in the country.
Other than stating these as if relevant today compared to 40 years ago demonstrates just how out of touch you are with the reality our youth face. Today. Right now. That's not a 'right wing' position; it's reality. Recognizing the loss of these aspects you are justifiably proud of is not a 'radical' position but one that reflects reality. So, dealing with reality rather than a comfortable feel-good narrative based on fond memories requires leaving behind the assumption that they are still true today when they are not. Test this yourself. What you presume to defend has already been lost by domestic policy and altered priorities and not Trump or the Americans or any other conspiratorial notion used to pretend otherwise. Canadians have lost all of these already. That's a problem that needs recognition which, sadly, seems to have to fight tooth and nail to get through to those who believe or feel differently. This is why it's important to have free speech federally protected so that those only too willing to give it up in the name of safety and respect can continue to correctly point out their loss and why it matters to a country in such steep decline. Naming the problem has to be based on reality and not some Just So story. Hearing it articulated is not a disloyalty to the country but the only potential way to start to save it.
How about wealth distribution? How about the only thing that matters in the economy being the shareholder? How about the ability of the rich to buy the power that voters give to the government? Nowhere is that worse than in the US, where state governments controlling elections mixed with the idiocy of the Electoral College, adding to the gutting of the Voting Rights ACt means that the US is no longer a functioning democracy. That is something Canadian worth fighting for.
You save it by reinstating the 1950s tax code, where the rich get deductions for projects that benefit society. Otherwise, they pay. You ban stock buybacks. You shut down, through isolation, the offshore tax havens. But first, you need the governments of the rest of the world on board to take back the power elections grant them, to act in unison, so that individuals, like busniess don't have the option of saying "give us what we want or we'll move". There's more than enough money to go around. It's just in the wrong hands.
some people seem to NEED JT as their scarecrow, long past when it seems silly... they miss him?
Canada has been unserious about the answer to this question for so long. That's what makes asking it so embarrassing.
I suppose it depends on what the offer on the table is going to be for us?
Are we one big state? If Alberta thought their voice was being ignored before, imagine when American party politics comes into play and the “state” government is gerrymandering the hell out of you to maximize the Democrat vote.
Are we 7-10 states and a couple territories? I can’t see any Republican thinking this is a good idea as it would swing the senate to Democrats immediately. If you’re hoping for this, I wouldn’t hold your breath.
Are we an American territory similar to Puerto Rico? This is probably the most likely end result if it comes about via an armed takeover. We might not even have freedom of movement in this scenario depending on how much of a resistance there is.
Keep in mind that in pretty much all these scenarios there would be massive cuts to government employment. Any American company operating a Canadian head office will downsize immediately. European companies and potentially others would likely start divesting from the US, which would include us. Unemployment would jump substantially.
yes. I will shoot not to be a vassal state of the US. Worked there for 25 years. It is not a better place, by far. They're just good at telling themselves and everyone else they're awesome. Best in the world at marketing.
So, another hyphenated, dual-citizen who treats the post-nation state as a hotel?
What Tideb said.
The Americans cannot invade Canada. There would be an elbow behind every blade of grass.
Things that would have been unthinkable a few years ago are now plausible. Some are even likely.
I'd like to believe Canadians would defend our country with more than elbow slogans, but enough Canadians have been captured by fringe ideologies (or, even if they support our country's continued existence, really believe posting a thumbs-up emoji counts as action) that civilian defence or even a counter-insurgency isn't a sure thing unless we can foster it actively.
The apparent contradiction between confiscating guns from lawful owners, and planning an anti-American-occupation insurgency can be resolved pretty easily. It's all stage-managed bullshit by clever assholes trolling for votes on both ends of the equation, who do not believe a word of any of their own rhetoric.
As a recent Post article pointed out, Canada isn't behaving like a country would if it believed there was any threat of invasion whatsoever. We aren't procuring equipment, we aren't building mine fields and tank traps, we aren't readying to hand out weapons, we aren't conscripting soldiers. We are still doing wasteful shit like DEI hiring in the military. OK the military conspicuously made a show of "thinking about" an American invasion, but militaries famously have vague contingencies in place in case of an extraterrestrial space invasion. Even the timing of this announcement was suspicious.
Indeed, the timing of *everything* was suspicious in the past couple of weeks. Trump makes crazy noises about Greenland which make no sense on any level from any perspective which reaches a crescendo just in time for maximum exposure at the WEF conference in Davos. There, Trump plays pro wrestling heel to the heroic face, Mark Carney, backed up by his chorus of European technocrats, before the whole matter gets more or less immediately dropped in favour of negotiations for a deal that was on the table from the very beginning. It's starting to be pretty clear we are being messed with. Sometimes the leaders including Trump collude with each other, sometimes they just roll with it and riff, but it's all purposeful distraction to stop us from discussing how badly all of these governments have ruined our daily lives with their terrible decisions.
So no, nobody with any power in Canada believes for a second that we will ever be invaded by the US, because there is a zero percent chance of that happening. But they stand to gain by making us think this is a possibility.
On the firearms confiscation plan, it's clear that nobody involved thinks it will work or that significant guns will be collected. They basically told every gun owner to go fuck themselves last weekend so what little intended compliance was in the offering has likely evaporated. I expect the guns will mostly still be there to fight the imaginary insurgency, albeit now in the hands of the least likely people to want to protect this nation and its status quo thanks to the amount of abuse they have endured.
So no contradiction in a government that is both sucking and blowing at the same time. There are votes on both ends thanks to the ample vein of simpletons who still believe a word coming out of the mouths of any of these habitual Liberal liars or their alarmist mouthpieces.
@ KRM wrote "OK the military conspicuously made a show of "thinking about" an American invasion, but militaries famously have vague contingencies in place in case of an extraterrestrial space invasion. Even the timing of this announcement was suspicious."
The comment above brought back some memories for me which I dug into. "War Plan Red" was created by the US Department of War in 1927 and hypothesized a war with the British Empire which in retrospect seems ridiculous. The plan for the invasion of Canada was called War Plan: Crimson. All nicely detailed in Wikipedia. Interestingly, a board game (war game) was issued in 2001 called War Plan: Crimson pitting the Canadian forces of the 1930's against the US forces. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/11277/war-plan-crimson
If Carney continues to speak out of both sides of his mouth we'll know that his Favos speech was purely performative. Time to poop or get off the pot Mr. Prime Minister!
I came to the same conclusion as Matt after reading Terry Glavin's substack yesterday. Hunting rifles aren't any match for a modern military, but they're orders of magnitude better than elbows, stern and utterly majestic (but devoid of action) speeches, and unicorn initiatives. Give it up, Libs... your attempts to disarm the population are a joke, but go ahead, keep taking the blue pill.
I think Canada's workforce of engineers, technicians, and skilled trades can come up with a lot of measures against an occupying force that would be far more dangerous and impactful than rifles, and a lot harder to control.
The urban progressives,older Canadians are willing to lead the charge to defend an attack,from the back. That way they can lead the retreat. Let’s get real,Canada will fold like an old $2 bill. A very few of us will be left hiding in the forests,mountains. Hoping there is no forest fires,to drive us out.
polling seems to show diff, lol.
I'm very surprised by the number of friends who say they'll shoot, aged 34 - 48.
Of course we'd lose conventionally, and that's why its, 1) surrender; 2) distribute weapons 3) create mass casualties with an insurgency. Obvious.
Americans are very soft. Even if sad baby could find some storm troopers dumb enough (send ICE?), Americans flip over American body bags.
With all due respect Matt you are using the same failed logic arguments and strategy attempted by Canadian gun owners for the last four decades. As any con man will tell you emotion trumps (😆) logic every time. The shrieking harridans of the Poly se Souvient movement dancing on the corpses of the victims of the Montreal massacre and the con job of the Toronto Coalition for gun control have been confounding logic for 30 years.
Compounding this is the addiction of the Liberal party to the fentanyl of the few Quebec seats they manage to scrape every election. Historically Quebec’s response to WW I and II has been conscription riots and WWII zombie regiments which guaranteed no European combat assignments. The fear of firearms associated with this IMO has been an overwhelming characteristic of the French Quebec population (with a few notable exceptions). Perhaps it has to do with the fact that the only armed people in the dark ages between 1759 and 1960 were the conquering Redcoats whose use of arms while necessary was only with the permission of the officers. Hence being armed is a privilege not a right.
Yes you are right it’s only political theater but that is mostly all the Canadian government has accomplished for decades. And it’s all it has. If the government was serious about confiscation it would send ICE style jack booted bucket headed RCMP storm troopers to the homes of all PAL holders starting with the Restricted and Prohibited class registered owners. But then what would they have as a wedge issue for the next election?
I basically consider Poly akin to a hate group. They have no concern for crime reduction, firearm safety, or mental illness. Their alpha and omega is banning legally-owned guns. They appear to know shockingly little about firearms, how they operate, or what makes them more or less dangerous, despite having decades to educate themselves. They operate on pure emotion, say and do incredibly stupid and disingenuous things, and massively abuse victim status to avoid criticism. They appear to have very little membership or grassroots support but outsize political influence because politicians use them as a proxy and a captive lobby.
Yup. And every December, I just roll my eyes now. Canada has so few mass shootings that we help been commemorating the same one for over thirty years. That should tell you that our previous system pretty much worked.
With respect, I think it’s important to be precise about Quebec’s experience rather than reducing it to emotion or political opportunism. Quebec’s modern attitudes toward firearms are largely a product of the Quiet Revolution, when authority shifted away from the Church and informal power structures toward a professionalized, civilian state. Public safety became something delivered collectively through institutions, not informally through armed individuals. That framework still shapes how many Quebecers view gun ownership — not as a question of fear, but as one of social responsibility and regulation.
Quebec’s opposition to conscription during the world wars also needs careful interpretation. Resistance to conscription was not opposition to service or sacrifice; tens of thousands of French Canadians served, often under difficult conditions in an English-dominated military. The issue was compulsory service imposed by a federal government perceived as distant and unrepresentative. That experience reinforced a long-standing skepticism toward militarization and coercive authority, rather than a rejection of duty or courage. Those lessons continue to inform Quebec’s political instincts today.
Finally, Quebec’s strong support for firearm regulation is closely tied to specific, lived events — particularly the Polytechnique massacre — which became a defining public-safety moment across the province. Advocacy groups like PolySeSouvient emerged not from abstract ideology but from a widely shared conviction that the state has a role in reducing risk where possible. One can disagree with the policy outcomes, but dismissing that perspective as manipulation or hysteria misses why it resonates so deeply in Quebec society. In a federation, federal parties respond to those realities just as they respond to regional priorities elsewhere. Understanding that context leads to a more constructive debate — and avoids turning gun policy into a proxy for cultural grievance rather than a genuine policy disagreement.
I have no issue with your detailed description . I have a major issue with values appropriate to the Quebec culture and history and accepted by its citizens being applied to the rest of the confederation where such values are anathema. Canadian legislation used to periodically have clauses saying “this is the law except in Quebec where…”. And Quebec’s perception of the role of the state in reducing risk may be fine for its population but I submit that that perception is not universally shared in the rest of Canada. With the lack of law enforcement endemic to Canada (except where raising revenues from traffic fines is involved) the risk reduction from gun confiscation overwhelmingly applies to thieves murderers rapists home invaders etc… This may be OK for Quebecers - not, I submit, for the majority of Canadians.
The other issue is how the confiscation was ordained - by order in council rather than open discussion and debate in Parliament. Speaking of cowardice, that is a prime example. But where else but in Canada can a small minority (Quebec) dominated group meet in secret and potentially criminalize under force of arms millions of their supposedly fellow citizens?
There are or at least were more registered firearm owners in Canada than played hockey. The old saying was “If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns”. In Canada, for generations, since the PAL system was implemented in the Trudeau era, if you have a gun, you’re an outlaw.
I agree. They will botch confiscation so that they can continue to campaign on it every four years or so and fundraise off it every December. So predictable.
Canadian insurgence - battalions of community activists banding together to write a strongly worded letter….
Yes, the firearms confiscation- a top contender, in the crowded field, for the dumbest and most wasteful federal government program award of the decade …. A solution looking for a problem
"strongly worded letter" my laugh of the day.
Thanks
As long as the letter says please, should be good to go...
The reason the CAF Officers came up with the idea of a prolonged insurgency is because they were grasping at straws for any kind of silver lining in the conversation. They're not allowed to say, "if the Americans invade we're fucked, boys" so they do concede the obvious (conventional fighting ends almost immediately) and then try to bring it back around with talk of an insurgency.
Canadians don't have the stomach for a prolonged insurgency, no do we have stockpiles of old Soviet shells and mines to make IEDs.
The reason why there will be no actionable policy based on the CAF "prolonged insurgency" plan, is because that CAF plan is based on a meeting where a bunch of officers who know better looked at the numbers, shrugged, and said, "well... There's got to be *something* we can do"
The Line is nailing it with clarity.
I'm not seeing so much amerikkan defensiveness in any other place.
Keep it up!
The 5th column is workin hard.
"We now support your non compliance with the government we repeatedly voted for taking away your lawful property so you can more effectively die defending us from an invasion that this same government has us perpetually shitting ourselves about."
Can you 'fine people' fucking hear yourselves?
(Edited for niceness)
Someone tell Laura Babcock.
No shit.
I know someone with a collection, including an AR15, who has no intention of turning any of them in in case he needs to shoot an invader in the face. His words.
I can't tell you how many times I sat at a table in the US where one American (usually a vet) told another (some dum nano-ball) that they should not confuse Canadian politeness with meekness. "I've fought with them, they are..." was always the admonition.
The reality is that we are confiscating guns with 5 round clips. These were originally to be offered to the Ukraine but no one would last in combat, insurgent or not, using these weapons. If we are serious we should imbed firearms training, including use of automatic weapons, in our schools. We should also use our existing licensing and vetting program to distribute automatic weapons to the population at large. We should also form civil defence units now. This is the bare minimum we would have to do to establish a capability for insurgency. So just stopping the silly gun buyback program, taking guns that would not meet the requirements of the armed gangs presently operating in the country, won't build an insurgent capability. The guns being bought are not good enough for armed combat. They are assault style weapons not real assault weapons.
We used to do firearms training in local high schools... for decades prior to Trudeau Senior.
I had it at my private school in Winnipeg (scholarship kid). There's a range under the arena.
Peaceful civil disobedience would be far more effective than armed resistance against any hypothetical U.S. occupation of Canada because modern occupations fail on legitimacy, not firepower. An armed civilian insurgency would play directly to the strengths of the U.S. military, invite overwhelming force, and be easily framed as extremism or terrorism. By contrast, mass non-cooperation — strikes, refusal by civil servants and provincial governments to administer authority, and coordinated legal and symbolic defiance — would make the country ungovernable without giving the occupier moral or political cover.
History shows that non-violent resistance can defeat vastly stronger powers. Gandhi’s movement succeeded against the British Empire without modern communications, global media, or economic interdependence. Today, social media would amplify every act of repression instantly, fracture U.S. domestic support, and trigger international backlash. A democratic occupier cannot sustain visible, ongoing violence against peaceful civilians without severe political consequences at home and abroad.
Seen in this light, civilian gun control is largely irrelevant to the question of national resistance. Effective resistance does not depend on an armed populace but on mass participation, institutional unity, and moral legitimacy. Canada’s deep economic and institutional integration with the United States means coordinated, non-violent disruption of logistics, finance, energy, and governance would impose enormous costs without bloodshed. Conflating firearm policy with national defence misunderstands how power, resistance, and legitimacy actually work in the 21st century.
Indeed. An occupation of a democratic Canada by the USA would look really bad on TikTok. So probably not going to happen, unless a future authoritarian America kill-switches the internet north of Pelee Island.
That said, we should still have Finnish-style population defense as a backstop. The best way to prepare for peace is to prepare for war.
If nothing else, it's a nation-building exercise, like national high-speed rail, modern ports in all three oceans, and a secure communications infrastructure that can't be shut off by potential invaders.
correct.
Peaceful civil disobedience gets your bank account frozen and earns you a stay without parole in this country...
Except "strikes, refusal by civil servants and provincial governments to administer authority, and coordinated legal and symbolic defiance — would make the country ungovernable" is our current state. The death of the post-nation state is premeditated suicide.
Uhh…Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq beg to disagree.
I think you could easily expect something like the 2022 trucker protest, except with broad public support and far smarter people running the show and setting the strategy. And before people start sneering about "What? You think the *Liberals* are going to be good strategists?", I'll point out that there's real talent and capability to be found throughout Canadian society, running successful companies and industries.
huh?
How many insurgencies has the US military successfully managed, lol?
The gun buyback was a stupid idea the day it was introduced. "Military looking" as a justification was stupid. Capability is all that should have ever mattered. I hear that it has been left in place even though the government knows it's stupid to appease Quebec. It's long past time to stop appeasing Quebec. Otherwise, ironically, kill the buyback idea.