Diagnosing the Canadian disease

www.americanthinker.com

Tristin Hopper, a conservative journalist with Canada's right-of-center National Post newspaper, recently published Don't Be Canada: How One Country Did Everything Wrong All At Once (Sutherland House, Toronto, 2025). Sacred cows are skewered in this scathing indictment of where Canada has been heading over the last decade or longer. Sadly, there is no sign that this woke lunacy will end anytime soon.

Much is crammed into this small book's 97 pages (excluding notes) plus a five-page introduction. There are eight chapters -- each devoted to a specific malady -- plus a conclusion.

Warranted criticism is levelled at assisted suicide, euphemistically labelled medical assistance in dying (MAiD), which has become a slippery slope; identity politics and the “diversity is our strength” fallacy, which has done much to disunite Canadians; and the exploding cost of real estate, in part attributed to the Liberal government's open borders policy which significantly increased the population and, in so doing, placed demand well in excess of supply, thus closing the door on home ownership for many post-boomers. And then there are the "safe injection sites" that not only enable continued drug abuse, but probably contribute to its spread, given that recipients often exchange their "safe supply" on the black market for heroin and fentanyl. Dealers then sell the "safe supply" to others and get them addicted. Additionally, Hopper targets the sex-change operations (aka "gender transitioning") even for minors; the censorship rage; and the soft-on-crime catch-and-release bail policies (supplemented by an unhealthy dose of "incarceration equity") that has only spiked the crime rate.

There is a fine art of drawing the line and Hopper does just that. He is probably much too kind, given that he could have devoted numerous additional pages to other problems. In British Columbia, a judge recently wreaked havoc with private property rights when she ruled that undocumented First Nations land claims trumped the rights of those with documented title to homes and businesses.

There is also the spike in Jew and Christian hatred in recent years, with synagogues and Jewish schools being vandalized and north of one hundred churches torched. It is said that "first they come for the Saturday people, then they come for the Sunday people." Alas, in Canada, it seems they are coming for both simultaneously. Governments appear unwilling to bring perpetrators to justice and seemingly take the "nothing to see here” attitude.

Additionally, Canada's Chinese penetration of governments and institutions has reached crisis proportions, with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) controlled United Front Work Departments, Chinese police stations, fentanyl exports into Canada, and the persecution of and threats against Canada's Chinese diaspora, who erroneously believed they were leaving the horrors of communism behind them.

The seeming indifference of governments, both provincial and federal, is alarming to say the least, and is actually compounded by Prime Minister Mark Carney's recent trade deal with the PRC. Sam Cooper, Dennis Molinaro, Charles Burton, Scott McGregor, and Jonathan Manthorpe have all written books detailing the Chinese threat, all to apparently no avail. You won't see any of these gentlemen receiving invitations to the Canadian elite's cocktail parties.

Nevertheless, Tristan Hopper is to be commended for succinctly delineating much of what ails Canada. The solution is to rid ourselves of MAiD, or at least place the onus on the patient -- not the health professionals -- to suggest it, replace the diversity, inclusion, and equity (DIE) scam with the merit principle, get rid of the safe injection sites, and end the soft on crime catch and release approach to justice which drives up the crime rate, given that the criminals are back out on the street where they can do the most harm. We must also return to a time when immigration was lower and tied to labor market demands. Finally, freedom of speech, the press, religion, and assembly must be respected. End the censorship.

Image: Sutherland House