The second week of February news was mainly about the Olympics, a slow reduction in the COVID virus, Russian troops surrounding the borders of the Ukraine and the so-called Freedom Convoy slowing down trade between Canada and the United States.
Although Canada did very well on the world Olympic podium, there is another medal which Canada could have won if Russia had declared a positive COVID test on one of their athletes before that athlete won her medal.
Within another couple weeks, our . . .
weather will warm up enough that most of our snow will disappear and due to Canada’s high degree of vaccination, cases of COVID will also reduce enough to allow our governments to lift most preventative restrictions.
While the Freedom Convoy is snarling and shutting down millions of dollars of inter-provincial trade between Canada and the USA, Russia is surrounding the Ukraine with troops and military hardware, leaving the world sitting on the edge of their chairs worrying about if the next war will cause thousands of young men to lose their lives and millions of dollars to be blown away.
As we watch the Freedom Convoy cause disturbances in many of Canada’s cities and block our borders, we wonder what’s really at stake here. You’ll notice that although our small businesses are shut down even more than they were because of COVID restrictions, the big box stores are not affected.
You may also notice that Canada’s sea ports are not touched by the convoy. That’s where all that offshore stuff comes in, like foreign oil, cheap merchandise from China, cheap car and truck parts, cheap clothing, Russian vodka, imported beer, etc.
Canada is self-sufficient in most foods. All dairy products except some cheap US cheese that comes on prepared pizza. Canada is a net exporter of beef, pork and grains.
We may have to eat apples instead of US oranges or other fruits. We may have to eat Canadian French’s ketchup instead of US made Heinz. Most of our beer is domestic or European which comes by ship.
The North American auto and truck industry is taking the biggest hit in losses of millions of dollars for every day that our land borders are closed.
China is now holding the majority of shares in GM and Tesla. With the majority of vehicles in any shopping centre parking lot being made offshore, we wonder if border disruptions between the US and Canada will encourage even more plant shut downs.
We also notice that there were no trucker or anti-vax protests in communist countries. With all this to get our mind around, we wonder again is this more than just an anti-mask, anti-vax, protest or is there a foreign power getting us agitated against democracy? Let’s think long and thoroughly about what or who is really behind this protest.
Winston Churchill once said “Democracy is the worst form of government, except all those others that have been tried.”
