File Photo (Image Credit: CFJC Today / Kent Simmonds)

By Jeffrey Peterson

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THERE’S A KNOCK AT THE DOOR. The time has come.

The family apprehensively seated around the dining table has been waiting for this very moment, certain that today is the day that the Nazis have finally found out that they’re a part of the Dutch resistance. Having already decided to face their fates together, they answer it fully expecting death.

Yet, there is a moment of shock when they see who’s standing just outside their doorway, for it isn’t Hitler’s S.S., Gestapo or any other uniformed Nazi, but instead Canadian soldiers who have just ousted the Wehrmacht from Alkmaar — my family’s hometown. Apparently, they need directions to the next town.

The Netherlands — or at least, that part of it anyways — has been liberated from the grips of fascism, and the brave family are my ancestors.

They never forgot the courage of those soldiers who freed them, nor the small nation who had sent them. A small nation, which I might add, that had done a great deal for the cause justice, peace and pursuit of a better world — namely, one free from authoritarianism. They had volunteered in droves to fight a war that was, in many respects, not theirs to fight.

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And yet, that is the very essence of Canada, is it not? To fight on behalf of others – to face down injustice wherever we see it, regardless of the danger to ourselves.

It was that spirit which inspired my family to settle in Canada after the war, and it is one that still reverberates in us – as it does every Canadian.

Now, to be perfectly clear, I am a regular nobody like everybody else. I am not rich or prominent. There is no captain of industry writing these words to you. Yet, despite the many things that I am not, the one thing that I certainly am – and which is a great source of pride for me – is Canadian.

And like the rest of my fellow Canadians, I am unsettled by the recent jibes, jokes and outright threats coming from our southern neighbors, who, until very recently, shared many of the values that make a Canadian, a Canadian. Make no mistake, it is not us who has changed, but them.

In the face of such a rising darkness, Canada is once again forced to take a stand, not only for our own sake, but also for the free world. Europe has come to the same conclusion, for they see the writing on the wall just the same as we do. The president’s humiliating treatment of Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in a recent Oval Office interview is proof that our American kin have no interest in such causes anymore. Ironic, considering the circumstances of their nation’s founding.

No, the United States can no longer be fully trusted as an ally, nor – as we are currently learning in Canada, can they even be relied upon as a trading partner. A brutal yet unavoidable reality that demands confronting.

Indeed, President Trump and the rest of his MAGA sycophants have aligned themselves firmly with the autocracies of the world. Whether or not this is because they intend the United States to become one as well remains to be seen. Worryingly, those of my family that remember Hitler’s Germany smell the same fetid stink of fascism wafting up from the south, but only time will tell.

All of this had led to one surprising outcome: Canada is now united in a way I had never dreamed possible. Provinces are shattering many of the trade barriers between them, Canadians are declaring their national pride on a level not seen since the Second World War, we’re supporting our own businesses — and we’re even resurrecting old Molson beer commercials.

It’s a great time to be Canadian!

And yet there are many challenges ahead of us, as well. For instance, the numerous fault lines woven across our country still haunt us.

Whether East or West, rural or urban, Conservative or Liberal, Anglo or Francophone, Indigenous or non-Indigenous, a recent arrival only been here a few years or a family who’s been here a few generations, we must all stand together or risk being left by the wayside. Or worse.

This means: national energy projects which makes Canada a competitive supplier on the global stage, continuing to support our own businesses and industries where we can – even if the tumultuous winds blow over, fostering better relations between provinces and not giving into old feuds, finding new alliances and trade pacts abroad — the EU is a good start — increasing our own military and not relying on the Americans for defense, and many other things which will strengthen our country. Most importantly, however, it means not caving to tyrants or cowering before bullies – American or otherwise!

After all, my family did not move to Canada to trade one boot on their neck for another! Did yours? I don’t believe they did.

But we will do these things and much more, for we are Canadians, and that is who we are! A small country capable of great things; one which has always “punched above its weight” when it needed to.

We can never match the sheer size of America’s economy, nor – should the absolute worst-case scenario occur – can we ever hope to match its military might, but there is one thing in which we can more than equal our southern neighbors: our spirit! The very same that saw my family freed from Nazism all those years ago, and the one that will usher our humble yet proud nation into the uncertain future of our increasingly unstable world.

Canada is Canada. Our nation exists in spite of the United States, not because of it as the MAGA cult likes to parrot these days. It’s high time we remind them of that fact.

Elbows up, Canada!

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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or Pattison Media.

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