How can you fight something you cannot see properly?—An Officer in Training with Canadian Armed Forces
As Canada languishes in this protracted period of medical martial law, the Lord has provided us with an opportunity to reflect on our lives and what the future may hold for those who persist in ignoring Him and His own natural moral law.
It’s Saturday morning at the end of a protracted heat spell in July. And the following is a snapshot of Canada taken from headlines across the country, a la finance minister Bill Morneau’s recent fiscal snapshot of Canada, replete with startling news of the current $343 billion national deficit – six times higher than the $56-billion shortfall posted by the Harper government during the 2009 economic recession – and with a falling national credit rating and no plan to curb spending anytime soon.
The China Connection
As I write, the two Michaels – Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor – remain in solitary confinement in China because, as international affairs columnist Matthew Fisher put it, China regards Canada as a ‘pushover’. Arrested in December 2018, nine days after Huawei heiress Meng Wanzhou was detained in Vancouver on serious fraud charges, the two Canadians remain jailed on allegations of espionage. But Fisher says their plight can only be seen as Chinese retaliation over Canada’s role in Meng’s extradition case. And as China applying further pressure for Canada to adopt Huawei’s 5G tech roll-out which is now being rejected in key areas around the world, including the UK, for its penchant for electronic spying.
So what are Canadians to make of the latest news that the Trudeau government has just awarded a $6.8 million contract to Nuctech, a Chinese-state-run firm to supply ‘security’ for 170 of Canada’s embassies, consulates and high commissions around the world, including installation, operator training and software? The same company which, according to the Wall Street Journal, the U.S. government is warning the National Security Council and other US agencies to avoid using because of worries that any connected devices could pass sensitive data like passenger info and shipping manifests to Chinese spies? Do Canadians, mindful of their prime minister’s strange declaration that he admired China’s ‘basic dictatorship’, now share the concerns of the U.S. government and a security industry source that there will now be “significant pieces of Chinese technology sitting in every embassy?” And given the Chinese communist government’s predilection – via Huawei and others – for expanding its spying networks throughout the world, are Canadians now asking themselves: ‘Is this deal the result of astonishing naivete? Or something far worse?’
The WE Scandal
This latest scandal comes on the heels of the WE scandal which exploded just as Justin Trudeau was accusing the RCMP of ‘systemic racism’ and taking a knee. Which was yet another attack on police forces in general and the federal police force in particular. Another attack on law and order emanating from the PMO itself, the top political post in the land.
As readers are well aware, the WE scandal arose when the prime minister attempted to award a near-billion dollar contract to the WE Charity that he and his family had been involved with for years and from which family members received upwards of $350,000 in remuneration and perks. But the favours didn’t stop there. Finance Minister Bill Morneau and his two daughters are also implicated as receiving benefits from WE, which bills itself as a volunteer charity.
Predictably, news of the deal resulted in almost instant cancellation, along with an apology from Trudeau for not recusing himself from the deal.
But that doesn’t satisfy Duff Conacher, co-founder of Democracy Watch: “What I find suspect is that the amounts are very large for charities, and the pattern of it suddenly happening after the Liberals are elected, with the spouse of the prime minister being a high-ranking volunteer… It’s illegal, and for good reason.” Conacher said he plans filing a complaint to the federal Ethics Commissioner (for a third offense), arguing that Trudeau put himself in conflict of interest simply by announcing the WE Charity would administer the CSSG. “The evidence is clear. It’s an entire waste of money and also a violation of federal ethics law.”
The spreading scandal, meanwhile, raises other questions about the WE Charity itself, its $43 million in real estate assets, its financial support for Trudeau`s leadership campaign and the real agenda of founders Craig and Marc Keilburger who’ve long been simpatico with all aspects of Trudeau`s Progressive ideology, including climate change, among other articles of leftist faith which, for years, have been part of their ‘in school’ indoctrination programs held in countless schools across Canada.
All of which raises further questions about this prime minister’s use of power to advance his Leftist ideology, as demonstrated most recently with his proviso that any struggling businesses would not be allowed to receive government assistance unless they adopt ‘climate change’ as part of their business mission. Just as students were demanded to declare their support for abortion last summer to qualify for temporary government jobs.
Larger implications
But that’s been the pattern of the Trudeau government, has it not? Another day, another scandal, each more serious than the last. And all fitting within a bigger, more enduring scandal: the elimination of Parliament during this now near four-month long COVID-19 lockdown.
“We threw Parliament away,” ranted columnist Rex Murphy. “Or rather Trudeau, with the cynical compliance of NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, his equally bespoked partner in this affair, threw Parliament away, put it under wraps, eviscerated it. As a result the Trudeau minority has had the least-challenged, most under-scrutinized, press-cosseted administration in decades. Money is being carted away by front-end loaders every morning when Trudeau descends the steps and enters the Tent of Commons to the huddle of scribes under its shade. There is no opposition present. There is no Question Period in the afternoons of his wild gifting of the billions. Just J.T., 20 minutes a morning, affectedly sombre, soft-speaking the cliché of the day (“we have your back”) and then signaling the heavy machinery to come in and to scoop up billions to scatter them through the land.”
COVID-19, Murphy continued, has been the Trudeau government’s umbrella and shield, giving it cover and freedom to completely ignore the customs and procedures of Parliamentary democracy, allowing it to exhaust the treasury, swell the deficit to $343 billion and the national debt to $1.2 trillion. So with no serious checks and balances and no one to curb his impulses, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that Trudeau could casually offer the Kielburgers nearly a billion for the vaguest of programs.
ROC Worries
Meanwhile, outside Ottawa the rest of Canada has become frightened by the sheer unnaturalness of a lockdown justified as ‘for our own good’. Canadians are becoming seriously worried by the ultimate financial cost of all this artifice as well, based on the ever-changing opinions of so-called experts on COVID, making the future more uncertain than ever. And also threatening the survival of businesses large and small which cannot continue to operate much longer at reduced capacity. Thus, analysts expect hundreds more companies to file for bankruptcy over the next few months as government restrictions and dried-up consumer demand take a devastating toll on the Canadian economy.
Canadians are also troubled by the violence they’re witnessing south of the border and at home where Black Lives Matter protesters destroy monuments and push ever harder to defund police, all in pursuit of ‘social justice’ which, without God, becomes just another tyranny advanced through anarchy and lawlessness, the goal of which is to collapse law and order, as police officers think twice about going to work.
Violence Rising
And the violence that police are confronting daily is multi-faceted, beginning in Hamilton with the targeted shooting death of Hamilton mob boss Pat Musitano, 52, in a Burlington parking lot earlier this month — barely a year after narrowly surviving another attempt on his life. And every weekend, as protests and riots increase, there are several other shootings taking place in the backgrounds across the Greater Toronto area and in disparate parts of Canada.
This while hospitals have remained closed for life-saving surgeries while clinics performing abortions remain open and busy. This while on Saturday afternoon at my local library Fay and Fluffy are appearing via Zoom for another Drag Queen Storytime. Featuring stories, songs and “lots of laughs”, the event was excitedly billed as a wonderful way to celebrate diversity and literacy in a supportive and inclusive environment. All ages were welcome, including kids as young as three, though the promotion did not include any reference to a documentary about Fay and Fluffy suitable only for ages 14 and older.
And for additional irony, the same day Fay and Fluffy were running riot across library-connected screens, the Toronto Sun blazed this headline: MOST CANNABIS EDIBLE OVERDOSES IN CANADA INVOLVE CHILDREN. The item went on to report that 137 children have shown up at Canadian hospital emergency rooms for weed poisoning since Justin Trudeau’s government legalized cannabis edibles last October. The Health Ministry research also reports that cannabis use among youth has increased overall — a reversal of long-term downward use before the feds repealed a criminal ban on recreational pot in 2018. Subsequently, the researchers found cannabis is now the leading substance-related reason for emergency room visits by Canadians as young as 10.
And over in Tory-land, the opposition party remains in disarray at it tries to elect a new leader by August 21, leaving the much-ignored but deeply decent Andrew Scheer to man the barricades while the Liberals loot the land.
Canada Debased
How did Canada come to this? To this level of debasement for which no excuse suffices?
May I say, dear reader, that given the course of events of the past few months – particularly since the advent of COVID-19 – I consider it impossible to regard the scandals radiating out of Ottawa as simply the work of weak politicians and incompetents desperate to hold onto power while lining their own foundational pockets. While it may be that too. South of the border, it’s the same story as politicians search for ever more excuses to justify continuing the medical martial law which was never justifiable in the first place. That is, unless you’re determined to bankrupt national and international economies for your own nefarious purposes.
Are they? Is something much larger at work here, just below the visible surface? The forces of revolution maybe?
The radical violence which appeared to begin with the death of George Floyd has now come full circle – in a pincer move – to join with the forces of almost 70 years of ideological ruin, made all the easier with the implementation of secularism. And if this is a serious push for revolution, it comes with the treacherous assistance of weak officials all too willing to concede, concede, concede to all the violence, which is exactly the policy that has wrought so much evil in Marxist revolutions throughout history.
If so, this means that in true Progressivist/Socialist/Communist style, life as we’ve known it must be eradicated, one way or another. And the hallmark of revolution is forced confusion, chaos and cultural destruction. Just as the Jacobins did it, just as the Bolsheviks did it, just as the Maoists did it in China, that benighted nation so full of tyrannized souls that our prime minister claims to admire.
Destruction of Symbols
Meanwhile, as the stains of scandal and destructive ideology — particularly sexual ideology which has been ripping apart the once-moral fabric of this country — continue to spread, reports come of the destruction of statues of historical figures such as Sir John A. Macdonald and others. And these are now being joined almost daily by the defacing of religious statuary, such as the eight bronze Stations of the Cross statues vandalized and beheaded at the Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes in Sudbury. All with apparent impunity, and confirming once again that angry, atheistic human beings will carry out worldly justice on any society that turns its back on Godly justice.
South of the border, it’s the same trend but on a bigger scale. Having vandalized and toppled statues of Christopher Columbus, Abraham Lincoln and countless other political figures in recent weeks, the destruction and desecration has now spread to the statues of such historic religious figures as St Junípero Serra in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco and his mission, along with countless madonnas and burned churches in numbers growing by the day.
The commonality here is that the agitators of 2020 – led by the lavishly-funded Marxist Black Lives Matter and Antifa – are effectively seeking to dismantle government itself by converting peaceful protests about George Floyd’s death (protected by the First Amendment) into anarchy through vandalism, riots, looting and demands for the defunding and elimination of police – all in an effort to tear down the essential fabric of America’s institutions while destroying her history.
And shamefully, these mobs often have the support of mendacious politicians (mayors, governors, and legislative bodies) in so-called progressive cities and states, along with the majority of the mainstream media, further emboldening these law-breakers not to flatten the COVID curve but, rather, to flatten their homeland.
The Rejection of God
Which brings us to the real goal of this rising revolution: The complete eradication of God: The Judeo-Christian God and the faith He inspires. And any and all reminders of Him.
Thus the vandalization of religious statues and churches has spread to synagogues, Jewish memorials and schools with anti-Semitic, anti-Israel slogans along with historic landmarks such as St. John’s Episcopal Church, known as the “church of presidents” and so many others. Yet these examples only scratch the surface of the wanton devastation caused by this new wave of domestic terrorists and their Progressivist/Marxist/Leninist values which have been unleashed at exactly the time when their fellow citizens are under house arrest due to COVID-19. Which is all of a piece with what’s happening in Canada too. Having embraced secularism fully and turning its back on the Christian history so integral to its very existence, Canada is now beginning to pay the price. Which will likely be much greater than most can even imagine, let alone estimate.
And all this is happening with almost total media support, led by the New York Times which has been assuring readers that it was the churches, not the riots, responsible for the latest spike in coronavirus cases in five of the red states of the U.S. (read Republican). And by CNN host Don Lemon who’s been telling viewers that Jesus Christ was ‘admittedly not perfect when he was here on this Earth’, adding that he was merely trying to put history in the right context: “We’re trying to get you to understand that a lot of what you have been taught in history has been propaganda. And some things you need to unlearn so that you can become a better citizen (with) the promise of what America is available to all,” he continued. “Why not have the mindset of: ‘Maybe we should be taking down some of these statues.’”
With this, he left fellow host Chris Cuomo, a self-professed Catholic and abortion supporter, to fill in the gaps in Lemon’s religious training. “You don’t need help from above. It’s within us,” Cuomo told Lemon, thereby promoting a society that separates God from the common good — the same error committed by such secular utopias as Venezuela, Cuba, Cambodia, the former USSR and the People’s Republic of China, which Justin Trudeau so admires.
About the Lockdown
I have a question: will history conclude that shutting down churches and synagogues during this period was necessary? That public health was much improved as a result? Were the souls of Catholics around the world — already suffering the lack of spiritual protection daily Masses have always conferred — nourished by the absence of the Holy Eucharist? Or is this not a preposterous proposition? Just as the Patriarch of Romania put it when speaking about the coronavirus and its hazards: “The Holy Eucharist can never be a source of sickness and death.”
Yet for months, the public reception of Holy Communion was not allowed. Yet this was a directive which saved no lives. How could it? Yet such is the self-blindness caused by our culture’s indifference, even hostility, to God that no one should be surprised by such arrogant folly.
I blame secularism which has been a giant step and a wrong step away from civilization and its restraints which, until relatively recently in human history, have been based on Scripture and its Ten Commandments. Which have since been replaced by rival Secularism and its Parallel articles of faith which include climate change, sexual self-indulgence, metastasizing and tyrannical government, Progressivism and so on …to our present position which seems perched on the edge of worldwide revolution, made possible by a larger, and more destructive march through Western society and its institutions that began decades ago.
Dictatorship of Relativism
Pope Benedict XVI astutely called this phenomenon ‘the dictatorship of relativism’ which, while denying the existence of God, allows itself any and all sinful self-indulgences so long as we’re ‘nice about it’. This ‘ethos’ is also totally permissive, not out of true kindness and understanding but rather because all those supporting this hedonistic ethos are similarly self-indulgent and will deny themselves nothing. Nor will they allow their egos and consciences to be disturbed by suggestions of selfishness and biblical wrongdoing. So the ‘accuser’ or truth-teller must be removed. Hence the current explosion of ‘cancel culture’.
In truth, there are only two options: God or not-God. Choose the latter and pay the price. It won’t be pretty. Or edifying.
The truth is also that there is little that can now be done to reverse the systemic moral blindness induced by more than half a century of denying God via institutional and cultural secularism. Except to reject the false tenets of the Progressive ‘faith’ and its narcissistic virtue-signaling. And once again fall on our knees and beg God’s forgiveness while protesters attempt to eradicate all public symbols of Christianity in their hopeless bid to silence their own consciences. And to beg Him to restore our land, or else watch as the Christian spiritual and cultural glue that once bound this country dissolves so entirely that this nation collapses with it.
But there’s a need for perspective as well. Not only is this earthly life fleeting, but all of this was foretold in Scripture of a world which, as it descends ever deeper into sin, loses its beauty and its ability to seduce souls. As described so wondrously by Jesus Himself to St.Faustina:
“Listen, My daughter, although all the works that come into being by My will are exposed to great sufferings, consider whether any of them has been subject to greater difficulties than that work which is directly Mine — the work of Redemption. You should not worry too much about adversities. The world is not as powerful as it seems to be; its strength is strictly limited (Diary, 1643).