On the first anniversary of the Ottawa Occupation, it might be worthwhile to reflect on where the inspiration for the so called “Freedom Convoy” actually came from, and the crowdfunding which paid for it. But first a brief history quiz:

How many times have U.S. invasions been launched against Canada? 

Colonel Benedict Arnold led a Continental army of 1,100 men through the Maine bush and mountains to attack Quebec City in September 1775. Half of his force turned back or died along the torturous wilderness route, so it was a very ineffective invasion. This military strike assumed that the Quebecois colonists would automatically want to join them against the British. 

The War of 1812-14 provided the Americans with a second opportunity, as Thomas Jefferson explained in a letter to a newspaper owner on August 4th 1812: “The acquisition of Canada this year … will be a mere matter of marching; will give us experience for the attack of Halifax next, and the final expulsion of England from the American continent.” In June 1813 the Americans burned York (Toronto) to the ground. Subsequently British forces in August 1814 countered this invasion by raiding Washington, DC where they set fire to the White House and the U. S. Capitol building. At best the war ended in a draw.

These are the formal acts of war, while the three Patriot & Fenian “incursions,” of the 1830s and 1860s were more like comic operas. 

In Guns Across the River (2001) Donald Graves details the next invasion of Canada: 

“In 1838, seeing political turbulence in Canada as an opportunity, members of a clandestine American organization, the Patriot Hunters, launched a series of attacks along the international border … they occupied a stone windmill near Prescott, Ontario confident that Canadians would rally to their cause … After five days of heavy fighting, British regulars and Canadian militia captured this ‘Alamo of the North,’ and those invaders who survived were imprisoned in Fort Henry at Kingston … eleven were executed and sixty deported to an Australian penal colony.”

Following the American Civil War (1861-1864) the British North American colonies banded together in self-defence and created the Dominion of Canada. A catalyst in this development was the “Finian Raids” which took place from April 1866 to October 1871 when battle trained Irish American Civil War veterans decided to occupy Canada in a plot to trade it for Irish independence from Britain. 

In the 1930s, the U.S. army had a secret invasion plan. Kevin Lippert in his small book entitled War Plan Red outlines what unfolded – “the U.S. Congress approved $57 million in February 1935 for an updated version of the plan. This money was used to build three military airfields … which could be used to launch pre-emptive strikes against Canadian air forces and defence ... The existence of these airfields was meant to be top secret but was accidentally revealed in a government brochure and then picked up by the New York Times as a front-page story on May 1^st, 1935.” 

In this dystopian future the issue of fact and fiction in the news cycle, takes on greater weight. The invasion of our border this time has taken place in a much more subversive manner. Hard-core, right-wing media outlets like Fox News, Breitbart, Sinclair Broadcasting, NewsMax and WorldNetDaily thrive. They spread their anti-everything doctrine over the Internet, which is much more efficient than going to the trouble of invading Canada by land. 

The Federal Government’s inquiry into its use of emergency powers during the 23-day Ottawa Occupation unfolded via the Public Order Emergency Commission. Details of the behind-the-scenes activities of government officials, as well as the “Freedom” organizers were on display. However, the mandate and outlook were too narrow. The answer as to where the inspiration for this public crisis originated is obvious. The January 6^th (2021) U.S. Capital Attack led directly to the Ottawa Occupation.

It may be a subtle distinction that out-right falsification of events and the manipulation of the population via conservative media has taken place, but rest assured that the results of the November 2020 US election support the fact that seventy million citizens voted for an incompetent, narcissistic, psychopathic, delusional President in the middle of a Pandemic. The United States is exporting this chaos, while trucking down those crazy “freedom” roads … Mad Max meets Birth of a Nation!