Time to cowboy up

Posted by admin on Oct 3, 2006 in Issues & Ideas | 0 comments

Last Sunday 60 Canadian border guards at four separate crossings in the lower mainland deserted their posts after receiv a report that an armed and dangerous felon was planning on running the Canadian border.

The reason they cited for this behaviour? They felt that their working environment was unsafe. Now, this isn’t the first time that this has happened. In the last year, between 400 and 600 guards refused to work because they felt they were in an unsafe working situation and they didn’t have any guns. The Conservatives have promised to arm the border guards, but unfortunately, that process will take about 10 years.

Why, you may ask, is the Canadian border in such a deplorable state? Because the previous government thought that arming border guards would conflict with Canada’s image as a friendly, peace-loving nation, and they didn’t want to appear similar to those nasty Americans.

Now, I am a patriotic Canadian. I’m proud of my country. I wear little flags when I travel. I like hockey, and occasionally say ‘eh.’ I support the little details that make us distinct from the States. Canada is a sovereign nation, and that is a good thing.

That being said, part of sovereignty is being able to control your own border, and I for one feel a small twinge of shame when I hear about incidents like this one. Is this what it means to be Canadian? Having an express lane at the border for armed felons?

All of this seems to point to Canada’s awful habit of defining itself as what America is not. This habit is harmless when you are dealing with how many downs you have in football, or how you say the letter ‘z’ (it’s zed). But when the matter involves allowing dangerous and heavily armed murderers to waltz into our country at will, I think we need to take a stand. The only crazy Americans I want to see are the ones here at Trinity Western University.