Good fences make good neighbours?

Image from Associated Press via SplinterNews: Now, if you walk across the border, guards or a helicopter will show up within minutes. “We do have a wall here,” Hoff said. “It’s not a physical wall. But it’s still a wall.”


Good fences make good neighbours?

"Something there is that doesn’t love a wall"... Robert Frost

Am thinking of building a wall around my phone. Someone keeps leaving messages telling me to call Service Canada. Today I broke precedent and actually answered the phone and a very pleasant female said, "I'm calling from Service Canada about your Canada Pension Plan, but I have to ask you a couple of security questions before we proceed". Proceed with what, I wondered? So I said "If you're worried about my security, then send me a letter. The government sends me letters".

"Oh ... okay", said the nice young lady, and hung up.

How does she live with herself?  She was so sweet but so very, very cagey.  She and her fellow scammers know my phone number, so consequently they also know my name and address, and they also know that I'm a pensioner. They could deduce that last item from my address because only people of a certain age live in my apartment building. Thanks to technology, they can even spoof their identity on a cell phone display. You gotta love technology.  It brings as much trouble as it does fun. But I really don't want to live behind a wall, except maybe the firewall on my wired Linux computer. My phone will be a simple land line, without any frills whatsoever, until I die, I hope. My answering machine is my telephone's firewall.

The whole Western hemisphere, however, has walls on the brain. Seems dire, doesn't it?  But surely, if your neighbour's not "good" a wall can only make him more determined to transgress. Then you'd have to electrify it. And if he got around that, you'd have to build up a weapons arsenal ...

There are walls, and there are also walls. There can be a wall between us and the US, but if a province secedes, for instance, where does it go?  It's still there, isn't it; but separate and called a state or something. Which, of course, requires a boundary, and rules and legal measures, and if worse comes to worst, a great wall. How many provinces do we have?  How many walls could we build?  Here's a good information source with maps.

There are 10 provinces, six of them, in the West and in the East, having significant separatist inclinations!  And heaven only knows what our 3 Territories are thinking because the government that claims to be "listening" to them appears to have a hearing problem.

This is the first time I've seriously thought that secession fever was more than merely a wish, or a ploy, but I'm occasionally reminded that one of the down-east leaders assured me a few years ago that "Canada won't last the century".  And I haven't forgotten the dreadful night of the FLQ, and the fact that Pierre Trudeau hauled out the War Measures Act for use against Canada's own citizens. 

With the rise of far rightist activity in Canada, its proudly designated front man being Maxime Bernier, leader of the People's Party of Canada, and my general distaste for all of this election's leadership candidates, especially the escalating climate fever backed by the Green Party's Elizabeth May who passionately declared allegiance to "Greta" during the leaders' debate, one wonders how long it might be before general chaos erupts in this country, allowing a kind of military "state of emergency" that will make the FLQ crisis look tame in comparison.

With any headway at all, we'd quickly become easy pickings for a US takeover. They've already pushed their way across our border via State Troopers and Immigration cops. 

Not incidentally, China has a People's Party, which is not much bigger than Canada's People's Party, although China proper is called the "People's Republic'. China built a wall that's officially been declared a World Heritage Site - a great honour to look forward to, regardless of who keeps out whom between the US/Mexico and US/Canada and maybe even Provinces/Canada.

What's more than a bit confusing is that there have been assertions on both sides that a wall needs to be built between Canada and the US, similar to the wall the US is building between itself and Mexico.  Ever since 9/11 there has been criticism that terrorists were getting into the US through Canada's porous border, and apparently that concern has escalated:

Politico: Forget Mexico: Democrats turn focus to porous Canadian border

But some far-right Canadians are suggesting a wall to keep out the immigrants pouring in from the US (not to mention the drugs that get forwarded through the US via Mexico - although, after all this time, one has to assume they're not very serious about the drugs):

USAToday: Canada warns immigrants in U.S. about heading north of the border

• "People seem to think that if they cross the border there's this land of milk and honey on the other side," [Liberal MP Randy] Boissonnault said from the Canadian consulate in Miami on Thursday.

Well, that's depressing. With all our other comedowns, we're also running out of milk and honey. Either way, it seems that the age-old tradition of "forting up" has at least been contemplated. 

Everything else is a mess; some of our provinces want out, and the very word "climate" has seriously changed everything, but we've got the hope of a nice wall (or some nice walls), so that's something, eh?

The return to the Security and Prosperity Partnership is, I think, another sign of a weakening Canada. Scroll down this article to the heading: "The Real Winners":

• ... the agreement enjoys strong corporate support precisely because a number of its chapters include provisions responsive to the interests of leading U.S. multinational corporations ...

You'll also see that safeguards on food imports from the US are to be relaxed:

• ... and that safety standards be applied “only to the extent necessary to achieve the appropriate level of protection” and “not [be] more trade restrictive than required.”

The Government of Canada is all set to blame illness from relaxed international food restrictions on "climate change".

Is this a consequence of George Soros advising our Foreign Minister? And have our taxes supported a pipeline that the US will ultimately call all the shots on?  Thanks to Justin Trudeau, we're already paying the media to continue fibbing.  Talk about your scammers!

About the leadership debate: there seemed to be no leaders present. There were some crazy talking heads who persisted in attempting to over-talk one another to the point of utter cacophany, and all I felt was a kind of embarrassment for them. The moderators ended up being stern mother-figures to a rowdy bunch of kids.  Not a pretty picture. Nosiree!
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