A Call to America's Second Loyalists: An Invitation to Americans

PEJ News - C. L. Cook - The oft overlooked fact of what became the Confederation of Canada in media coverage of the sometimes fractious, always suspicious, special relationship between the "greatest trading partnership in the world," is the role "Americans" played in the creation of their neighbour north.

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A Call to America's Second Loyalists:
An Invitation to Americans

C. L. Cook

PEJ News
May 16, 2006


Fearing the American Revolution would be more an instrument of enslavement than liberation, thousands fled America. Some of those were welcomed by British administered British North America, themselves desperate to grow the northern population before the inevitable military attempts of the ascending Yankees to annex Canada. And, those invasions would come, and be repelled on four different occasions, culminating in 1812.

I mention it to relieve some of those nervous cousins, on both sides of the line, who may yet eye warily the ancient foe next door. Though the north won the battles, ended so long ago, the south won the war, wearing away the economic sovereignty of what would be become Canada, and with it the nation's political heart. It's been a gradual process, but now in the early years of the twentieth century, that erosion has worn channels where barriers were, and created a pool where Canadians and Americans become indistinguishable, if not in culture in philosophy.

It is to those I reach to, those fearing the American Revolution now promising more to enslave than liberate, to again flee to Canada, adding to the too small, like-minded community of this country, and again prepare to defend the principles of truth, freedom, and the democratic ideals currently threatened in your homeland.

'Poor Man's Friend'

Jesse Winchester serenaded the late Pierre Trudeau, lauding him his leadership in resisting the American administration's efforts to extradite American sanctuary-seekers refusing to enter America's war against Vietnam in the late 1960's and early '70's. Those good people then allowed, through Trudeau's intransigence, inclusion within Canadian society enriched the nation, and today too call to their fellow Americans to resist again the United States' historical impulse to war and empire-building. They call for you to join the next front in the battle to save the democracy, where the need is dire:

"Join the fight to save democracy in North America; come save Canada."

Friend Eric Blumrich, one of your countrymen, lamented to me the spiralling descent into fascism a couple years, and wondered aloud if he should not come to Canada. I said he should leave immediately, but warned, Canada has only two or three years, before becoming an emulation of all he loathed at home then. With Stephen Harper's appointment as Prime Minister marks the finish line. Where once our nation offered shelter to conscientous objection, today Canada routinely would return refugees, be they from the Iraq, or marijuana wars.

Public Opinion be Damned

As in the majority of the nations comprising various 'Coalitions of the Willing,' Canadians repeatedly have rejected the current course of Canada's domestic and foreign policies; under both, the reformed Conservative Party, and their predecessors to power, the Liberal Party. But, the wars go on. And, Canada needs soldiers. People willing to stand on guard for principles we've left granted, in both Canada and America, for too long.

Bien Venue, Americain




Chris Cook is a contributing editor to PEJ News, and hosts the weekly public affairs program, Gorilla Radio, broad/webcast from the University of Victoria, Canada. You can check out the GR Blog here.

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