We don’t get to choose our family.
We don’t really get to choose our neighbours either.
And the people we share choices of life and death with are bonded to you via a citizenship that you never chose.
The King has say over everything
“We don't even have a Constitution. It's kind of a joke in a way because really the king has say over everything,” Ray said.
Sitting on the lake searching for molecules of gold, Ray and Lane opened up to me. We weren’t far from Cache Creek. Although we’d never met before, they told me their political opinions. I listened. Most of what they said was misinformed.
For clarification, the king is a figurehead with no power in Canada. The king does not hold absolute power and cannot unilaterally dictate laws, formulate policies, or govern the country. The king can only exercise power on the advice of the elected leader– aka the prime minister.
Not only that, but the king doesn’t even operate in Canada except by special request. The governor general is the head of state in Canada, and does nothing except on the advice of the prime minister, although they have some basic powers in case of emergency– which they rarely, if ever use. Only once in recent memory was there an opportunity to use these powers, during Stephen Harper’s term. Michaëlle Jean did not use these powers.
“With Americans, it's freedom or death. I think that freedom is really important to (Americans). You have the freedom to say what you want to say. Now they're trying to come down on speech and you can only say this or that… I just don't think it's right. We need freedom. You know what, you're gonna get offended when there's freedom of speech. It's just the way it is. It's almost like they're trying to stop everybody from being offended but that's a part of being free,” Ray said.
In my experience, when people say that they don’t like how offended people get due to free speech, they usually mean that they want to be racist or homophobic. I didn’t press him on this.
“If you look at governments like the United States, one of their amendments is that everybody should own the right to have a gun. If the government tries to overthrow us (Canadians), we're screwed,” Lane agreed with his dad.
Governments can’t overthrow the people. Governments are at the top, and are usually run by the “ruling class.” The argument for guns in America was to stop government oppression, and to enable a fight against tyranny. That’s probably what Lane meant.
“And I don't think that we're supposed to pay them to do work for us. If we do that, they control the education systems in the school. I feel like the government doesn't want us to be too smart. You know what I mean? Then we wouldn't need them. I like small government. I don't like gang stuff, though.”
Gang stuff?
“Well, if you have small government, I think it's a bit easier maybe for gangs to kind of take over things,” Lane explained.
Okay, gotcha.
“Government officials are supposed to be our servants. We are the people. We are Canada; you and me, not them. Carney’s (election) wasn’t legitimate. He wasn't even voted in, for Pete's sake. Gimme a break,” Ray said.
In fairness, I replied, he was voted into office in an election right after. Ray agreed. But he thinks that Carney is making money off of being in power. Ray feels frustrated.
He doesn’t feel represented.
On that, we can agree.
