Thank you for visiting Sovereign Canada, now on Ghost!  

In the days ahead, I will launch a podcast, and syndicated campus and community radio show, exploring (surprise) Canadian sovereignty. We'll delve into what we, as Canadians, can do to resist the escalating threats levelled by United States president Donald Trump – and his enablers – being framed as overtures to join America as the "51st state,” insistences that “Canada is not a real country,” and that the Canada-US border is an “artificially drawn line.”  

The show – and now newsletter – Sovereign Canada will highlight what makes us Canadian. I will present interviews with Canadian political leaders and subject matter experts in fields relating to sovereignty – spanning history to political science, and from international relations and law to immigration, military, and more. I will also recap news as it relates to the continuing threat of annexation, and endeavour to speak with regular Canadians who are making a difference. 

The vast majority of Canadians vehemently oppose giving up our nation to join Trump and the U.S. If one was to boil down Canadian identity to a single phrase, the single unifying call that virtually everyone north of the 49th parallel has heard, if not themselves uttered, is something to the effect of, "thank goodness we aren't American."  

But it is more than that. Much more.

I am one of the 40-million plus Canadian citizens that call this vast country home. I have experienced, like many of you, far more than simply not being an American.

It is the ideal that people can not only merely coexist, but that we are in fact better and stronger together. My claim to citizenship is equal to the next Canadian. It is our diversity as many peoples within one nation that helps make us strong. In Canada, our cultural differences are celebrated, cherished, and held onto.

In America, it is expected that you dissolve your identity into the American cultural melting pot, devoid of individual and collective differences. Simply being yourself in the United States is invitation for ridicule, othering, and ostracization. If you aren’t white, you are a hyphenated American. You exist with a caveat. You are never fully, truly, one.  

It is the health scare that I experienced last autumn which started as terrible cramps in the lower righthand side of my abdomen. Over the course of an afternoon, it became clear this wasn't an ordinary pain. I was able to seek immediate medical care at St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver. Within an hour, I had the diagnosis: acute appendicitis. I was later transferred to nearby Mount Saint Joseph Hospital for a surgery called laparoscopic appendectomy. Then, a little over a day later, I was released from the hospital to recover at home.  

I didn't have to wait it out, fearing the repercussions of crushing medical bills. Had I tried to hold off, something millions of uninsured Americans report having to do, I would have risked any number of complicating factors, which could have resulted in death. 

It is the gruelling drive into the wide expanse that feels like forever when driving across this country. When my family made the decision to move from Waterloo, Ontario to Vancouver, British Columbia, we viewed it as a rite of passage to make the trek by car. Over 11 days we plodded along, some days driving for as many as 800 kilometres in a day. Other days, we kept the driving to a minimum to be able to explore longer. Every night, we stopped to rest in one of the great many campgrounds in our national and provincial parks. 

It was there, on these stops, that we met dozens and dozens of other Canadians. Including a man near Brooks, Alberta who ran after us waving his arms above his head as we pulled out to begin our next day of travel. He had noticed one of the tires on our car was deflated. He happened to have an electric air compressor, the tanks of which he had prefilled with air before he left home. He generously refilled our deflated tire with his spare air, allowing us to slowly make our way to the nearest mechanic shop to make the necessary repairs. This man was emblematic of the selfless and giving nature of Canadians. I have met countless people like him.

What’s more is I didn’t for a second fear for my life when I saw a stranger flagging me down in my rearview mirror. I didn’t instinctively reach for a gun (which I do not own) for fear that I was being set up for a robbery. I simply slowed to a stop, rolled down my window, and received the man’s help.  

America is also a vast and expansive nation featuring endless possible road trips from coast to coast. My wife and I often think back to spring we drove to Florida. On this trip, we gutted out driving for far longer stretches than we had planned to, reaching our destination city (Holiday, FL) a day earlier than we anticipated. Once there, we couldn’t find a decent single night accommodation. We resorted to holing up for the night in a sketchy-looking motel that had the one feature we needed: vacancy.

We parked, and a shady looking couple approached us as we began to unload the car. They noticed our Ontario licence plates and started asking us questions. “Y’all from Canada?” the man asked me in a distinctive drawl. Yes, I told him, trying not offer more than I had to while remaining polite. “Where are you from?” I quizzed back. He told me they were from Tennesse, and that they loved Canadians. The conversation continued, and in spite of the warm sentiments, I remember feeling like the pair hung around just a bit longer than appropriate.  

It wasn’t until my wife unlatched our sleeping son from his car seat and lifted him into her arms that they began to go away. We got into our room and neither of us could shake the impression they had been casing us out. Our plates meant we were soft targets. Canadians, at home and especially on vacation, generally aren’t carrying firearms. It may have been nothing. We will never know for sure if they were just being friendly, or if we were spared due to our status as a young family. However, this exact ever-creeping suspicion of anyone and everyone, no matter the intent, is a daily feature of American life. 

It is the free post-secondary education that I received starting in the September 2009. I was advantaged by a retraining program – launched by the government of Ontario in the aftermath of the Great Recession of 2008, sparked in part by the collapse of junk mortgage bonds allowed by lax U.S. regulations of the time. I didn’t pay a penny to go to Conestoga College to study radio broadcasting. I was able to trade my roofing tools for a microphone (so to speak, I still own my old roofing gear).

I had the freedom to study without incurring any debt. I was also able to fully pour myself into college, and related volunteerism, because I was collecting employment insurance. Before I graduated, I got a job in the industry with Rogers Kitchener Radio Group. Many Canadians have been as fortunate to take advantage of programs like this, and switch careers on the fly. I didn’t have deep-pocketed family members to rely upon, and I lost my job that was merely providing week-to-week subsistence, not savings. Being able to get employed in radio, a field I had always dreamed of entering, was the direct result of what Americans might call a "big government," stimulous program.

If I was living in the so-called meritocracy of the United States, I would not have had the luxury, as I lack inherited birthright, accumulated wealth, and status. As a working-class person, my place at the bottom of the ladder – and carrying heavy stuff up one – would have been my burden to bear alone. If I wanted to change careers, that would have been all on me. My choices would have been limited to taking out loans, working through it, or both. For many, the American Dream is not achievable reality. 

These are just a few examples of the Canada in which I have lived. A Canada where our diversity is strength. A Canada where we are free to get medical care when we need it. A Canada where a random interaction with a stranger doesn't make me wonder, "what if?" A Canada where sending my child to school is not a risk to his life. A Canada which has supported me to have the freedom to become the person I envisioned. A Canada that perhaps many have taken for granted, until now. A Canada we don’t want to lose. A Canada we will fight to preserve and to remain the true North strong and free. 

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