When the nation of Canada was founded in 1867, its people deliberately chose a form of government meant to avoid the mistakes and problems they saw in the U.S. government next door.
That helps explain why Canadian police used emergency powers to arrest hundreds of people and tow dozens of vehicles while ending the trucker protests in Ottawa, Canada’s capital.
Since its founding, Canada has taken a very different view of liberty, democracy, government authority and individual freedom than is known in the United States.
As early as 1776, the Declaration of Independence stated that the purpose of the U.S. government was to preserve “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The Canadians chose a different course.
The 1867 British North America Act – since renamed the Constitution Act – declared that the goal of modern Canada was to pursue “Peace, Order, and good Government.”
As a scholar of North American culture, I have seen that Canadians have long feared the sort of mob rule that has always been a feature of the U.S. political landscape.
