O, Canada!
(revised version of an essay originally composed in January 2010)


For only the second time in around 16 years, we didn’t host Thanksgiving at our home. Instead, we traveled from California to Washington State to celebrate the holiday with my Father-In-Law and his wife and her adult children and grandchildren.
The following day, Friday, November 27,(2009) my wife, my son, my daughter and myself, crossed the border into Canada and “landed” as Permanent Residents. Earlier in the week, while speaking with my mom on the phone, she asked “tell me again why you’re moving? Are you having a mid-life crisis? I know, it’s politics”. I told my mom it was much more than politics, which I define as the partisan competition for power and influence in government; I told her the short answer to explain why I was becoming a Canadian Permanent Resident was for my “peace of mind”.

Peace of mind.

That was the answer I gave over and over to friends, family, acquaintances and total strangers over this holiday weekend when they learned we had “landed” in Canada. In some cases, folks nodded knowingly, sympathetically. In most cases they understood “peace of mind” as code for “let’s not get into the nitty gritty details of this right now”. Of course, there’s much more behind the phrase “peace of mind”, as I will explain below.

After Bush was appointed to the Presidency by the Supreme Court in 2000, and following 9/11, the Patriot Act, and the media manipulation/complicity leading to the Iraq War, I felt more than anger over the ways things were going in the U.S.A. I felt the very foundations of what defines America were crumbling before my eyes- free and fair elections, the Rule of Law, separation of powers, the Constitution, were all being destroyed and rendered meaningless.

Then, in 2004, with another stolen election, and the revelations about Abu Graib and Gitmo, my despair over the death of America overflowed; I began researching the process of becoming a permanent legal resident of Canada. Both my kids were still in high school at the time, and my wife thought I was nuts, even though she agreed with me about all the important issues that brought me to the point of wanting to emigrate.

Although serious discussion of moving to Canada stayed on the back burner for a couple of years, I continued to research the immigration process, while recoiling in horror at each revelation of each new atrocity committed by the Bush/Cheney administration. As I would share the information about these war crimes and other civil rights desecrations with my wife, she would often jokingly affect a Canadian accent and remark “Eh?”. I could tell she was coming around to my way of thinking.

Finally, the passage of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, with the complicity of the Democrats in Congress, was the final straw. An unconstitutional law, giving the President the power to suspend habeas corpus for an individual at his discretion, as well as the power to define what torture is and isn’t, despite existing international definitions of torture. I began to speak openly, assertively about beginning the process to move to Canada.

During all the preceding events, I wasn’t just sitting at home silently wringing my hands or merely posting histrionic tirades on the internet against the Bushies. I was actively lobbying my elected representatives about these issues I cared very much about. I even give myself some of the credit for badgering my Congressman into co-sponsoring Kucinich’s bill calling for the impeachment of Bush and Cheney.

Finally, in the summer of 2007, on my 50th birthday, my wonderful wife consented to beginning the process to become Canadian residents. We called an immigration lawyer and started to gather all the required documentation. Other than getting our immigration physicals, the process consisted of waiting, and waiting…and waiting. As the 2008 election unfolded, we hoped, as did many millions, for significant, tangible change from the arrogance and lawlessness of the previous eight years. Unfortunately, it has become clear in Obama’s first term, that any real change in the status quo is not forthcoming in the near future; no substantive action has been taken regarding the core critical issues I care so deeply about. In fact, on many of these issues, Obama is supporting or continuing the policies of the Bush administration.

In addition, my home state, California, is quickly disintegrating.

Finally, at the end of this summer (2009) we were informed that our visas had been approved. We would have to land before our medical exams expired in January 2010. With both kids in college now (one in Los Angeles, 5 hours from our home), there were only two windows where they would be available to travel to Canada with us- the week between Christmas and New Year’s, and Thanksgiving Weekend. We chose the latter. And so, in one day, November 27th, we landed, met with our lawyer, applied for our Social Insurance Numbers, and opened a Canadian bank account. Whew!

Peace of Mind, at last. Or at least the beginnings of it.

By moving to Canada, I’ll be living in a land where the following are guaranteed by law:
• Universal, single payer healthcare for all
• A woman’s right to choose
• An individual’s freedom to marry whomever they choose

Nevertheless, I’m under no illusions that Canada is a Utopia offering refuge to a progressive like myself from the developing despotism and third-world, banana republic conditions in America. But it does offer me a way to avoid supporting the unconstitutional crimes committed in my name, with my taxes.

Call it the coward’s way out.

Yes, I guess I’m a coward for not being willing to face the consequences of tax evasion, or fomenting revolution (I’ll leave that to the teabaggers). I haven’t lost any loved ones from 9/11, Katrina or the Iraq/Afghanistan wars, but I’m traumatized nonetheless. By moving to Canada, I am getting some emotional distance from, and I am withdrawing my financial support* for the following :

• Illegal/immoral wars
• Bank bailouts
• Wiretaps
• Elimination of the Rule of Law
• Military Commissions Act/Elimination of habeas corpus
• Lack of Government Transparency hiding behind “State Secrets”
• Corporate control of both major parties and the media
• The despicable cultural phenomena know as “virtuous cruelty”
• The assassination of American citizens by drones or other methods, without due process of law.

And last but not least:

Torture- this is the big one. America gave up it’s role as the leader of the Good Guys for a little bloodthirsty revenge disguised as “enhanced interrogation”, in violation of the Geneva Convention and the United Nations Treaty Against Torture, both of which have the force of law in the USA. Although the USA couldn’t claim a spotless record prior to the Global War on Terror, our conduct since 9/11 has erased any positive reputation for setting the standards for conduct during wartime.

So now, the waiting was over and the work began: we sold our home in the worst real estate market in decades; moved to a short term rental; now, we are looking for jobs in Canada; we’ve rented a home in BC, and with a mixture of excitement and apprehension, make the big move to our new home.

We will miss all of our dear friends and family, but hope to return to visit often, and hope to host visitors often in our home in the Great White North.

Until then, in the immortal words of the MacKenzie brothers:

Good Day, eh? ☺





* Yes, I’m aware that I’ll still have to file US income taxes even though I’ll be living in Canada, but I expect we will be taking a hefty pay cut in our combined incomes, as much as 50%, at least in the beginning. Because of this, we will fall within the range for the “foreign tax credit” and thus will pay no US income taxes. In addition, we will do very little shopping in the US, and won’t be paying any money to the corporations (phone companies, energy/oil companies, insurance compamies, banks, etc.) that run this country and control most of our leaders.

The US is a pretty great place to live. In the majority of the country the water that comes from the pipes is drinkable. Most residents own a personal vehicle. Intricate supply chains ensure there is almost always a wide variety of food available on the shelves of every store you walk into. For many people who earn a middle-class income and live in urban centres or suburban enclaves, America is a paradise of convenience and plenty, where many enjoy a standard of living on par with any country in the world. As Yglesias noted, “there’s a reason tons of people of all kinds from all around the world clamor to move here”.

When they do, however, they often find that among all the opulence is horror: the taps in poor neighbourhoods run brown; many jobs pay workers in the food and service industry so little they struggle to buy the food they prepare; the cars guzzle fossil fuels and crash at alarming rates, causing injuries that victims must pay out of pocket to treat. And, of course, any time you venture out in public there is a very real chance you could be shot and killed by an armed stranger. To anyone who has experienced this side of American life, Yglesias’s breezy dismissal is deeply obnoxious. But it also represents a risk to those who are largely insulated from such hardships. American exceptionalism, or the belief that our country’s benefits outweigh or even justify its flaws, is the perfect gateway to a far darker future of authoritarianism that has already begun.

As Thomas Pepinsky, a professor of government at Cornell University, wrote in 2017: “Everyday life in the modern authoritarian regime is, in this sense, boring and tolerable. It is not outrageous.” Authoritarian regimes – many of which the US’s Republican Party is increasingly emulating – have a vested interest in keeping some base standard of living for their constituents while consolidating power and capital in their own hands. What Yglesias’s point misses is that even if America’s problems worsen, it will still remain a decent place to live for many of its residents. This comfort doesn’t blind American exceptionalists to the country’s problems; Yglesias is certainly aware that they exist. Instead, exceptionalism does something more insidious: it convinces those who are insulated from the country’s worst problems that what the US provides for them is worth the price it takes from others.

At its worst, exceptionalism discourages people from seeking to change things. (This includes performative “centrists” who advocate for ineffective pragmatic incrementalism to protect their own impotent, exceptionalist seats of power) Dictators and authoritarians often provide social services at whatever level they think will keep people complacent, and all too often use examples to show that things could be worse. And the transition from a flawed-but-functioning free society to one in an authoritarian grasp can be subtle.

“Most Americans conceptualize a hypothetical end of American democracy in apocalyptic terms,” Pepinsky wrote in 2017. “But actually, you usually learn that you are no longer living in a democracy not because The Government Is Taking Away Your Rights, or passing laws that you oppose, or because there is a coup or a quisling. You know that you are no longer living in a democracy because the elections in which you are participating no longer can yield political change.”

In the past two months, a federal grand jury in Washington has issued subpoena requests to some officials in former president Donald Trump’s orbit who assisted in planning, funding and executing the Jan. 6 rally, said the people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.
The development shows the degree to which the Justice Department investigation — which already involves more defendants than any other criminal prosecution in the nation’s history — has moved further beyond the storming of the Capitol to examine events preceding the attack.

One subpoena cited by the Times reportedly sought information on those “classified as VIP attendees” of the rally. It also reportedly inquired about any figures in the Executive or Legislative Branches who took part in “planning or execution of any rally or any attempt to obstruct, influence, impede or delay” the certification of election results.

The Times specifically pointed to a grand jury sitting in Washington, D.C., which has issued subpoenas seeking information “about the effort by Trump supporters to put forward alternate slates of electors as Mr. Trump and his allies were seeking to challenge the certification of the Electoral College outcome by Congress on Jan. 6.”