John Robson: Canada Should Foster Its Legacy of Liberty

A biometric imaging device that forms part of a digital passport prototype in Berlin, on Aug. 1, 2023. Annegret Hilse/Reuters

Commentary

My country ‘tis of thee, sweet land of liberty… No, sorry. That’s an American song. Our version’s about socialized medicine or something, isn’t it? Actually no. It’s about the “True North Strong and Free” and, to be inclusive but militantly anti-woke, that bit in the original French: “ton bras sait porter l’épée/ Il sait porter la croix!” But the demand that we show our papers on demand may require some new lyrics.

It seems that in confidential surveys, the Immigration Department is asking whether it’s OK if we become Russia or something. Of course they don’t phrase it like that. Or at all if possible. As Blacklock’s Reporter says, the “Passport Client Experience Survey” asked, “How comfortable would you be sharing a secure digital version of the passport within Canada as an identity document?” But, the story continues, “There was no explanation. The Department of Immigration would not comment.”

I’ll bet. Remember that old slogan, “Question authority… before it questions you?” But in modern or postmodern Canada, it’s not for us to hold the state accountable. Quite the reverse.

Following Trump’s tariff threats, ham-handed annexation jokes, and general “America First in a china shop” rampage, our post-national politicians are suddenly trying to wrap themselves in the flag they shredded. But they’re struggling to find any positive reasons to love our country. And they’re not even considering our legacy of liberty.

Nowadays you don’t just sound corny, you sound like you wandered unwittingly across the border, if you declare in ringing tones that it was the glory of the Anglosphere that the state could not demand to see your papers. But it was.

At the climax of his 1835 trial for libelling Nova Scotia colonial authorities, then-publisher Joseph Howe urged jurors to “annul” the existing law that truth was no defence with an unabashed, “Will you permit the sacred fire of liberty, brought by your fathers from the venerable temples of Britain, to be quenched and trodden out on the simple altars they have raised?”

Back then a jury of free men said no and acquitted him. Today the authorities have other plans.

Persistent ones. The show-us-your-papers idea was floated in 2003 by then-Immigration Minister Denis Coderre, saying, “While the new focus on a positive proof of identity is partially rooted in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks, other forces are at play” including identity theft, and “A national ID card is simply a tool that permits the bearer to prove with a high degree of certainty that they are who they are.”

Simply. Unless someone forges yours. But the Commons immigration committee balked on deeper grounds: “The committee was warned many times about the prospect of the police being able to stop people on the street and demand proof of their identity.”

Back then, citizens and even MPs found something viscerally troubling about compulsory identity papers, something un-Canadian. Today it’s not clear what is un-Canadian other than being American, including that freedom thing.

Thus, when Justin Trudeau sought to demonstrate love of country by cancelling Canadian interviews and going on the U.S. circuit, he really did say: “Canadians are incredibly proud of being Canadian. One of the ways we define ourself most easily is, well, we’re not American.”

Not exactly the mystic chords of memory, is it? One cannot imagine an American trying to fake patriotism with, “Well, we’re not Belgian.” Indeed, when Barack Obama in 2009 incautiously blurted out, “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism,” it was widely cited as showing that he did not, in fact, love his country in a truly American city-on-a-hill way. Not to be rude, but if the United States is just one more chauvinistic mediocrity, the whole project has failed.

In a sad way it’s also true of Canada. Founded to be even more free than the Americans, we now shuffle about showing policemen vaccination documents, identity papers, or whatever.

Back in 2003, the Privacy Commissioner warned of the administrative complexity of Coderre’s proposal, a consideration to give those in charge pause on account of their manifest government-wide IT ineptitude if they were given to humility even on technical questions. But, he added, “There would also be costs to Canadians’ privacy rights and the relationship between Canadians and the state.”

Yeah? Well, that was then. Forget humility on high. Post-COVID and post-national, our relationship to the state is one of supplicant to overlord, apparently. The fundamental objection to identity papers is they undermine the old-tyme presumption of innocence.

It used to be for the state to show us some legitimate reason for thinking we were up to something before they could rifle our pockets. Not anymore.

My country ‘tis of thee, soft land of tyranny…

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.