Let me to declare at the outset that I am NOT anti-American nor, needless to say, anti-Canadian; what I m against is hypocrisy.

I’ve always lived within a few kms of the American border. Like thousands of Canadians I have American connections my maternal grandfather was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. We speak the same language (sort of) except, of course, unilingual Quebeckers and Acadiens. We drive the same cars (Nissans, Toyotas and Hondas), play the same games and each of us is the other s best customer.

Both countries profess to be democracies though that s more on paper than in practice. In Canada the Prime Minister, because the system demands ironclad party discipline, has arrogated all the power unto himself subject to periodic elections. Ditto the US President where over the years he’s been able, under his title of Commander-in-Chief, take unto himself powers that Congress has under the Constitution such as the right to make war.

Let s talk about hypocrisy. The USA, of all countries, is prepared to cram peace down any bloodthirsty throat. In fact it is one of the most violent countries in the world past and today. They made their country by fighting Indians, then making treaties, breaking them while killing a huge percentage off. One of America s great presidents was Andrew Jackson who saw Indian nations as standing in the way of white settlers (perceptive man, our Andrew); especially troublesome were the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chicasaw and Seminole nations. Jackson fought three wars against them and those he didn’t kill he transplanted to areas foreign to them.

Since The Monroe Doctrine of 1823 America has seen all of its southern neighbours as near suzerainties. As a Mexican president, Porfirio Diaz, said Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States.

Let s look at America abroad.

Franklin Roosevelt typified US attitudes when, on being told that President Trujillo of the Dominican Republic was an evil man said he may be a son-of-a-bitch but at least he s our son-of-a-bitch. The Spanish-American War, concocted by publisher William Randolph Hearst, and periodic US visits to Mexico, Central America, Caribbean islands never forgetting the Philippines all tend to establish the United States as masters of gunboat diplomacy.

The story continues to Viet Nam and Iraq where one of the stated reasons for intervention was to spread the benefits of democracy.

The bloody American Civil War adds civil liberties to the US bloodthirstiness.

The All men are created equal phrase of the US Declaration did not include blacks, except for the purposes of the Census they were counted as 3/5 of a man! The Civil War mainly replaced slavery with a sharecropper system that in effect was the same. Blacks are still fighting for rights

Canada doesn’t have the same bloodthirsty tradition, having fought no wars for territory and until very recently having been seen as a peace keeper rather than peace makers .

Like the US, Canada has an iffy at best record on civil rights. In my own province, British Columbia, in 1942 we rounded up nearly 25,000 people of Japanese descent and shipped them to camps in the interior of the province. We confiscated all their property and sold it at 10 cents on the dollar, the receipts of paid for the internee s imprisonment costs. (The US did the same.) This even though the head of the Royal Canadian Police said that these people posed no risk.

Natives and those of Oriental extraction were not given the vote until 1949. Hitherto banned from the professions Douglas Jung broke the bar as the first Chinese Canadian lawyer in 1954.

With all this, America major and America minor have the gall to preach democracy and civil rights to others. Let’s look at how these countries apply their own constitutions.

Under the Canadian Charter of Rights everyone has the fundamental freedom of:

(2) (b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;

(c) freedom of peaceful assembly;

Under the US Bill of Rights Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech or the right of the people peaceably to assemble.

Now both countries have negated, without any constitutional change, the right to demonstrate, forcing protesters far away from those protested against. The US now has 1st Amendment protest areas so that no visiting signatory can be embarrassed by a sign or heckle that would wound his dignity.

In 1997 Vancouver hosted the APEC conference which was attended by some pretty awful dictators. One student was arrested 3 days before the cavalcade and only released on his promise not to exercise his constitutional right to protest. A young law student held up a cloth sign saying Free Speech Democracy whereupon three policemen threw him down, handcuffed him behind his back then tossed him physically into the police car. Many protesters were pepper strayed. Throughout this entire protest there was no suggestion of violence.

Next February Vancouver/Whistler will host the Winter Olympics and one BILLION dollars will be spent to make sure no protester gets anywhere near any of the parades; instead there will be an area set aside, far from the TV cameras, where they can chant and hold up signs. Some constitutional right!

Looking at attempted and successful assassinations you will note that not one came out of a protest. Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, Kennedy, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Archduke Ferdinand, Bobby Kennedy, attempts on the lives of both Roosevelts, Harry Truman and Ronald Reagan were all by an assassin.

The enormous sums spent have nothing to do with security and everything to do from keeping away from the cameras embarrassing scenes of chanting and sign waving which shows that not everyone approved of the event or some of the signatories.

Perhaps both constitutions should be amended to allow freedom of assembly and speech EXCEPT where it might embarrass a politician.