Blackcap Blog

Published at 08:01 on 8 March 2025

Or, “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” versus “peace, order, and good government.”

At least, that’s the dichotomy as it is commonly presented on both sides of the border. Or, should I say, it is so far as Americans are even aware of the second quoted phrase above, and most are not. It is a dichotomy that I disagree with. While it is possible to pick and choose examples that fall into that narrative, one does not have to try very hard to find counterexamples to it.

Zoning and Land Use Planning

I live in a neighbourhood of the sort that simply does not exist in most US West Coast cities. The sole exception is San Francisco, which is old enough to predate most planning and zoning laws. My neighbourhood does not predate such laws, yet it has a form more typical of neighbourhoods that predate such laws in the USA.

First, the lot sizes are a lot smaller. In the USA, supposed land of individual freedom and property rights, there was a government agency (the FHA) handing down dictates from above regarding, amongst other things, minimum lot size. Properties in nonconforming neighbourhoods would be not be eligible for government-underwritten mortgages, so not surprisingly, municipalities and developers caved to the demands. In Canada, supposed land of submission to good government, the Federal government was largely silent. The market dictated lot sizes, and since there was a market for 3500 square foot lots, such lots were platted and sold.

Second, a lot of the people who first settled here were immigrants from southern Europe. They were not wealthy. They could only just barely afford homes, and many of them couldn’t afford homes on their own; they could only afford them if they split their housing cost with some tenants. So they did just that. Now, this was against the law, these areas being at the time zoned for single family use. But then a curious thing happened: the City of Vancouver blanched at enforcing the law. These were people’s homes after all. These were individuals with property rights choosing to do what they wanted with their property. Is this the sort people we are, to come down with the mailed fist of authority onto individuals pursuing their own dreams with their own homes in their own way? So East Vancouver ended up becoming neighbourhood after neighbourhood of mainly duplexes. Eventually the city acknowledged reality and legalized such uses.

Americans have tried to do this, too. Sometimes it flies, but usually it doesn’t end so well. Neighbours notice other neighbours have too many cars parked in front, or have too many people entering and exiting, some routinely using the exterior entrance to the basement. A zoning violation gets reported. And the city usually comes down hard on such things. We have neighbourhood standards to enforce after all. Conform to the norm or suffer the consequences.

Policing

Independent police oversight, in which a third party investigates accusations of unlawful behaviour by law enforcement officers, is the norm in Canada and many other First World democracies. It is the exception to the norm in the USA, where police departments are generally trusted to police themselves. How this can be squared with Canadians having faith in government and Americans questioning authority is simply beyond me.

Incarceration

No nation locks up as many people as does the USA, either per capita or in absolute numbers. Not even China. Not even Russia. Not even Cuba. My guess is that North Korea should probably be number one on that list, but accurate data is sort of hard to come by when it comes to the Hermit Kingdom. Still, if your standards for a core human rights measure are “well, at least we’re better than North Korea,” let me suggest that your standards define the bottom of the barrel. Again, how this can be squared with Canadians being the ones more accepting of authority and submission to it is simply beyond me.

Prohibition

This one’s a little murkier. Both the USA and Canada went on an ill-fated experiment to micromanage which substances adults may or may not imbibe, and it went poorly in both countries. The difference is that when it started going poorly in Canada, it got repealed. Because of course it did: it was just like the illegal duplexes of which I wrote earlier. Do we really want to be in the business of policing what private citizens want to drink in their own homes? Is that the sort of society we are?

The USA doubled down. Respect authority! Obey! Time for a new, powerful, Federal police agency! Only after the doubling-down failed, and a Great Depression made people realize that a legal, profitable, alcoholic beverages industry might prove to be something of an economic shot in the arm, did the failed experiment finally end. In the meantime, Americans acquired a taste for Canadian whisky which led to one of Canada’s more profitable export industries.

On cannabis, some US states such as Colorado and Washington beat Canada to the game at legalization. Sort of. It’s still illegal on the Federal level, so what we have is a legal gray area where cannabis is illegal under Federal law but legal under State law, so the state and local cops won’t enforce what is a Federal matter. Plus it’s an all-cash business; banks are Federally regulated and don’t want to have anything to do with it.

Canada took its time (and many Canadians were embarrassed that it took so long), but cannabis is now completely legal here. Pot shops take credit and debit cards, because of course they do, that makes life easier for your customers and the banks have no qualms about serving just another legal business.

One area that fits the popular narrative is that no province pushed the envelope the way any US state did and tried to legalize cannabis before the Federal government was ready.

Narcotics

Canada trusts me, as a responsible adult, to go to my local pharmacy and purchase narcotics over the counter. No, they are not very strong narcotics. Yes, I do have to go and ask the pharmacist for them. Yes, he does ask to see my ID, and does record my purchase, so if I become addicted, it will be evident to the authorities. But I still can do it. Not in the so-called land of the free.

The Draft

Canada has been very reluctant to conscript people into its military against their will. Doing so during World War I triggered rioting and a political crisis. It was the USA that drafted young men to go fight in Vietnam against their will, and it was to Canada that many of these men fled for sake of their individual liberty. It is hard to think of any greater violation of liberty than to force an individual into servitude, yet the USA did just that.

Slavery

And not just during the Vietnam War. For decades, enslaved Black Americans fled north to freedom via the Underground Railroad. It’s not so well known in the USA, but Canada had slavery at one time, too. It just wasn’t so economically important on this side of the border, and quickly ran into adverse court decisions (there was a famous one in what is now Quebec that proclaimed that while slavery was legal, there was no law against a slave running away from their master). It was the so-called land of the free that for decades made peace with slavery and rationalized it because it was economically profitable.

LGBTQ Rights

Sex between consenting adults became fully legal nationwide in Canada in 1969. It took until 2003 for the USA to get to the same place (via a court decision that could be reversed at any time now). Canada also beat the USA when it came to legalizing same-sex marriage (which again is the law of the land in the USA by virtue of a court decision that could be reversed any time now).

And Finally, the Elephant

You know, the decline in liberty accompanying the transition to fascism that most Americans apparently seem just fine with. And sorry, I don’t know any other honest way to interpret those poll results. If Party A is advocating fascism, and Party B is advocating something squarely within the bounds of small-l, small-d liberal democracy, and the overall public takeaway that Party A is approximately where it ought to be and Party B is too far left, well, it seems obvious to me.

But You’re Cherry-Picking!

Sure, there’s things that fit the narrative (I even pointed one out above). But come on now, the last few months should conclusively prove beyond doubt that something is rotten in the supposed Land of the Free and Home of the Brave. Some of us have been sensing the rot for some time.

I suggest it’s merely a commonly-believed narrative, and not any sort of accurate summary of actual political attitudes. The land of “peace, order, and good government” is quite often also the land of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” and such it has long been.

Published at 11:32 on 11 September 2022

Yes, Monarchy is Silly and Old-Fashioned

Really, no disagreement there. If this move to Canada ends, as hoped, with my getting citizenship, I will probably become active in the republican movement.

Have Some Sympathy and Respect

I know a number of people who are monarchists, and being disrespectful during the time they are feeling a sense of loss won’t help you convince them of the merits of the republican position. Plus, have some respect for the members of the Royal Family who just lost their mother. They are still human, and still feeling a sense of loss. As someone who recently lost his own mother, I understand.

Have Some Perspective

First, while the British (and Canadian) monarchy is silly, it is also pretty harmless. I didn’t fear Elizabeth II would do anything to endanger my basic freedoms in an open society, and I don’t fear that Charles III will, either. Compare and contrast with ex-president Trump and the fascist and fascism-friendly followers and enablers has in the USA. Can we please spend our time worrying about actual serious threats to liberty?

Second, Elizabeth II didn’t have much to do with imperialism. Yes, some of her predecessors did, but the second Elizabethan era was one of decolonization. Moreover, Elizabeth II was a constitutional monarch. Unlike in earlier eras, the sovereign does not play a part in British politics. Any lingering imperialism during the second Elizabethan area has been the work of politicians, not the Queen.

Published at 11:30 on 18 February 2022

The crackdown is in process, and perhaps “crackdown” is something of an exaggeration, since so far I haven’t heard any stories of heads being cracked. Arrests, yes, but they were only to be expected.

It was, after all, a protest that chose to use illegal tactics. Camping on a public street is not allowed in most all cities. And pretty much every place has parking regulations that do not let you store a vehicle on a downtown street indefinitely. Not to mention that parking your vehicle in the middle of a traffic lane and blocking traffic is unlawful even on the most minor of side streets.

Now, protesters commonly choose to use illegal tactics. The reason is rather simple: such tactics are an effective way of attracting attention, and attracting attention is the chief motive for any protest. I have myself been part of such protests, and helped in the planning of them, including the choice of illegal tactics.

The rub is that illegal tactics are still illegal and as such those who choose to use such tactics should expect legal repercussions. It is up to you as a protest participant, and particularly as an organizer, to decide whether or not the likely consequences of the repercussions are a price worth paying for the increased attention. Perhaps more importantly, it is also your responsibility to reflect on how your chosen tactics adversely impact others, and whether it is reasonable for you to exact such an impact on others. And, guess what, the protest planning I have participated in did quite openly ponder all these issues.

When the crackdown comes, it makes for good propaganda as an organizer to then adopt a “those jack-booted thugs are oppressing us” line when the inevitable repercussions materialize, but that’s just propaganda. It is not actual fascism if a deliberately illegal protest gets dismantled by the authorities. As much as you might passionately agree with the cause of the protesters, it is important to keep this in mind.

All that said, never was I part of a protest where the plans were to occupy a downtown core and to expect to be allowed to do so for weeks on end. All of the illegal protests I helped plan got broken up within six hours of their onset. There has definitely been a different standard applied for these protests.

What sticks out, therefore, is not the use of force on the part of the authorities to end the protest, but how reluctant the authorities were to use such force in the first place.

This is, in fact, part of the reason behind the national state of emergency. It would not have been necessary if action had been taken earlier, before the occupations had gotten so large and so entrenched. (None of the protests I helped organize resulted in even a local emergency declaration.) This, and not the mere use of the police to disband an unlawful protest, is the real scandal behind the invocation of the Emergencies Act.

But I have digressed from my original point. So far, so good. I have heard no reports of violence. I hope it stays that way as the rest of the protest is ended. Whether or not it will is an open question, as so far the police have merely nibbled at the edges of the occupation. Things may well change if they encounter a core of more passionate and committed occupiers.

Published at 22:00 on 17 February 2022

All the warnings, that is. Not to mention the open announcement to the media that an operation is “imminent” and that things will be different by this weekend. The authorities don’t seem too keen on creating and exploiting the advantage of surprise. Maybe that will work, but I fear it will just cause more digging in and resistance, which will just make violence more likely.

Published at 08:56 on 14 February 2022

Is This Just for Show?

If so, if the state of emergency is just more “go away or else, I really, really mean it this time,” is is but a prelude to tragedy, because it just digs an already deep hole deeper, further constraining the immediate future to capitulation to the occupation or using violence to end it.

Will Trudeau Abuse His Powers?

If so, the result will be a tragedy for the principles of an open and democratic society, and not just in the immediate term, for it will create a source of lasting division by giving the political right a legitimate narrative of having been oppressed.

Published at 20:25 on 12 February 2022

Before I continue, a word of explanation is in order. I almost did not choose this title, because: a) 90% of Canadian truckers are fully vaccinated, and only a tiny fraction of them are illegally occupying downtowns and border crossings, and b) most currently participating in the occupations do not appear to be truckers.

Yet the protests did start as a truckers’ convoy, before they morphed into something else. That begs the question asked by the title above.

You see, if I were to pick a group of working class people adversely affected by the pandemic, it would have to be workers employed in the hospitality, travel, and live entertainment industries. Those industries suffered almost total shutdowns.

One working class group that it would definitely not be would be truckers. Trucking is a vital service; as truckers are fond of pointing out, whatever you buy in a store, at some point it travelled by truck. While restaurants, hotels, airlines, and live music venues were shut down, the trucks kept rolling.

In fact, if you type the phrase “shortage of truck drivers” into your favourite search engine, you will quickly discover any number of articles in reputable sources reporting just that. Basically, if you want to drive a truck, and you have the necessary training, and you are not banned for some reason related to safety, you have work. And your wages are going up, because that is how the law of supply and demand plays out during a labour shortage.

Truck drivers are, in short, about the last people one would rationally expect to be upset about hardship-inducing pandemic restrictions. Yet it was a truckers’ convoy, and not protests of upset restaurant, hotel, or airline workers, that inspired the occupations.

And, of course, the vaccinated and responsible majority of truck drivers are having no problem finding work and earning a living. It is the small and vocal minority, insisting (paraphrasing Isaac Asimov) that their ignorance be regarded as good as others’ knowledge, who are making all the noise.

But, again, why?

I have a theory and it relates to loners. Driving a truck is a great job for a loner because you will be alone behind the wheel most of the time. Now, not all loners are antisocial, but the vast majority of antisocial people are loners (they basically have to be, it gets them away from those other people they have such a disregard for).

So by simple virtue of the profession being a magnet for loners, being a truck driver is also a magnet for the antisocial, and the proportion of antisocial people amongst truck drivers can reasonably be expected to be higher than in society as a whole. This being the case, it is not a big surprise that within this industry a critical mass of selfish people formed. And they had tools at their disposal (their trucks) with which to use to express their contempt for the concept of being asked to consider the well-being of others.

Now we get into the mythology of the Trumpist right. (Despite being Canadians, it is completely fair to call them Trumpists. There has been no shortage of MAGA hats and Trump campaign flags at the occupations. But I digress.) They vocally proclaim themselves to be the majority, to be “true” Americans (or, in this case, Canadians), as if those with values different from theirs do not even deserve to be considered full citizens in their own country. No amount of data to the contrary will shake them of this belief.

Related to this, they believe themselves to be salt-of-the-earth, humble, regular, working-class type people, or at least that their movement is comprised of mainly such people. (This is also incorrect. The much-reported factoid of Trump voters tending to be less affluent is mostly an artifact of Trump voters being more rural, and rural incomes and property values trailing urban ones. Within rural communities, the affluent support Trump at higher rates than the non-affluent. Again I digress.)

But if facts were relevant to the beliefs of Trumpers, they wouldn’t believe most of what they do. Their myth requires them to be humble, genuine, “real” types, so that is what they are to themselves. A movement that got its start from a subset of truckers is therefore proclaimed to be a truckers’ movement, because believing it to be so is politically convenient.

It’s not because those poor truckers are having their livelihoods ruined by all those uncaring elites and city-dwellers. That is a right-wing myth, nothing more.

Published at 23:28 on 11 February 2022

If I were Trudeau, I would right now probably not be doing all that much differently, when it comes to publicly visible actions: simply making increasingly stern warnings that the occupations must end ASAP. Given that the worst occupations are in Ontario, I would probably try to get Doug Ford to issue a similar message. (Interestingly, Ford did exactly that today. I would not be surprised to later learn there was coordination behind the scenes.)

The one thing different I would do is I would not openly rule out the use of military force. Mind you, I would still try very hard to avoid it, but publicly I would be much more in “all options are open” mode. Something like “We would like very much to avoid using the military to end the occupations, but the occupations must end and we are willing to use whatever means are necessary to this end.”

The goal here is to instill a sense of uncertainty and fear amongst the occupiers, in order to encourage them to disperse. And definitely let them disperse, don’t make arrests as they walk away. Punishing people for doing what you want is not the way to get more of them to do it. Arrests can always be made and charges pressed later, after the occupation has dispersed.

Aside from that, though, openly I wouldn’t be doing much. Behind the scenes it would be a different story entirely. Plans would be being made and put into place to break the occupations up. The planning would be kept secret, with as little signs as possible of how concrete plans actually were, or what the time frame was. It is key to have the element of surprise.

So far as the time of day, sometime between midnight and dawn would be ideal. That is when most participants would be asleep and thus at their most vulnerable. Then come in aggressively but at the same time using non-lethal means only.

So far as the trucks go, they are not so easy to remove as those who drove them, but once the latter individuals have been removed, the trucks can be dealt with. Any motor vehicle can be hotwired, particularly if those doing the hotwiring are themselves the authorities and therefore do not have any reason to fear getting apprehended while doing so. Hotwiring is in fact not even necessary; give a manufacturer a VIN and you can often get a set of keys made. At that point, there are plenty of trucks in the military, and therefore plenty of military members trained in driving trucks. Drive them away.

So far as the time of week, early Monday morning would seem ideal. It would keep the story out of the weekend news for the longest. And I mean this Monday: the occupations have already gone on unacceptably long, and the occupiers are getting both physically and psychologically more entrenched with every passing day. Waiting another week would invite tragedy.

This would have to be a coordinated effort. Both the Ottawa and the Ambassador Bridge occupations would have to be broken up simultaneously. If they are not, the one not broken up first will have to be broken up later without so much benefit of surprise.

In other words, don’t be surprised if Monday morning dawns a big news day.

Published at 21:32 on 1 February 2022

What is it about those who write labels on bottles of household chemicals, anyhow? The recipes are always for ridiculous quantities. Honestly, how many people need 5 liters (or litres, if you prefer the Canadian/UK spelling) of cleaning solution?

So you just end up using the ratio, and that’s the point of this post. Quick, how many milliliters in a liter? So 60 ml per 1 l is a 6:100 or 1:16 ratio. And the other ratio is in the 1:20 to 1:40 range. Wow, that was simple, wasn’t it?

Isn’t that much better than cups per quart (quick, how many cups per quart?) or whatever it would be in the USA? Aren’t all those 10’s, 100’s, and 1000’s easier to deal with than a hodgepodge of 2’s, 3’s, 4’s, and 16’s?

I sure think so.

Published at 19:01 on 14 January 2022

I have a performance review coming up at work next month.

To say I am pessimistic would be putting it mildly.

The root cause of the matter is that never have been hired at a position where I was expected to learn more, yet at the same time never have I been hired where management does less in the way of technical onboarding. I’ve basically been left to fend for myself while being expected to decipher terse assignments relayed in cryptic shop-specific jargon. And it tends to be like pulling teeth to get anyone to meet with me and explain what it is I am expected to do. Then, when I fail to deliver on a time frame commensurate with extensive in-company experience (surprise, surprise), the sense of disappointment is almost palpable.

Every other place I’ve been hired, there was much more onboarding for much less new position-specific knowledge. I’m at a loss to understand just what they expected to happen, given the general parameters of the situation they created for me. My best current theory is one of conflicting objectives: higher-ups wanting growth while my immediate manager is satisfied with the existing size and composition of his team. Result is an immediate manager under pressure to hire even though he does not want to. Solution is to hire someone but then engineer failure.

Now the question is what, if anything, I can do or say to prevent the coming performance review from being the corporate analogue of a Stalinist show trial with a pre-decided outcome.

That, and what this all will do for my current status in Canada under a temporary work permit.

Published at 19:18 on 30 November 2021

So, at midnight local time this morning, Barbados became a republic.

If you are in the USA, you are probably unaware of this fact. If you are in Canada, you can’t escape it. The news media are covering this story over and over and over again. It started a few days before the transition, and continues today, on Barbados’ first day as a republic.

This is obviously quite telling, as though there is presently no serious effort to get rid of the monarchy in Canada, the remarkable degree of coverage of what is an aspect of the internal affairs of a tiny island nation shows that many Canadians are obviously thinking about it on some level.