Nebula 1976

I am a Free Canadian. For now. I grew up believing freedom was the default setting. Canadians didn't need permission to speak their minds. Privacy wasn't something you applied for. Citizens questioned government, not the other way around. Maybe that sounds old-fashioned now. I don't care. I am a Skeptical Canadian. When politicians tell me a new power is only for my protection, I read the fine print. When they tell me it's for the children, I ask who will inherit the precedent. When they tell me only bad people should worry, I remember that every right we possess was created to protect ordinary people from powerful ones. My ancestors didn't cross oceans so their descendants could ask permission to speak freely online. Nobody stormed beaches, froze in trenches, or built this country from muskeg and rock so future Canadians could be told which opinions are safe enough to share. I am a Vigilant Canadian. I come from the kind of country where neighbours pull strangers out of snowbanks, where farmers stop their tractors to help a motorist change a tire, and where people apologize when someone else bumps into them. Yet somehow we're expected to believe Canadians cannot be trusted with freedom unless somebody in Ottawa supervises it. I don't want government deciding what ideas deserve promotion. I don't want bureaucrats deciding what opinions require supervision. I don't want privacy traded away one "reasonable" compromise at a time. And I sure as hell don't want my children growing up believing freedom is whatever remains after regulators finish editing it. I am a Stubborn Canadian. My country was built by people who crossed oceans, survived winters, broke land, built railways, fought wars, and buried friends. Not so future generations could quietly surrender their liberties because questioning authority became unfashionable or that blind allegiance is normal. I am an Informed Canadian. Which means I understand the oldest trick in politics. Nobody arrives at the front door and announces they are here to take your freedom. They arrive carrying safety, protection, security, and good intentions. Freedom departs, hidden inside the packaging. No freedom disappears all at once. It vanishes piece by piece. One exception. One permission. One restriction. One "temporary" measure that somehow never leaves. Until one day people wake up and realize they still have all the responsibilities of free citizens and fewer of the rights. I am a Free Canadian. Not because government allows it. Not because a regulator approves it. Not because a bureaucrat signs a form. I am free because generations before me insisted on it. And if that little phrase ever disappears from our vocabulary, it will not be because Canadians failed to notice. It will be because Canadians forgot who they were. I haven't forgotten. And I have no intention of starting now. Because the rights I inherited are not mine to surrender. They are mine to protect. And someday I intend to hand them, intact, to the Canadians who come after me. I haven't forgotten. And neither should you. Melanie