The winters of my youth in Cleveland were not spent solely watching Hockey Night in Canada from the CBC signal across the pond from London.There were other distractions during those incredibly cold and snowy winters of the 1970s. When Lake Erie froze — froze solid — dozens of Ohioans would attempt the famous “walk to Canada.”
It was a different world and a different US Coast Guard back then. Even though the local Guard would officially discourage walkers, they would give ice depth measurements that would ensure the walkers would have their best and safest chance.
Nowadays, such walkers on either side might be regarded as potential terrorists first, rather than slightly foolish people with nothing better to do in subzero weather.
Indicative of how militarized the United States is getting, the Toronto Star recently ran an article saying the USCG would now regularly arm their cutters with .30-calibre machine guns.
These are the kind of machine guns that are most useful against small craft. Apparently the USCG believes that terrorists will set sail from the Canadian side in an assortment of sailing craft, cabin cruisers and dinghies.
All of this despite strong protests from Canadians, including Toronto Mayor David Miller, that the arming of Coast Guard vessels violates a treaty dating from the War of 1812.
Note to Canadian officials: try not to remind the Americans of the War of 1812. We’ve done such a great job purging all the battles we lost in Canada in that conflict that schoolchildren assume that the entire war was won at the Battle of New Orleans.
Miller, noting that the Great Lakes are part of the world’s longest undefended border, told the Star “to allow the Coast Guard to re-arm is a very backwards step and a very concerning one. . . It’s quite clear there are not floods of terrorists coming over the border from Canada to the United States.”
The USCG said it wanted to establish 34 permanent zones in the Great Lakes where crew members would fire at floating targets, ostensibly to protect the Homeland from Canadian fishing trawlers.
Unsaid from the American side is that such armed boats might also be useful for keeping Americans of various sorts from leaving the U.S. for Canada — sometime in a not-so-rosy future.
People like Spc. Darrell Anderson, 24, for instance. Anderson, who went AWOL from the U.S. Army to avoid a second tour in Iraq, recently returned to the United States from Canada.
According to the Associated Press, Anderson had been living in the Toronto area where he became a highly visible war critic and spokesman for Canadian peace groups. But when his application for Canadian refugee status was filed too late, he could not get a government work permit.
Unsure of his future in Canada, he decided to return to Kentucky and accept whatever punishment the Army imposes. Right now, probably mindful of public relations, the Army seems inclined to let him go quietly. We’ll see.
But comes the day when smart border measures, whatever they may entail, filter out anyone who might be fleeing service either voluntary or compulsory, the Great Lakes may be the next frontier to police with a heavier hand. All it takes are boats and the indefatigable American will that imagines a wall across the Mexican border is feasible.
I expect little protest of armed Coast Guard cutters from Stephen Harper, who, according to Murray Dobbin, seems to be enamoured of a military revanche dressed in red and white and beholden to both America’s military and Canada’s business élites and their ties to the U.S.
It’s getting almost trite to say I no longer recognize my country but I get the sense that Canadians are beginning to feel the same sense of public life moving into a dark area previously covered by pulp science fiction novels.
Armed boats, armed borders, suspicion and paranoia are beginning to rule the day and the collective consciousness. Whether U.S. elections in 2006 or ’08 or the next national election, whenever it occurs, in Canada, mark either a turning point to sanity or a pitching down irretrievably into a dark pit of despair, I cannot say.
But the next time I’m in one of my favourite lakeside perches watching the sun set on Lake Erie, I’ll be wondering if the ship of sanity has already sailed.
Weighed down with machine guns.
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