I live near the border between Canada and the United States, south of Montreal, a few steps from Roxham path. For the past few weeks, my calm neighborhood has become a militarized area.
Posted at 9:00 a.m.
Denis Bouchard Retired linguistics teacher, hemmingford
I was incredible to be born in Canada, a country of law, prosperous, in peace. I am one of the few men of my generation on this planet who did not have to fight in a war, or to train to kill people during a military service.
I was born in Hemmingford. If I was born 7 miles further south, I would have tried to force me to roll out in the army and to go to kill Viet Congs, with whom I have no quarrel.
I knew the nonchalance of the 1950s and 1960s, where I crossed the border on my big bike with friends, cuckoo with my hand to customs officials.
But during the last quarter of a century, the border gradually stretched, became inamicial, with its customs officials who await you the revolver on the belt. And suddenly, very recently, the border has become a militarized area.
Military helicopters regularly fly over our properties. Drones episize our gestures. Surveillance cameras are installed at the end of our paths. All-terrain vehicles patrol at the border as if we were at high risk of being invaded. The Royal Canada Gendarmerie (RCMP) distributed a leaflet to the border residents, inviting us to denounce “all suspicious people or situations”.
Criminals
By extending the application of the agreement to the third party safe countries (by “closing Roxham”), we pushed migrants to hide in the woods, and now, they are treated as criminals because they are hidden in the woods. They are put on the same footing as real criminals, such as smugglers and arms traffickers.
-Photo Spencer Colby, Canadian Press Archives
Black Hawk Hawk Helicopter landing at Lansdowne, Ontario, February in February
It is made that we wonder what gestures we can do without getting into trouble. If I give someone a glass of water, if I allow them to warm up at home for a few minutes, do I risk being prosecuted? How bad in point should the person be “forgiven” my gesture? Is not denouncing the person a crime?
Is this now that, my country? A militarized area? Calls for denunciation? Do you realize the kind of country in which we are plunged in spite of ourselves?
All this because of a president who asked our government, for reasons that everyone knows false.
I refuse to be rooted in military maneuvers by letting pass at low altitude above my property of the military helicopters as if it was now the new normality.
I refuse to be pushed for denunciation.
And I refuse to make me an accomplice of the misfortune of these poor people who had the bad luck to be born in a dangerous environment.
Canadian leaders of all political allegiances, get up! Show up to your country. Denounce this militarization of the border for what it is: a masquerade to give the impression that we do something. Leave this kind of reality TV to its follower overseas.What do you think? Take part in the dialogue
