“Canadian truckers: Ottawa police arresting demonstrators, clearing out streets. Ottawa police announced Friday that some protesters 'are being arrested' during an operation to clear out those who have been demonstrating. ... There is a large police presence on Nicholas Street, protesters are being advised to leave immediately. Some protesters are surrendering and are being arrested, 'You will face severe penalties if you do not cease further unlawful activity,' Police tweeted.” (Fox News, 2/18.)
“It is with deep sorrow that I learned today of the death of Cuba’s longest serving President. Fidel Castro was a larger than life leader who served his people for almost half a century. A legendary revolutionary and orator, Mr. Castro made significant improvements to the education and healthcare of his island nation," said Justin Trudeau in 2016. “I know my father was very proud to call him a friend and I had the opportunity to meet Fidel when my father passed away. It was also a real honour to meet his three sons and his brother President Raúl Castro during my recent visit to Cuba. On behalf of all Canadians, Sophie and I offer our deepest condolences to the family, friends and many, many supporters of Mr. Castro. We join the people of Cuba today in mourning the loss of this remarkable leader.”
Fair enough, so here’s a few remarks regarding Fidel Castro’s leadership:
Fidel Castro jailed and tortured political prisoners at a higher rate than Stalin during the Great Terror. He murdered more Cubans in his first three years in power than Hitler murdered Germans during his first six.
Fidel Castro shattered — through mass-executions, mass-jailings, mass larceny and exile — virtually every family on the island of Cuba. Many opponents of the Castro regime qualify as the longest-suffering political prisoners in modern history, having suffered prison camps, forced labor and torture chambers for a period three times as long in Fidel Castro’s Gulag as Alexander Solzhenitsyn suffered in Stalin’s Gulag.
Fidel Castro also came closest of anyone in history to (wantonly) starting a worldwide nuclear war.
In the above process, Fidel Castro converted a highly-civilized nation with a higher standard of living than much of Europe and swamped with immigrants into a slum/sewer ravaged by tropical diseases and with the highest suicide rate in the Western hemisphere.
Over 20 times as many people (and counting) have died trying to escape Castro’s Cuba as died trying to escape East Germany. Yet prior to Castroism, Cuba received more immigrants per-capita than almost any nation on earth—more than the U.S. did including the Ellis Island years, in fact.
Canada has long ranked as the top source of Cuba’s tourists. Millions of Canadians (including perhaps many truckers) have been lavishing the Castro-Crime-Family with millions upon millions of their loonies for decades now. In fact, for the past decade over 1 million Canadians have vacationed annually in the Castro –Family-Fiefdom. In brief, Canadians have done more than any other nation save the Soviet Union and Venezuela to subsidize the mass-murder and repression catalogued above. And the hypocrisy of Canadian governments (both Liberal and Conservative) regarding Cuba and sanctions is truly staggering. To wit:
“We emphasize the importance of maintaining sanctions. Sanctions were imposed to help us end the apartheid system. It is only logical that we must continue to apply this form of pressure against the South African government.” That was Nelson Mandela addressing (and thanking) the Canadian Parliament in June 1990 for imposing, and championing in every international forum, economic sanctions against South Africa.
Yet for over 50 years Canada has been among the Stalinist Castro regime’s most generous business partners. For the past 50 years, every Canadian administration from whatever point on the political compass, has consistently bashed the U.S. for its “cruel and counter-productive” Cuba policy while joining the rest of the world’s hypocrites in voting against these U.S. sanctions.
On top of the Canadian tourism windfall, Castro’s Stalinist regime has found some of its most enthusiastic partners in crime among Canadian companies. In a joint-venture with Cuba’s Stalinist regime, for instance, Canada’s Sherritt International occupies and operates the Moa nickel mining plant in Cuba’s Oriente province, stolen at Soviet gunpoint from its U.S. managers and stockholders in July 1960 (when it was worth $90 million.)
But Sherritt’s criminality hardly stops as a trafficker in stolen property, and hence, accessory to theft. Sherritt’s workers are chosen and assigned by the Cuban regime who sets their wages and dictates the payment schedule. After Sherritt pays these wages (not to the workers, but to the Stalinist regime) the latter dribbles .5 percent of the total to the workers, pocketing the rest. (As dreadful as they make life for their subjects, the Red Chinese and Red Vietnamese regimes dictate nothing of the sort when hosting western companies as business partners.)
By the way, prior to the glorious Cuban revolution, Moa nickel plant’s workers enjoyed the 8th highest industrial wages — not in the hemisphere — but in the world, higher than those in Britain, France and Germany. And these wages were paid in Cuban dollars, convertible, in those dark and dreadful ages, one to one with the U.S. dollar.