My SNA Visible Minorities column 65: “Letter from Canada”, where a country weirdly threatened by its southern neighbor, including racist/secessionist merchandise from FBI Director Kash Patel, is somehow taking it all in stride (April 1, 2025, and it’s not an April Fools’ article)
Excerpt: According to the CBC, support for Canada becoming part of the US is highest in Alberta, at 15 percent surveyed, as opposed to nine percent nationwide. That’s why MAGAts target Alberta for annexation. They’ve worked with Canadian separatists for quite some time, with regular networking and megaphoning on social media. But they’ve also been involved in secession rehearsals. In 2022, a monthlong Canadian “Freedom Convoy” of truckers protesting Covid mandates set up blockades across Canada and obnoxiously occupied the center of Ottawa. The Convoy turned out to be more than half funded by American donors. The Canadian government also seized an arsenal near the an Alberta-Montana border crossing that was set up by an Albertan militia “supportive of a war with police.”
But now it’s gone beyond funding into actively fomenting.
Shortly after I arrived in Canada, I found in my Twitter feed advertisements for an online store called “Based Apparel” (in Canada, https://thebasedco.com) offering T-shirts and other xenophobic merch.
This includes an American flag in the shape of Alberta entitled “Alberta, USA.” MCGA/MAGA caps with the Canadian maple leaf overlaid with the American flag. A US flag with a maple leaf in the blue field next to a slogan of “US-EH” (a pun on “USA” with the stereotypical Canadian “eh” sentence ending). Coffee cups saying “Singh Horton’s” instead of “Tim Horton’s,” implying they’re no longer a Canadian institution because Sikhs run franchises. Or if that’s not racist enough, you can get shirts with parody Community Chest “Go Directly to Jail” Monopoly game cards showing a cop dragging a Sikh saying, “Do not pass go, do not collect pension.” A meme from the “Oregon Trail” video game shows a covered wagon with the caption, “You have died of diversity” (as opposed to “dysentery”). Or you can just settle for a less subtle T-shirt depicting an American eagle f**king a Canada goose. (Screen captures of all merchandise in the blog entry.)
Who owns Based Apparel? Kash Patel, the current Director of the FBI. An official at the highest levels of American government, in charge of federal police investigations, is directly profiting from sowing secession in another country.