In the 1990s I decided to start a website based on my pride and the pride others shared with me to be Canadian.
This site started way before most other sites, or even blogs (Facebook wasn’t even a figment in Mark Zuckerberg’s puberty-addled imagination yet). So there wasn’t much of a template to go by.
PTBC, as this site became known, was originally just a discussion section (called the ProudToBeCanadian forum) on my even earlier, more global or American-centric discussion forum sites, American-centric because most of my members were American at those websites.
I registered and created the separate ProudToBeCandian.ca website in about the year 2000.
But this is not about PTBC’s li’l history so much as it being about pride — I mean vis-a-vis both the eponymous website and this soliloquy. So let’s talk about that as it pertains to PTBC first: I started it because I really was proud to be Canadian, and (being an entrepreneur) there was no internet resource to talk about that yet. I was a conservative, and really valued the founding principles of Canada — its Judeo-Christian heritage and principles, its devotion to freedom, law and order, its gung-ho pioneering and its immensely entrepreneurial spirit; and patriots all know I could go on a and on about Canada. I sought to preserve that pride and all the reasons for that pride with ProudToBeCanadian.ca.
The site soon became popular both in Canada and in the United States not just because of my brilliant and insightful writing (that’s clearly a joke), but because my plan was to sign-on several well-known conservative columnists, from both countries, to include their weekly columns here at this site. Conservative ideas and principles can cross the border legally (at least for now, eyeroll), and conservative principles, in particular, are important to maintaining both countries’ heritage, history, culture, and all those other great things. These columnists agreed to help PTBC spread the conservative viewpoint and saw PTBC as a great vehicle to do that, and I imagine the Canadian ones were especially keen on it, though the very American Ann Coulter was my first supporter (as I’ve said, I actually think she felt sorry for me).
Recall that at that time, Fox News Channel did not exist in Canada — it was virtually banned in Canada by the governing Liberals (who nonetheless had access to it in the Parliament buildings and their personal offices) until 2004 when it was finally unbanned and made available to us plebians, thanks in no small part to our efforts at PTBC (if I may say so). As PTBC readers know, Fox News tolerates conservatives, whereas the only options available to Canadians, the state-owned CBC, liberalvision CTV, liberal bot Global, and nearly all the liberal-left Canadian newspapers — simply do not. Conservatives were and still are treated at those places with not-so-subtle eye-rolls or chuckles when a conservative says something conservative, they present whole panels of liberal-leftists vs one token conservative (and usually a lousy one), “reports” are disguised as news but are in fact little more that anti-conservative or pro-progressive propaganda and misinformation screeds, and of course the industry is replete with progressive-left reporters who ask challenging questions only of conservatives —and so on. You know the drill by now.
So most Canadians didn’t really have a clue what actual conservatism was really all about. They’d never seen anything like Fox News or this web site (and when they did at first, whooboy!). They were rarely able to read or hear anything truly conservative, unless a particularly conservative politician got away with saying something — a rarity. There was no outlet except us and two or three other brave conservative Canadians website pioneers (brilliant, all of them!). Also, then and even now, many “Conservatives” are far from being actually conservative. The Party mercifully dropped the “Progressive” from its name in 2003, but many progressives hung around the party, and alas, continue to hang around today especially provincially.
Anyway, and I’ll take some credit here too, people did get used to it, liked it, and the conservative groundswell picked up over those years until it became popular or even the more popular political stance today. Now we’ve also got a ton of social media and internet options like X and Substack. Great!
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I always maintained that the name of the site represented a question, not a statement, necessarily. I was not proud of everything about Canada and being Canadian. Some days I seriously question it. Some days are worse than others. You may feel the same.
And lately, that pride has been tested more than usual. This is not a political statement. It’s just real, raw, emotions. I have serious problems maintaining that pride on any given day, now. I’m not alone. One on five Albertans would just as soon join America if given the choice (actual poll). That’s astounding. What’s more, most Canadians polled feel the same way. In a report issued December 13, 2024, the Angus Reid polling firm showed that just 34% told the Angus Reid Institute that they feel “very proud” to be Canadian. According to the Angus Reid poll, in 2016, 62% said they had a deep emotional attachment to Canada. In 2024 it sank 49% — less than half of Canadians. That’s an existential problem — for any country. Certainly for a website named ProudToBeCanadian!
I remain proud of our history and heritage, of course — and here we go with the buts — but it’s not kosher to talk about our history these days, thanks to woke progressive-leftists, who insist on me and you and every person inserting the words “colonialist,” or “settler,” or that we’re part of a “genocidal nation,” etc., when speaking or writing about our history, basically ruining our entire story as a country, and as countrymen. They literally mean to tell us we can’t be proud. They really do mean that we should not be proud but ashamed, of our country. That is their purpose as “Canadians” — a country about which they sometimes refer to as “so-called Canada.” It’s ignoble, yes. Demented? Absolutely. Pathological? Nation-wrecking? For sure. Cult-like? Many times yes. Woke, progressive-left lunacy? Well yes that’s precisely what it is in a nutshell, with the emphasis on nut. So it’s all the aforementioned. But we’re not done with the buts.
I am a patriot, but again, that is frowned upon now for much the same reason. I should not be. So that’s gone according to millions of these “so-called Canadians.”
I love Canada’s Judeo-Christian heritage but it is practically forbidden to say so out loud (and sometimes physically forbidden, like during one of the now weekly or more pro-Hamas and anti-Jewish parades, roadblocks, stakeouts, rallies or riots taking place since the October 7 2023 slaughter in Israel of innocent Israelis by Hamas terrorists). Or without being yelled at by some woke leftist who defers to the Muslims or Hindus or Sikhs of Buddhists who have moved to Canada in their hundreds of thousands or millions recently, and whose feelings are supposed to supersede ours as Canadians. It is much, much worse for the Jews, in Canada today, than for me; but dozens of Christian churches have recently been burned to the ground too, and there’s nary a shred of concern from the progressive-left in government or outside of government, nor in the “news” media. The Prime Minister of “so-called Canada,” Justin Trudeau, explained it was “understandable” that these churches were burned down.
And we’re done yet.
I love our traditions but many of them are being canceled. The word “Christmas” was once a Canadian staple, but the word is literally being crossed out of Christmas song sheets in public schools. That has to do with “Christ,” see? WHAT ABOUT THE MUSLIMS?! Canada Day has become anything but a celebration of Canada. Some turn it into a day of insulting Canada and Canadians. Others turn it into a day to regret Canada. I say they can go to Hell, but the problem is some governments at least at the local level, have joined the cult.
I love free enterprise, to the extent it still exists in Canada. But, it is on code-red life-support (mercifully not relying on our healthcare system for their life support). I love free markets and capitalism, such as it still exists, but it is under severe threat.
I mentioned our heathcare system just now, and it is increasingly clear that the political left, whose progressive or socialist-left ideological experiment this is, refuses to acknowledge the utterly deadly failure of their ideological experiment on the health and life, and that of your family. Admitting to this failure would topple their whole ideology of course, and they put that first — before you and your health and life, and before that of your family. Before Canada.
Small governments used to be a part and parcel of free countries — in fact limited government was and is necessary for a free people. Now, though, the Canadian government has grown (like never before, recently) and is bigger than the private sector — a disaster for freedom. In BC (NDP government-led) and elsewhere, for several years now the government has hired vastly more (12 times more) than the private sector has hired — an existential disaster that will lead to the literal end of the free market and capitalism at least in BC. Unless you’re a Marxist, the situation is defcon 1. More to come as they were just re-elected in November 2024 (by 22 votes over the Conservatives — seriously) and promise more.
Law and order was another staple of Canada. But. Now our crime rate is exploding. It is risky to walk downtown in the cities now. And it’s not guns that are the main concern except those in the hands of the now many gangs of course (and yet the idiocy in Ottawa strives to to disarm LEGAL gun owners). It’s also knives, and the now great many mentally challenged or drug addled — the government being the biggest drug dealers in the nation at this point.
The natural, God-given right to defend ourselves — including, very importantly, gun rights, are always under attack by leftists — but now they’re full-on trying to take our guns away — historically a grave danger signal in an erstwhile free country. They’re taking them away from legal gun owners, who are trained and licensed, meaning taking them from the very best, most law-abiding citizens of the country.
It goes on. You think I like this?
I love life. But the progressive-left now encourage assisted suicide in hospitals, and in care homes, and to veterans, and to those who are depressed or think themselves a burden to others. And they provide free abortions for any or no reason whatsoever to any woman at any time in any pregnancy — all at taxpayer expense. And they wish to offer “free” birth control just to help avoid making families. This isn’t life affirming, it’s death affirming. This isn’t normal, this is dystopian.
I love families. But they’ve made it so hard for families to form at all. Family home-buying is nearly impossible due to out-of-control immigration, which the progressives purposely let grow out of control to serve their political machinations (votes, primarily). Having babies is seen as unaffordable — and that’s if ytou still believe it isn’t “immoral” “in this day and age” what with our “too many humans” and with the “climate emergency crisis” and whatnot). Two parents have to work full-time and sometimes have to work two jobs — so children can’t even be raised by parents anymore, but rather need to be plugged into some Soviet-style national daycare center every day. Marriage is unsurprisingly at all-time lows. The very fundamental basis of our nation, families, are failing to even start, let alone flourish.
I love our freedom, but this Liberal/NDP government now freezes bank accounts at their whim, without legal warrants, and declares martial law when their political feelings are being hurt. And they don’t do those things when Jews — and Canadians writ large — are being literally threatened with death by pro-terrorist, anti-Israel goons who the government imported into Canada for some weird reason.
Canadians used to be one of the two (2 only) sexes. But now the progressives who have taken ovver virtually every institution in Canada insist there are any number of sexes, and that “trans” women are women; and that those MEN should be allowed in girls’ shower rooms, prisons, rape centers, and in women’s sports. This is a perversion of civilization itself. “Pride” season is now all year long.
I am deemed to be a “white supremacist” and a “toxic male” if I challenge our immigration numbers or act brave, or stand up for white people. I feel like I’m being run over by a weird-ass pink LGBTQ2+WTF sex and race steamroller.
I’m tolerant, and I’m inclusive, I’m compassionate, I work hard and obey the law, play by the rules, pay my taxes, and all of those things are parts of Canada and being Canadian. But increasingly, at the behest of the progressive-left who have by now been allowed to take over most every facet of Canadian life in our institutions and in all governments, they have made it quite clear they are utterly intolerant of people like me, and are bereft of Canadian pride, and insist you and I are too.
Taken together, as we do have to do, this isn’t nation-building, this is nation-destroying.
Now I do hasten to add this: they who have done this can all shove it and if they don’t, I’ll do it for them. But: Pride? Yeah, no.
Maybe things will change. If and when they do, I’ll be back.
I’ll post stuff to Substack under a different name (or my name), and I own other sites that I need to attend to…
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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I see your point. I’ll look for you on Substack.