i was hoping that the removal of chrystia freeland would make the canadian government a little less gungho on this crimean war bullshit. i guess not. rather, it's becoming increasingly clear that the canadian government is intentionally comparing itself and even defining itself as similar to ukraine, and the united states as similar to russia.
to suggest this is unhinged would be an understatement. it requires a severe distortion of both current and historical facts to get to that conclusion. worse, it was the kremlin that originated the comparison, which then showed up on a spate of alt-left websites and youtube channels that are clearly on the kremlin's payroll, that routinely post nonsense and that lack any sort of credibility as news organizations. the apparent truth that an analogy devised by russian propagandists appears to be at the core of current canadian foreign policy opens up a legitimate question: to what extent are canada's decision-making civil service members being influenced by dubious alt-left internet sources, much of it ultimately being russian propaganda? the chinese don't have the infrastructure to do this yet, but the kremlin has huge media tentacles and piles of useful idiots on the payroll, and they have never dropped the alt-left bent they had during the cold war. it's clearly more effective than an attempt to influence conservative media voices. the arab fascists realize this, too - they go after dumb, naive leftists. they don't even try to sway conservatives, despite being ultra-right wing.
i'm not going to list examples. i could give you a list of 200 alt-left news personalities on youtube (mostly) that are obviously getting pay checks from moscow if i sat down with it. i can't prove it but it's clear enough from listening to them. this would include talking heads, authors, academics and in some cases the youtube news sites themselves. this is far more credible interference than the nonsense pushed by rachel maddow about russian bots on facebook (which has largely been debunked and discredited). this payroll of useful idiots is a network set up by the soviets, that never entirely disappeared and has returned as the primary means of russian influence in the west, after the banning of russian television, which i found to be relatively moderate, compared to the crazy shit you can see on fox news.
but whether it was the kremlin that made the comparison in arguing that canada is to the united states as ukraine is to russia - as it was defending it's actions in eastern europe - or not, what are the facts here? just how awful is the comparison?
in a list of countries by gdp, where does ukraine stand?
45. Portugal 380,637
46. Nigeria 377,365
47. Kazakhstan 360,456
48. Finland 337,669
49. Algeria 317,713
50. Greece 307,554
51. Iran 300,293
52. New Zealand 278,636
53. Hungary 271,122
54. Iraq 264,784
55. Cuba (estimated)
56. Ukraine 225,337
57. Qatar 217,416
58. Morocco 194,333
59. Uzbekistan 181,502
60. Kuwait 172,920
.
.
.
64. ecuador
65. dominican republic
66. puerto rico
67. guatemala
as we can see, ukraine is a very small country, economically, with a gdp comparable to that of cuba or iraq, and significantly less than that of iran or kazakhstan. the comparison to kazakhstan - which is practically empty and has been run by a ruthless dictator for decades - is important to make, as ukraine and kazakhstan are the next two largest successor states of the soviet union, after russia.
while it has recently fallen out of the top 10, canada has historically had one of the largest and most powerful economies in the world.
this comparison would consequently appear to be fairly unhinged, but it would also suggest that canadians are dramatically underestimating ourselves. what else would we expect from a country that puts statues up everywhere of a guy that died less than halfway through a cross-country marathon? we constantly align ourselves with losers and failures and then wonder why we're falling out of the top tier of global economies.
the ukrainians are clearly losers. they're a small, insignificant country that might be better compared to cuba, or even to ecuador or guatemala, than to the large and wealthy country of canada.
how much bigger is canada than ukraine in terms of size?
1 Russia 17,098,246
2 Canada 9,984,670
3 China 9,596,960
4 United States 9,525,067
5 Brazil 8,510,346
6 Australia 7,741,220
7 India 3,287,263
8 Argentina 2,780,400
9 Kazakhstan 2,724,910
10 Algeria 2,381,741
11 Democratic Republic of the Congo 2,344,858
12 Saudi Arabia 2,149,690
13. Greenland (Denmark) 2,166,086
14 Mexico 1,964,375
15 Indonesia 1,904,569
16 Sudan 1,878,000
16 Libya 1,759,540
17 Iran 1,648,195
.
.
.
45 Ukraine 603,550
the answer is 16.54x the size.
for reference, this is the size of some areas in north america with historical independence movements:
alaska: 1,723,337
quebec: 1,542,056
texas: 695,662
alberta: 661,848
(ukraine: 603550)
california: 423,970
ukraine is more comparable in size to alberta, texas or california than it is to canada.
what is the basis of the comparison?
canada and the united states share the same language (just like russia and ukraine)
the russians would agree, but the ukrainians would not. most ukrainians would find the idea offensive, although it is largely correct. ukrainian has often been categorized, scientifically, that is by linguists, as a dialect of russian. ukrainian nationalism has rejected the claim, and it's worth pointing out that ukraine has a large polish-speaking region.
canada and the united states have a shared history as allies in members of alliances or in the same empire (just like russia and ukraine)
that is the argument the russians want to make, and there is some truth to it, but not recently. in fact, ukraine largely aligned with the nazis in world war two and it sought independence during the russian revolution but couldn't get it. ukraine as a country developed out of the collapse of mongolian power and has historically been more of an idea (the frontier, or the borderland) than an actual country. ukraine and russia were both colonized and built by swedes, were both converted to byzantine christianity, were both conquered by the mongols and both emerged from the collapse of mongolia as a geopolitical entity, but russia emerged as a nation state and ukraine (the border region) emerged as an idea that is something like the extension of austria (the eastern lands). what made ukraine not austria is that it was orthodox and not catholic, like russia, so therefore not in the sphere of papal supremacism, which was a secular concept until the age of reason (the pope was a kind of emperor that would depose and install rulers in client states, which ukraine was not one of). ukraine was then conquered by russia at roughly the same time as the american revolutionary war and has been under direct russian rule since about 1800, excluding a few years of tentative independence. since 1991, the russians have sought to integrate ukraine via membership of various groups, and have been in a proxy war with the americans over which direction the borderlands ate going to lean, which has included coups launched by both sides. ukraine has seen a large buildup of nato military weapons that threaten russia directly.
this is not very similar to canada, which has never been ruled by the united states and which has no foreign weapons in it at this time, but is actually deeply militarily integrated with the united states via nato, norad and other arrangements.
to the extent that the comparison holds at all, it's backdated to c. 1200, before the mongol invasion. it's worth pointing out that a more united rus might have been more successful against the mongol attack, and that the infighting between the swedish colonies contributed to the ease of the mongolian conquest. it's further worth noting that the mongolians were by this time using chinese built weapons and that the so-called mongolian invasion of russia was in truth really a chinese invasion of russia.
if you want some more useful comparisons.
ukraine is a democracy fighting for freedom against a corrupt and autocratic russia (like canada fighting against the us)
again, unhinged is an understatement. this is objectively absurd, it is insane and crazy, but it provides a window into the mind of the pmo, which seems to be a very paranoid and very scary place.
ukraine has essentially the same political system as russia. it is beset by corruption, fraud and kleptocracy. elections in ukraine are neither free nor fair. zelensky has actually suspended democracy, like a typical dictator does. media freedom is minimal. it's system of conscription is despotic and tyrannical.
canada, by contrast, is a stable democracy with a good voting system and the united states, for all it's problems, is still a free society, and still one of the freeest in the world.
if there's a comparison to draw here, it may be that ukraine's system of conscription has similarities to the one that lead to the conscription crisis in canada during the first world war. that system of conscription is seen today in canada as a mistake and as a historical wrong that our political leadership has never fully taken responsibility for.
this may be a good time for carney to apologize to canadians - and to quebeckers specifically - for the state's decision to conscript canadians in world war one and send them off to their death, as cannon fodder, in a senseless war that had no purpose and can never be repeated. it's a good time for the pmo to confirm that it will never kill off another generation of young canadians for no reason ever again.
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so, this is a headscratching argument, at best. canada is a dramatically bigger and more prosperous country than ukraine is, and the idea that there's an analogy to make requires making russocentric arguments that would actually enrage most ukrainians, and are in truth historically unsound.
is the ghost of igor gouzenko running the pmo?
or does the civil service require better standards and need deeper protection from foreign interference via online propaganda?