Why I Moved to Canada

Apparently there was an increase in the number of visitors to Canada's immigration website on the night of the 2004 US election. But it wasn't until a few months later, during the President's State of the Union address, that I viisted the website myself. There were two parts to the President's speech that hit hardest and that sent me Canada's immigration website and on the path leading to my April 12, 2007 move to Toronto.

2005 State of the Union

First, the very presence of George Bush carrying out the first State of the Union in his second term in office reminded me of what he'd done to the world. The simple fact of George Bush's personal presence, speaking as the President just elected, hit me hard.

Hitler committed many crimes against humanity, some so great to be beyond comparison - such as the crime of the Holocaust. But Nazi Germany was also guilty of other crimes. Hitler's regime was guilty of the crime of torture, the crime of aggression and the crime of fascism - all affronts to human dignity and basic justice.

Wars of aggression are the cause of war, since it is the threat of aggression that justifies the building of armies in the first place. George Bush, while in no way as bad as Hitler, innocent of the crime of genocide, did commit other great crimes - including that of aggressive war. Watching the Presdient speak from the People's House reminded me that he was getting away with criminal behaviour and doing so standing from an institution that was built as a symbol of the republic, of democracy and of liberalism. His presence was an affront to the ideals on which America was founded.

The invasion and occupation of Iraq is a great crime - tens of thousands are dead because of it. But in the State of the Union the President also committed a lesser crime, a crime directed at me. George Bush invoked the denial of my civil rights as a means to gain power and maintain popular support for his administration's criminal conduct. This was the second hard hit of the address, and this hit felt like being slapped hard in the face by the President.

President Bush called for a "constitutional amendment to protect the institution of marriage." He was referring to, of course, the push to deny the rights of states to recognize civil unions between gay and lesbian couples. And it was that push, the anti-gay push of America's Christian right, that had led so many in my country to put aside morality against war and to replace it with morality against me.

As a gay man this singling out in the State of the Union invoked a strong response. I felt as if an accusing finger was being pointing directly at me. But the finger was being pointed at millions if others like me, all objects of political gamemanship. George Bush was using us to get power. He was dividing my country against us.

The denying of rights is not unprecedented in the United States, nor is doing so for political gain. But amending the Constitution for such a reason is unprecedented. The Bill of Rights, a series of amendments just like the one the President was proposing, granted unprecedented rights and liberties for the time. It is nothing but shameful to even suggest to use the same political process to retract rights.

When the Democratic strategy of complacency resulted in keeping the George Bush nightmare going, many Americans didn't know how to handle what had just happened. On the eve of the election, I can remember my partner Ron telling me that our upstairs neighbour started crying (loudly) when the news of George Bush's victory was announced. I remember walking home from election night parties, not stunned or surprised, but deeply saddened. Bush had won, using every divisive tool available, under the protection of a broken press and a toothless opposition. He had won by marginalizing gays and lesbians, disenfranchising Americans of colour and through all the means of fear ever invented by the monsters of modern politics, including televised ads using raging wolves in the night.

The United States is in deeply troubling times. I am not sure that democracy can survive these times. And that is a tragedy not only for me, not only for my country, but for the entire world and for all humanity. Democracy, and the values of human dignity and respect on which democracy is based, is a treasure that must be sustained. We all suffer each time the ideals of democracy are threatened by its foes, by the foes of human dignity and of peace, and of liberty and justice for all. Given the extent to which the United States now functions as a safe haven for the anti-democratic ideals advanced by George Bush, I decided on the night of the State of the Union speech that it was time to go someplace else, where democracy stood on stronger ground.

May 25, 2007