It’s as if the adult world has been rendered small, simple and fun, and as we boarded the ferry for the three minute journey to the airport, we felt like children getting on a ride at the CNE. It was first thing in the morning and a dense fog hung mysteriously around us, covering everything.

We could not see where we were going, and this created an atmosphere of adventure and whimsy, and in this context all the businessmen looked particularly ridiculous. Each one of them in a suit that suggested the distance between the corporate status to which they aspired and the disappointing status that they’d actually been assigned, they sat in isolated, self-important concentration. Brows furrowed over spread sheets and columns of data, their too-large fingers hunted-and-pecked on miniature keypads, and it was all a little heart-breaking. Like kids pretending at being adults, they attempted to project that what they were doing was of vital importance, but you could tell that inside they all knew better.

Inside they still wanted to discover a waterfall.
Swim with a knife clenched between their teeth.
Find the hidden treasure.

To our son Jones, who is nearly two, everything is a wonder. He is on the edge of language, and his words, mysterious and uncontainable, are still holier than ours. Excited, almost breathless, he exploded onto the ferry with bright, astonished eyes. He ran around pointing, naming everything he saw. The businessmen all kept their heads down—there was important work to be done—but an older couple watched, smiling as this new world broke into day around our son, aware they were in the midst of a tiny God now bringing his universe into being.

It wasn’t the first time I’ve seen a video of this kind, and each time that I do have the same visceral, almost emotional response. Instinctively, like my primal core has suddenly been activated, I know that something’s wrong. I know it in my bones.

The stripped and ruined landscape, stretching endlessly around you, is awesome in the worst sense of the word. It’s a sincere horror, and looking down at it you feel like you’re viewing a crime scene where acts of unspeakable cruelty and evil have taken place. It’s like that lofty view, which grants such scope and perspective, completely alters one’s view, orienting it toward the eternal. I know that I’m coming in at a pretty high pitch here, but it’s truly how it makes me feel.

The oil being extracted from the tar sands, as I’m sure you know, is very costly to process, with the emissions created from developing it being 12% greater than conventional oil. It couldn’t be dirtier, and each barrel of oil requires three barrels of water to produce it. The question of whether oil is more valuable than water is a fundamentally ridiculous one, and that this question was even open to rational inquiry will be seen as a tragedy in 50 years.

The Athabasca Tar Sands are utterly massive. Covering about 140,000 square kilometres of boreal forest, it’s larger than countries like England, Greece and North Korea. The land will be obliterated, as if from a nuclear apocalypse, and the equipment and structures that are used to mine the oil are so large that they command their own weather systems. It’s a dystopian vision, as if a predatory alien culture had descended upon the planet and began to ruthlessly drain it of all resources while maintaining absolute indifference to whether the host organism lived or died. (There are two smaller Tar Sands, Peace River and Cold Lake, each about a fifth of the size of Athabasca.)

The Prime Minister of this country has said that he won’t do anything to address climate change that would cost Canadians any jobs. The Tar Sands, ruinous and retrograde in so many ways, is a job creator, and so in the face of all other reason it goes forward. However, one glance at the razed, apocalyptic world it inhabits, this kind of Mordor, and even a child can cut through all the rhetoric, economics and complex global politics to see that what’s taking place is plainly wrong.

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Canada is a beautiful country full of picturesque natural settings, which include the sea, magnificent mountains, charming lakes, wheat fields and gorgeous tar sands. Along with the loveliness of nature, Canada also boasts many modern cities with bustling cultures all their own:

1. Toronto, Ontario

One of the most eclectic cities in all of Canada, Toronto has people of all colours. The city is home to many beautiful valleys and a lively waterfront with a view of the quaint archipelagos dotting the lake. However, there are often outbreaks of infectious diseases in Toronto, so many inhabitants wear surgical masks.

2. Halifax, Nova Scotia

Nova Scotia is considered to be one of the most beautiful places in all of Canada. Halifax is not only known for its truly impressive number of bars, pubs, and drinking, but also for it’s perfect gardens and beaches. Who Wants to Be a Millionaire was shot in Halifax up until host Regis Philbin was killed in the Great Flood of 2002 and shooting was moved to the US. Anne of Green Gables also died in Halifax.

3. Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

This beautiful area, full of leafy trees amid an otherwise treeless prairie landscape, appears on much of Canada’s currency. People of all colours and religions are now welcome.

4. Athabasca Tar Sands, Alberta

A stunning natural landscape and testimony to modern Canadian industry, the Athabasca Tar Sands are a must see for any visitor. Not only does the area teem with wildlife, but the city buildings are of such a scale that they generate their own, unique weather systems. Truly, one of the modern wonders of the world!

5. Victoria, BC

The retirement capital of Canada has a mild climate and is a must-see destination for any tourist who enjoys gardens and parks. Kim Kardashian and Kane met while visiting Victoria. In Retirement City, love is always in the air!

6. Montreal, Quebec

Famous for it’s topless beaches and smoked meat, Montreal is home to many festivals, shops, gardens, parks and a subway known as Le Grand Rocket. It’s a taste of Europe on North American shores!

7. Kelowna, BC

For those looking for a Canadian version of California, Kelowna is the spot. Known for its beaches, parks, gardens and Roller Skating, the city also has ski slopes not far away as well as helicopter trips for hunting Sasquatch from the air. Essentially, everything that one would want to do is within a stone’s throw making it perfect for any tourist.

8. Ottawa, Ontario

Ottawa, the capital of Canada, is known as MONUMENT CITY, as it houses numerous national monuments. The beautiful cobblestoned streets–often full of civil servants waiting for municipal transportation– are perfect for strolling!

(As of this writing there have been 1,901 gun deaths in the US since the Sandy Hook killings.)

Given the revolutionary context from which the United States was forged, the 2^nd Amendment makes some sense. As a hedge against despotic governance, the populace must be permitted the opportunity to defend itself, to be playing on a relatively even playing field so to speak.

Fair enough.

However, this right was enshrined nearly a quarter of a millennia ago, and the world, America in particular, has changed in unfathomable ways since then, whereas the 2nd Amendment has not. Then, a musket (firearm) was a realistic way in which to do battle with evil overlords, who were similarly bound by the technology of single loading weaponry.

Now, of course, the difference between the technology owned by the government and that of its citizens has widened to unimaginable proportions. The US military, widely recognized to be the most awesome martial presence in history, spends more than the next 13 nations behind it combined.

If the 2^nd Amendment were to have kept the people and the Government at commiserate technological levels, it would have had to be amended every generation so that the people had not just the right, but were enabled to have jet fighters hidden under tarps in their corn fields. As it is now, with the American government having a mighty arsenal of firepower that includes the media, lasers from space, drones and aircraft carriers, to name just a few, the 2^nd Amendment enthusiasts are little more than Stone Age tribesmen running out of the jungle and shooting arrows at the mysterious airplanes screaming above. Telling the people that they have the right to bear arms is like telling an impoverished and over-taxed populace that they have the right to buy lottery tickets.

It seems to me that the 2^nd Amendment exists as a symbol now, a vestigial relic of a political principle. It’s abstract, really, but it has concrete and ruinous effects on the society at large. (For instance, statistics suggest that a young, black man has a greater chance of being shot and killed in Philadelphia than if he were serving in the conflicts in Iraq or Afghanistan.) In a sense, the gun owner in the States is making a moral decision that his right to feel secure by owning a weapon is more important or valid than your right to feel secure in knowing that he doesn’t own a weapon.

It’s a fuck-you, kind of thing.

If the American people need some “hammer” with which to strike back at a tyrannical governing force, then they should be demanding that education is constitutionally enshrined. For surely, it will not be survivalists rising up from the misty hills of West Pennsylvania that saves America from herself, but an informed populace and people living in the 21^st century, people who can hack computers, shut-down operating systems and disseminate information.