The Dance of Trade Barriers: A Symphony of Mediocrity in the Land of Slumbering Giants

Lo, behold the grand spectacle of bureaucratic theatre, where the shepherds of commerce gather in their virtual chambers to pronounce declarations of seeming significance! Minister Anita Anand, that orchestrator of economic maneuvering, stands before the somnolent masses to herald what they call progress - the removal of half their self-imposed chains of trade.

See how they celebrate the mere loosening of bonds they themselves have forged! What glory is there in removing the barriers one has built? The true Superman creates paths where none existed, while these merchants of mediocrity merely sweep away their own obstacles.

In this land of the eternally drowsy, where thirteen different regulations govern the movement of a single merchant's carriage, the bureaucrats gather in their Committee on Internal Trade - a gathering of those who would measure the height of their own shadows and call it achievement. They speak of removing twenty exceptions from their sacred scroll, the Canada Free Trade Agreement, as if reducing the complexity of their own creation were an act of valor.

The slumbering masses stir briefly at the mention of numbers - $200 billion, they whisper, could flow through their veins of commerce. Yet they fail to see that their very measurement of progress in coin and comfort betrays their nature as the last men, those who blink and say: "We have invented happiness."

What folly! They seek protection from the American giant by building smaller walls within their own domain. The true warrior would embrace the challenge, would dance upon the precipice of economic warfare with joy!

Diana Gibson, that voice from the western shores, applauds this timid step toward freedom as "leadership," while the Chamber of Commerce, that gathering of comfort-seekers, pleads for more "mutual recognition" - as if recognition among sheep required great courage! They speak of streamlining and efficiency, those watchwords of the last man who seeks not greatness but merely the smooth operation of his mechanical existence.

And what of their urgency? It springs not from inner fire but from external threat - the looming shadow of American tariffs. They move not from strength but from fear, not from will to power but from will to survival.

Observe how they scurry like ants when thunder approaches! The true creator would forge new paths through the storm, yet these merchants of mediocrity seek only to reinforce their existing tunnels.

The premiers of provinces, those territorial chieftains, now emerge from their slumber to declare intentions of "reciprocal" trade freedom. Nova Scotia's Houston appears at Ford's gathering, speaking of removing "red tape" - that most mundane of obstacles, as if the mere reduction of paperwork were equivalent to the creation of new values!

And what of the truckers, those nomads of commerce who must navigate thirteen different labyrinths of regulation? They remain bound by the chains of bureaucratic complexity, while their supposed liberators speak of "mutual recognition" - a term that betrays their fundamental weakness, their need for mutual validation rather than self-affirmation.

Let them hear this truth: A thousand regulations removed means nothing if the spirit remains regulated, if the will to create remains bound by the fear of difference!

As the Committee prepares for its formal gathering, they promise more announcements, more declarations, more careful steps toward a freedom they themselves have restricted. They measure progress in percentages - "64 percent of federal exceptions removed" - as if freedom could be quantified in such mathematical terms!

Thus do we witness the dance of the last men, those who would rather remove old barriers than forge new paths, who would rather seek comfort in uniformity than glory in distinction. They celebrate the reduction of their self-imposed limitations while remaining blind to the greater limitations they have placed upon their spirits.

Let those with ears hear: The true measure of a nation's greatness lies not in the barriers it removes, but in the heights it dares to climb, the depths it dares to plumb, and the new values it dares to create!