For the vast majority of sports fans, Simon Frasier University (SFU) can operate a pulsating red self-driving Vanagon on the main drag with a backup power redundancy package consisting of reused cooking grease and falcon killing wind harvesting turbines, and still remain in the cozy confines of obscurity. The higher education institution (no pun intended) based in Burnaby, British Columbia (near Vancouver) holds the unique distinction as the sole member of a college athletic conference populated by US teams. In fact, the public school is the only Canadian based university to be an NCAA affiliate, as the school’s football team competes against an eclectic patchwork of Division-II programs representing New Mexico, Oregon, Texas, and Washington.
However, in the wake of Canada’s stringent Covid-19 vaccine mandates and requirements, things have take a hairpin turn for the bizarre and the worst, as logistics have morphed into hopes, and hopes have been reduced to pipe dreams and an underlying frustration from athletes and academic administrations. Thanks to the tyrannical policies of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the stubborn and regressive legislation proliferating from the country up north, not only are SFU’s student athletes facing a heaping plateful of angst, but the trickle down effect of restrictions reaches all the way down to the cusp of the Mexican border on the Gulf Coast. Trudeau and Parliament’s insubordination towards the truth has forced the athletic department to relocate four home games across the border to Blaine, Washington, including the cancelation of a non-conference game. Players, coaches, supporters and boosters eagerly awaiting the visit from Texas A&M-Kingsville and three other teams from New Mexico and Texas will now have to rearrange their schedules and figure out a way to reenter Canada without being stranded in the US for a prolonged period.
Canadian vaccine measures already give MLB and NHL professional teams a distinct advantage of their American opponents, as individuals without proof of getting the corona poke are not allowed access to the county. In the case of SFU the football team faces the land of the opposite, and the scenario becomes exceedingly convoluted with Trudeau’s administration invoking additional legislation specifying Covi9-19 booster shots. In a “told you so” moment of truth, skeptics of the shots who predicted that governments would continue to up the ante as citizens globally would encounter the needle double digit times, are now shaking their heads in mock disbelief.
While NCAA student athletes received the baseline vaccines, with Canada’s repressive and confusing policies, things are now up in the air for teams in the Lone Star Conference and Great North Athletic Conference, who had planned road trips to Burnaby. While the football program faces a major inconvenience, the remainder of SFU’s men’s and women’s sports programs are on the brink of a nightmare, as whether or not the games are played in Canada or the US, gaining entrance north will present monumental challenges. The school features 14 teams, and sooner or later attrition will catch-up as the Fall sports season ramps up. Procedural nightmares aside, things are going south for the neighbor up north as residents have allowed the country to be transformed into a Socialist paradise and now Americans are being afflicted by the disturbing hive mind of a ceaseless collective indifferent to individual liberties and bereft of compassion.
On a provincial level, British Columbia which abuts Washington state, Idaho, and Montana is a prime example of Trudeau’s nanny state and selfish legacy, aided by voters cowering to hysteria. As a result of four decades of mismanaged forests, wildfires are now prevalent in the height of Summer and diminish air quality affecting tens of millions of residents in the US. It is no secret that the Canadian liberalism is a precarious model for where the American political tapestry is headed if citizens continue to cast their ballots in such a heedless trend. Thus, the trickle down consequences on student athletes is not surprising, but frustratingly baffling on a multitude of levels.
Victim culture creates victims, and all those who participate against SFU, and especially the athletes competing at the institution suffer, while Trudeau and fellow bureaucrats continue to ruthlessly preside over a segment of society with zero regards for anything outside their collective agenda of achieving ultimate control. This should be about the young women and men working diligently year round to hone their skills, many who receive scholarships for their athletics talents, not to mention balancing school with sports. However, as Canada’s Prime Minister is blinded by his pursuit of Democratic Socialism, the career politician fails to recognize that free will did not develop from the vacuous ether to exist as a mere respite, but a universal force perpetuating individuality.
Trudeau’s reprehensible track record of enacting repressive gun control legislation hampering law abiding citizens, his unrealistic take on climate policy, and now his restrictive and implacable exploitation of what is construed as a public health crises have resulted in two thirds of the North American continent existing within the footprint of a demagogue. For those 18-22 year olds celebrating what will be the height of their athletic careers, this is truly an ugly scenario on both sides of the border.
