Like most people, I bid 2020 a much deserved “see you in hell” on New Year’s Eve. A year so awful that it essentially became a meme, it was certainly the most tumultuous year of my lifetime from a political, social and health perspective.

No one needs me to rehash the many low points of last year. But I also remained hopeful that better things were on the horizon. Vaccine rollouts and new leadership south of the border were optimistic signs of things to come.

But the reminders came fast that New Year’s is an arbitrary distinction. As I type this, the US Capitol building was finally cleared, moments ago, of defeated US president Donald Trump’s fascist thugs. Brownshirts in all but their clothing, the red-hatted neo-Nazis violently stormed the building as congress met to certify Joe Biden’s presidential win.

For those of us who held faint hope that a new year could represent some form of respite from the far-right havoc that the world has suffered under for the better half of the last decade, this day was an infuriating disappointment. The images of angry conservatives enacting violence to obstruct democracy and uphold white supremacy is sickening, sobering and a warning to all decent people who live north of the border.

Published in Volume 75, Number 13 of The Uniter (January 7, 2021)