Ezra Levant: Amish were ripped off by Canadian bureaucracy during the pandemic

In early March, Jordan Peterson interviewed Canadian journalist Ezra Levant on his podcast. The episode broadcast by The Daily Wire was titled "The War on Speech—and Those Who Dare to Fight It."

During the conversation, they touched on a wide variety of topics such as how the Canadian government funds and pushes the narratives of fact checkers, the fight for citizen journalism, the Canada Freedom Convoy trucker protests in 2022, the tyranny of COVID-19 mandates and how Justin Trudeau eroded the morale of Canadians.

One of the topics they talked about at the end of the podcast was how the Amish community was basically ripped off by the Canadian bureaucracy during the COVID-19 pandemic.

During the episode, Levant told Peterson that in the pandemic this community used to go back and forth between the U.S. and Canada to visit other colonies when they had to attend family events taking place in Pennsylvania or Ontario.

Victims of the Canadian government's bureaucratic authoritarianism

The Canadian journalist told Peterson how the Amish, who are farmers, who have no electricity, no smartphones, who do not drive and are pacifists, every time they crossed the border, a border agent would ask them: "Have you downloaded the ArriveCan app?"

This Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) app launched in April 2020 allowed travelers entering the country to electronically submit travel documents and customs declarations. However, under the guise of the pandemic, the application was also used to submit health assessments and mandatory self-isolation plan declarations.

In July 2021 the engineers of this control tool went even further. The application began to be used to submit evidence for COVID-19 vaccination.

Levant recounted how during the pandemic it was mandatory to have this app on your phone or risk being fined $6,000. So the Amish, who know what smartphones are but do not use them, were each fined $6,000 per person, including children, each time they went to Canada.

The Canadian journalist explained that years passed and all the Amish citizens who owned property found to their surprise that they had been repossessed.

Amish face exorbitant fines and seizure of their property

Levant said that people in this community would go "to the bank to ask for a loan putting up the farm as collateral and the banker would say 'I'm sorry, I can't give you the loan. There is a lien against your farm.' Oh yeah, and then another Amish passes away, he wants to bequeath the farm to his son. He can't, there's a lien on it. You have to sell the farm to pay off the lien."

According to a report by The Toronto Star, the Amish community in southwestern Ontario today faces some $300,000 in fines and property liens after failing to comply with COVID-19 measures when crossing the Canadian border.

The fines were imposed on members of the religious community during the 2021 and 2022 crossings after they failed to submit proof of quarantine and vaccination plans to border officials using the ArriveCan app, they and their lawyers told The Star.

The sanctions have had serious consequences, including damaging the Amish community members' bank credit and seizing their property, which is a threat to the Amish community's traditional way of life.

According to Levant, one of the reasons Trump won in Pennsylvania is because the Biden administration represented an existential threat to this community.