(LifeSiteNews) — A former military pilot is urging Canadian police and military to courageously disobey unlawful orders and speak up against tyranny.
Greg Hill, co-director of Free to Fly, an aviation group advocating “freedom of medical choice,” called upon all Canadians of influence, but particularly the police and military, to “speak the truth at all costs,” lest Canadians “pay a dear price for silence and blind obedience,” in an address published Monday, touching upon remarks he made before Parliament Hill.
“You, as military and police, stand in the gap between the forces of tyranny and the freedoms of our people. Now, many more of you are actively but silently questioning what’s being asked of you. I ask you, be silent no more,” Hill said.
As a former airline pilot with 13,000 flying hours under his belt, Hill is well familiar with the story of the deadliest disaster in aviation history, the 1977 runway crash on the island of Tenerife that killed 583 people. In his call to Canadians, Hill drew parallels between the silence that enabled the deadly crash and the silence that enables political tyranny.
In the Tenerife crash, Hill pointed out, the captain of the KLM 747 was “eager to take off” despite dense fog blinding his line of vision, and, as the story goes, lack of clearance from the air traffic controller. The last audible words to the captain and his crew from the air traffic controller were, “Stand by for takeoff. I will call you.”
Whether the captain ignored the message or misunderstood it is unknown. What is known is that he was already picking up speed, headed straight for a Pan Am 747 plane, when his second officer asked, “Is Pan Am still on the runway?”
“What did you say?” asked the captain.
By the time the second officer spoke up again, it was too late. “That KLM flight ended up slicing through the Pan Am jet … And with the throttle jammed wide open on that takeoff roll on the KLM flight, with the speed increasing towards 100 knots, the first officer who seemed to have been concerned for a while timidly says, Is he not clear?” recounted Hill.
Hill noted that while “from where we sit many years later, it’s easy to see this as tragic and unbelievable,” the disaster can be seen as stemming from a “fairly simple combination of complacency, deferring to authority and not wanting to rock the boat by questioning.”
According to Hill, in aviation, “there’s a three-word, fairly well known, disaster-averting, lifesaving statement: ‘This is stupid.’”
Saying “This is stupid,” or “This is dangerous,” will jar awake to imminent danger a co-pilot who “doesn’t respond to typical prompts or does something ill advised” when time is short, noted Hill.
“Now, fast forward to Canada in 2022. There’s a dense fog gripping this nation. It’s obscuring truth, dividing our nation and clouding the consciences of good men and women. Our government has the throttles jammed full forward in a race for totalitarian control,” Hill said.
Hill addressed those with the “power of influence,” from those in the media to business leaders: “You’re asked to repeat lies, or worse, asked to crush the voice and freedoms of your fellow citizens.”
“A voice inside you is saying, ‘This is stupid. This is dangerous. This is wrong.’ And it is. But that voice inside you is useless if you stay silent. You have to summon the courage to say no.”
“I want to address our military and our law enforcement, particularly. You stand in these hours in a unique and critical place,” said Hill, highlighting the “dark and difficult” situation of “law enforcement … facing off against peaceful, unarmed demonstrators.”
As an example of hope, Hill pointed to a retired RCMP officer’s speech on Parliament Hill of the “importance of his oath to uphold the Constitution and not comply with unlawful orders.”
“This is huge,” Hill said. But he went on, “If you act in ways that violate your conscience and oath, we are headed to dark places. Be men and women of courage.”
He recalled Jordan Peterson’s refrain that “it’s not safe to speak, but it’s even less safe not to speak.”
“Now you may be saying, I’ll wait until they ask me to go too far. But then it’s not much different than that jet hurtling down the runway at one hundred knots. It’s too late then. This is your hour. Now is the time to speak out, reinforcing your commitment to your oath,” Hill continued.
To those who think speaking up “will cost too much,” Hill pointed out that it is “exactly your family, and their future” for which “we must stand up and speak out. There is no future for our children if we enable the instruments of darkness with our silence.”
“Good will triumph over evil, but it will do so when honorable people in large numbers are willing to sacrifice. There’s a direct relationship between our willingness to sacrifice and their power that these authoritarians hold over us,” Hill noted.
These authoritarians, Hill said, are “disarm[ed] of their power” when people “count it a joy to suffer loss for a greater cause.”
“To those in government and leadership seeking to control our lives, I say you can take our income, our career, you can take our home, our comfort, which you cannot take our dignity, you cannot take our freedom to choose. And nor will you ever steal our resolve to fight for our freedom with all of our will,” he continued.
“My fellow Canadian freedom lovers, let the nation know we won’t be silent and we won’t back down in our commitment to truth and freedom. May God keep our land glorious and free.”