“He saw it on the Internet!”

There’s a fisherman here on the Island, let’s call him Marvin. I’m told he could be a “right bastard” back in the day, but we get along just fine. Marvin is one of the residents I registered on ArriveCan because he doesn’t have a cell phone and doesn’t use a computer.

As it turns out this luddite approach to technology is a good thing. In a community where the primary hobby is gossip, and where there is often a complete lack of attempts to verify sources or use common sense, staying off the interwebs is smart.

Unfortunately he knows a number of people who primarily use Facebook as their trusted source of information and they share their knowledge with him.

Yesterday morning he stopped to talk to me down at the Harbour. “Did you see”, he asked, “they’re going to swap Campobello with some place in BC so we’ll be part of Maine?”

I told him that no, nobody was going to do that. He insisted that it was true because (and I’m quoting) his son “saw it on the internet”.

This started to get me wound up. I mean we’ve been dealing for years with Q and Trump and all the rest of the crazies who make stuff up and the gullible just swallow it whole. With as much patience as I could muster, I started to explain all the reasons this was not going to happen. He didn’t care, it had been published in the Bangor Daily News and then there was a list of all the things they were going to change to make it possible.

I said, “First of all, if it’s in the Bangor paper it’s going to be an opinion piece. Not an actual news item”. Doing a little research later I found that opinion piece – written by a realtor in White Rock, BC. I have to guess that he wants property values in Point Roberts (a tiny American isthmus hanging off Canada) to skyrocket so he can make some money if it’s switched with Campobello.

His logic is that Campobello is physically attached to Maine already (by a bridge). Well, White Rock is physically attached to the State of Washington so that argument is specious. I assume he wanted to say it isn’t attached to the rest of Canada so it doesn’t belong here. I’d point out that Vancouver Island isn’t attached and neither is the majority of the Province of Newfoundland. Nobody is suggesting they be shipped off to another Country.

Marvin said that it wouldn’t be possible to give us to the US because of the fishing licenses – I mean these fishermen need to be able to go all over the Bay of Fundy. He doesn’t think “they” will let a bunch of Americans fish in these waters and locals wouldn’t stop.

As for the list of all the things they would have to change, and how that would be possible, it must be on Facebook – which I avoid. He told me that “they” would give everybody here dual citizenship so that we wouldn’t lose our healthcare, etc.

“Really?”, I said. “So would that include every child born here in the future and everybody who moves here?” He just shrugged.

I told him this was not going to happen. He insisted that people have “seen it on the internet” so it must be true.

I said, “Well then you must also believe that the earth is flat, all world leaders are lizard people, and you can cure cancer with Frankincense oil.”

He just shrugged (again) and said he didn’t know about those things but they can’t give us to the States because of the fishing licenses.

I didn’t tell him one of the comments I saw said that there is little fishing done here. Apparently all the boats in Head Harbour are idle and falling apart. It must be true – it’s on the internet.