“Canada will always be there to defend the right to peaceful protest” – Justin Trudeau, in a reference to protests in India …
Asked why he supported some protests, but was determined to crush the trucker convoy, Justin Trudeau answered without hesitation: He supported – and even participated in – protests he agreed with. But he did not support – and vowed to crush – those with “unacceptable views”. Then he proceeded to take a wrecking ball to Canada’s banking system, and whatever is left of our individual civil liberties.
We are now seeing how far his NDP-backed Liberal government is prepared to go to economically execute dissenters – those with “unacceptable views”. A convoy organizer was jailed, and led into court in shackles. Bank accounts have been frozen, businesses have been destroyed, and many working Canadians will find it impossible to earn a living in their own country.
So, unless Canadians don’t want to find themselves the subject of frozen bank accounts, have their property seized and auctioned off, or otherwise destroyed for having “unacceptable views” perhaps we should take the time to find out what views are “acceptable” and which views – the “unacceptable” ones – will allow the Trudeau Liberals (with its NDP ally – “the champion of the working man”) to financially assassinate you.
Trudeau, and Chrystia Freeland gave some hints about what made the views of the working truckers so unacceptable, that first the Emergencies Act, and then every dirty trick in the book must be used to ruin them. They referred to both the economic damage, and the disruption to the daily life of Ottawa residents that the truckers were causing.
And there is no doubt that both the economic damage and the disruption were real.
But both of those things had happened many times before as a result of legitimate protests, and the federal government had never taken Trudeau’s draconian steps before.
The Wet’suwet’en protests and railway blockade in February 2020, for example, had caused more economic damage and severe disruption for many thousands of Canadians, but the federal government had not “gone nuclear” like they did with the truckers. In fact, Trudeau was quite sympathetic.
And the BLM riots in the spring and summer of 2020 were far worse than that. Across North America they resulted in the deaths of between 35 and 38 people, and caused billions of dollars worth of damage. They also lasted months, and caused disruption that dwarfed that caused by the truckers in Ottawa.
And yet, Trudeau did not invoke any emergency legislation, or take any steps to stop those protests, riots, arson and looting. In fact, during the time when he exhorted all Canadians to stay in their homes to prevent virus spread, he actually participated in those protests. He and his Liberal Party even donated money to a BLM organization that believe in Marxism, violence, and advocated the destruction of the nuclear family.
So, the “unacceptable” part of the views could not relate to the amount of economic damage or disruption alone, or else the Wet’suwet’en and BLM protestors and rioters would have been subjected to the same economic warfare that the Trudeau government is now inflicting on the truckers.
So, what is the difference? How can a person protect themself from being attacked by their own government? What views are “acceptable” and what are “unacceptable”?
The answer is obvious: Simply agree with whatever your government wants you to agree with. Only express those “acceptable” views. Never disagree, because by doing so you are expressing “unacceptable views”.
This is exactly how things work in Communist China, Fascist Russia, and all other authoritarian states. People with “acceptable” views can live their lives with no interference from their political masters. But cross that line, and say something they don’t want you to say, and they will make life unliveable for you.
If it sounds extreme to compare the Canada that the Trudeau Liberals seem determined to make, just consider the situation of any of the truckers who set out to Ottawa a few short weeks ago. They were ordinary working Canadians. They thought that they had the same right to protest as the right enjoyed by the Indigenous and BLM protesters. Certainly none of them would have considered themselves to be radicals, or revolutionaries. Although they all had their own philosophies, and their own particular grievance with the federal government, their main message was that the vaccine mandate for truckers was unnecessary, unscientific, unneeded, and had to go.
Apparently, that message was an “unacceptable view” that would simply not be tolerated by the Trudeau government. But surely, when aggrieved Canadians come to Ottawa they at least deserve an audience. They had something to say, and they had come a long way to say it. And all Trudeau needed to do was to talk with the truckers in an attempt to find common ground. It wouldn’t have been hard to do.
But Trudeau refused this simple, common sense courtesy. What he then proceeded to do has done irreparable damage to our country. All of this incredible damage to Canada, our reputation, our banking system, and our rapidly unraveling social fabric could have been avoided.
Instead of being a leader and meeting with his aggrieved constituents he went into hiding and sulked. Then, he emerged from his hiding place and went nuclear. He had police crack skulls, pepper spray reporters and horse stomp elderly people. Videos of the police actions are horrifying, and certainly don’t look like the Canada I know.
But not only did the trucker protest have to be squashed, the truckers were pursued, their trucks confiscated, and sold, and then decent, hardworking Canadians were financially ruined. What Vladimir Putin is doing to Ukraine, Justin Trudeau is doing to the truckers, and every ordinary Canadian who supports their message.
But, let’s look at that message that the truckers were trying to deliver. In actual fact, even as the truckers were asking that the mandates on them be lifted, most of the world had already done so. Whether vaccines are even relevant any longer, with the Omicron, and other increasingly less virulent mutations of the virus coming along, is a question best left to the scientists. Whether the idea of ending the pandemic by compelling the use of vaccines ever made sense is also a question they will ultimately answer. But it is simply an observable fact that for healthy people the illness from this virus is simply an annoyance we have to learn to live with. Most of the world has recognized that fact and moved on. Why Canada’s federal government is one of the last in the world to recognize this obvious fact is anyone’s guess.
So it is exceedingly strange that the “unacceptable view” of the truckers – namely that the vaccine mandates should be lifted – is exactly the view that most of the world is taking. It is the apparently “acceptable” view – at least to the Trudeau government- that vaccine mandates must be preserved indefinitely.
This is even more strange because when vaccine mandates were first proposed Justin Trudeau firmly rejected the idea. He knew how divisive they would be. He also knew that coerced vaccination might get a slightly higher percentage of people to get vaccinated – but the price to pay, in a bitterly divided society – would simply not be worth it. Societal cohesion was simply more important than a few more people being forced to accept a vaccine they didn’t want.
But he did it anyway. The reason is perfectly obvious. There was an election he was in real danger of losing, and he very quickly chose to put his electoral interests ahead of the national interest. So, he jacked up the fear, and used his fearful majority to elect him, and demonize the minority who took a different path. He demonized not only the people who didn’t want the vaccine – he demonized vaccinated people who don’t believe in mandated vaccination.
So, here we are. Canada has never been this divided. Those with “acceptable views” can hammer those with “unacceptable views” with the Prime Minister’s blessing. They are proceeding to do so. Edmonton police officers fired for supporting the truckers convoy, while police chiefs who “take the knee” for BLM protests advance in their careers. The hypocrisy stinks to high heaven.
But more seriously, the rule of law has been shattered. One’s political beliefs now determine where you stand with the law. “Acceptable views” are shielded from prosecution, while “unacceptable views” are prosecuted without mercy. Simply put, you can only dissent if the government in power already agrees with what your are dissenting about. This cannot stand.
But it is in Trudeau’s use of anti-terrorism legislation to deal with peaceful protest where he has become an illegitimate leader. If this repugnant use of legislation is allowed to stand, Canada is no longer the liberal democracy it has been since 1867. The opposition parties must find their voice, and defeat this illiberal government.
The Canada of John A. on through Mulroney, Chrétien and Harper is no more. Trudeau has moved us into an authoritarian Canada that destroys Canadians who hold “unacceptable views”. And he has prostituted our legal system to get at his political foes. This is no longer liberal democracy, this is authoritarianism.
The Trudeau Liberals did not attack the Indigenous protesters. The Trudeau Liberals did not attack the BLM protesters. The Liberals are attacking the truckers. The Rule of Law demands that everyone has equal treatment under the law. It cannot survive if people are treated differently, according to their political views. That is exactly what is happening today.
The truckers are being mercilessly hounded. They will have their trucks sold and their livelihoods ruined. The Trudeau government will continue to whip up the fearful majority – a majority his government deliberately made fearful by exaggerating the danger of the coronavirus to the healthy- to bray at the truckers, and rejoice in their misery.
And Trudeau’s use of anti-terrorist legislation to invoke the Emergencies Act, and then persecute the truckers was absolutely dishonest. Here is what Barry MacKillop, deputy director of Financial and Transactions and Reports Analysis Center (FINTRAC) told Canada’s House of Commons Finance Committee on March 3, 2022: “the money the organizers managed to raise was not only NOT ‘cash that funded terrorism or was in any way money laundering it was simply a way for people living in what they thought was a democratic country believing was a safe way of expressing their position on an issue.”
Simply put, these truckers were not terrorists or dangerous people. They were ordinary Canadians fed up with government mandates and restrictions that they saw as illogical, arbitrary and capricious. The Trudeau Liberals knew that, but with the help of a compliant population they had scared, and newspapers they had made compliant with subsidies – bribing them – they used both emergency and anti-terrorism in a totally improper and dishonest way to stifle legitimate dissent.
But, as we watch the brave, ordinary working people defending Ukraine, let’s remember that it is those working people – yes, people just like our the truckers, and other members of the muscular class – who actually do the work necessary to keep this country together. They are the people we will rely on when we are in trouble – not the soft people making the rules and Zooming at each other from safe places.
And these truckers are the people that the Trudeau Liberals and its subsidized media wants us to believe are our enemies.
The truckers are not our enemies. Our enemy is authoritarianism, and those who want to inflict it upon us.
