Given its image – Canada doesn’t seem like it ever tried to get “promoted” as a state beholden to any kind of political or ideological radicalism.
Nevertheless, its current authorities are very much working toward placing it in the company of such states.
That said – quite a few “territories” do not seem to be taking themselves too seriously as independently-minded countries.
Instead – whether it’s Australia, New Zealand, or Canada – the people living there may not be aware, but the outside perception is that their authorities act as no more than a “privileged colony” of outside power(s).
So if not truly independent – what may these countries in fact be?
When considering the strangeness of a leader like Canadian PM Justin Trudeau – there’s his fondness of the “good old days” when Canadians just by default believed whatever the state broadcasters told them.
Relevantly, one thing we learned during the heyday of authoritarian states of yore, and their official media, is not only that theirs is “the only objective truth.”
More importantly, it was that theirs was the only legally acceptable truth.
Trudeau is clearly counting on his audience to have no concept of the history of the things he is actively pushing for. Those speech-related things, having already played out in authoritarian regimes.
After all – how would most Canadians know they are reliving the “Groundhog Day” of government control over information, over and over again? Who’s to tell them?
The prime minister clearly would like every tiny voice that might do it to be discarded as “lies and conspiracies.” Even if some of his own policies might (notably, the handling of the “Freedom Convoy”) easily pass off as stemming from just that.
But Trudeau doesn’t come across as being shy while being wrong – or shameless.
Now reports cite him speaking to Ryan Jespersen on the Real Talk podcast.
How “good was it” back when “CBC, CTV, and Global” – got all the information locked in as “true” and there was no real opposition, Trudeau basically said.
Nevermind that he actually did this on a podcast – “a new” media format. Such a perfect example of utter lack of (self) awareness.
Canada’s opposition Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre for once had no problem spelling it out: when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau talks about “hate speech” – what he actually means is, “speech that he hates.”
It’s actually a fairly profound statement, made this time in the context of Canada’s online harms bill, one version or another of which has already been making rounds in western democracies.
The stated purpose is straight forward: work to suppress hate speech, terrorist incitement and other violent content.
But there have already been so many instances in those western democracies where similar legislation has served as a smokescreen for censorship.
And perhaps with this in mind, the opposition in Canada has wised up to what it actually means.
“Woke authoritarian agenda” – that’s one way of putting it, but you didn’t hear it from us – that’s what Poilievre is saying about the online harms draft, which he vowed the opposition to – well, oppose.
Poilievre brought up – and why wouldn’t he – the shocking example of the Trudeau government mindset so well exhibited during the “Freedom Convoy” in early 2022, organized against Covid restrictions ruining people’s livelihoods – only for the government to pile on by going as far as freezing access to citizens’ money in the bank.
“Justin Trudeau said anyone who criticized him during the pandemic was engaging in hate speech,” Poilievre remarked, in reference to that infamous example.
And once one does that sort of thing – there is really, objectively, nothing to reassure constituents that something of the kind won’t repeat in another scenario.
Plus – there’s the “no-moral-leg-to-stand-on” – which Poilievre made sure to stress:
“I point out the irony that someone who spent the first half of his adult life as a practicing racist, who dressed up in hideous racist costumes so many times he says he can’t remember them all, should then be the arbiter of what constitutes hate. What he should actually do is look into his own heart and ask himself why he was such a hateful racist.”
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