Last Freedom Standing

The second section of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms reads as follows:

Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:
(a) freedom of conscience and religion;
(b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;
(c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and
(d) freedom of association.

As I point out every time I mention the Charter, I am not an admirer of this document. My problem is not with the rights and freedoms spelled out in it. I don't like that, contrary to widespread but mistaken opinion, this document makes these rights and freedoms less secure than they were before by including two gigantic loopholes. I also have a huge problem with the revolting notion that this Charter is the source of our rights and freedoms, that we did not have them prior to 1982, and that we should all bow in idolatrous worship before a statue of Pierre Trudeau, thank him for giving us our rights and freedoms, and perpetually vote his party into government, All of the basic rights and freedoms in the Charter had belonged to Canadians, as free subjects of the Queen, as part of our Common Law heritage, long before Pierre Trudeau was making an ass of himself with his swastika helmet, goose-stepping, and Roman salute during World War II, and praising every Communist regime on the planet for the rest of his miserable life.

Having included that necessary disclaimer, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that during the COVID-19 panic our Dominion and provincial governments, on the advice of their public health officials, have taken freedoms a), c), and d) from us, and most Canadians have, pitifully and pathetically, willingly surrendered them. Up until now b) has not been touched. This in itself has been remarkable, as of all the four freedoms it is the one that the Liberal Party has undermined and attacked most often in the past, especially when the Party has been led by a Trudeau.

Consider the second part of b) "freedom of the press and other media of communication." Ever since Justin Trudeau first became Prime Minister he has sought government control over internet based "social media" which would certainly fall under "other media of communication." In his first term as Prime Minister he wasted millions of dollars taken from hard-working Canadian taxpayers to prop up failing media outlets. Needless to say, the small independent media companies that have subjected him and his Cabinet to the most intense scrutiny and criticism did not see a dime of this money. Worse, in the months leading up to last year's Dominion election, especially after the campaign was underway, he tried to exclude all but sympathetic reporters from his press conferences, even going so far as to have adversarial reporters arrested. These are not the actions of someone who respects "freedom of the press and other media of communication." They are quite in keeping with the precedent set by the current Prime Minister's father. Consider what the Right Honourable John G. Diefenbaker had to say about freedom of press under Trudeau pere in 1972:

The Trudeau Government seems to be dedicated to controlling the thinking of Canadians. Through the power being exerted by Pierre Juneau, as Chairman of the Canadian Radio and Television Commission, private radio and T. V. station proprietors in Canada are frightened to speak, fearful of being subject to the cancellation of their licences. One such station was CKPM in Ottawa, which dared to have an open line program critical of the Government. Pierre Juneau did come before a Committee of the House and he uttered lachrymose words in reply to the criticism levelled at him that he wishes to determine what Canadians shall hear, and to deny them the right to listen to what they will. His attitude was different when he spoke to the Association of Private Broadcasting Companies and in effect stated: “When I ope my lips, let no dog bark.” Under him the broadcasting network owned by the people of Canada is allowed to broadcast what he permits. (Those Things We Treasure, pp. 32-33).

Freedom of the press is a meaningless concept if it is limited only to the press that is sympathetic to the government and of which the government approves.

Similarly, "freedom of thought, belief, opinion, and expression" means nothing if it does not include the freedom to think thoughts the government disapproves of and to express those thoughts. Ever since Pierre Trudeau became leader of the Liberal Party, however, and it was already leaning in this direction under Lester Pearson's leadership, the Grits have maintained that freedom of thought and expression does not include the freedom to think and express thoughts which they disapprove of because they consider them to be "discriminatory." The entire Canadian Human Rights Act of 1977 - the entire Act, mind you, and not just the especially bad former Section 13 - includes no provisions that prevent the government from infringing upon people's basic rights and freedoms, as one might otherwise suppose based on its title, but consists entirely of definitions of acts of private individuals and companies as being "discrimination", that is to say, expressions of thoughts of which the Liberal Party does not approve. Since the CHRA does not fall under the umbrella of criminal law, despite including provisions for crippling, punitive, and vindictive penalties, the agency charged with investigating and charging people with violations of this act is not subject to most of the limitations of the regular police and Crown prosecutors. All of this is in complete violation of freedom of thought and expression, and belongs in some Communist regime, not in a free Commonwealth realm.

Our Dominion and provincial governments have already taken away our freedom of religion and conscience by closing the Churches, and our freedoms of peaceful assembly and association by telling us we cannot meet in public or private in groups of larger than ten, or in some jurisdictions even less. The Liberal government in Ottawa already tried to sneak a provision that would give it two years of unlimited, unaccountable, power to tax and spend into a COVID-19 Emergency Spending bill. Now, as the Dominion Parliament is scheduled to resume session on April 20th, this same Liberal government, a government that has talked seriously about using software on Canadians' cellphones and other electronic devices to track their movements, which has encouraged us to switch to cashless - and thus trackable - transactions, and otherwise behaved exactly like the kind of government described in any post-apocalyptic, totalitarian, dystopic novel of the last century or so, has dropped hints that it will be tabling legislation against the spread of "misinformation" regarding the pandemic. Such legislation, if enacted, would of course, mean, that the government that passed it, decides what constitutes "misinformation." Since it is constantly changing its own mind about what the facts are - masks don't help, masks do help being merely one example - this is not exactly reassuring. This kind of legislation would inevitably be used to silence critics of the government's approach to the pandemic. It would mean that it would be safe to agree with the government, but not safe to disagree, which would be yet another way in which COVID-19 measures have brought us closer to the kind of regime that existed in the Soviet Union - or the Reich of the man on whose birthday Parliament is set to re-open.

The Prime Minister has been trying to prevent Parliament from resuming in full session, proposing alternatives which would greatly decrease the ability of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition and the smaller parties to hold the government accountable. Parliament's power to hold the Prime Minister and Cabinet accountable is far more important than government ministers having the power to act quickly in a crisis. If the Prime Minister were to get his way on this, it would be much easier for him to push legislation like the proposed anti-"misinformation" bill through a reduced Parliament, Pray that Andrew Scheer keeps up his noble fight against these Liberal power grabs.

Here is a petition from the Alberta Institute against the government's planned assault on free speech: https://www.albertainstitute.ca/defend_free_speech

Sign it while you still can.
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