By Tim Murray
America, this is what happens to countries (like mine) which do not have the equivalent of a Second Amendment:
Liberals’ “online hate” bill contains $70K fines for speech and life imprisonment for hate crimes, True North, 26 February 2024.
The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is a half-assed document that attempts to trade off free speech with other “rights”, as if free speech is not the one right upon which all other rights depend. In other words, Canadian constitutional law is based on a deeply flawed understanding of what makes a democracy work.
If the issue is “harmful” speech, then the good old fashioned Criminal Code of Canada sufficed. Speech that incites violence is prohibited. That litmus test was understood and accepted across the political spectrum.
But then, consensus was easily achieved in a largely homogenous society, which bicultural Canada was. In the early 70s, well over 90 percent of us were of European origin.
Then along came mass immigration and a change in immigration selection criteria that ensured that nine in ten migrants would come from “non-traditional” (ie. non-European) sources. Over time, a nation of “Two Solitudes”, British and French, eventually became 200 solitudes (and more. Hello “vibrant diversity”, goodbye cohesion and comity.
Subsequently the game became “We have to keep the peace among rival ethnic and religious groups”. The remedy? Suppress free expression that would exacerbate tensions. As Lee Kwan Yu concluded, ethnic and religious harmony must come at the expense of free speech. When famed Canadian journalist George Jonas came to Canada as a Hungarian refugee in 1956, he reported that the most common phrase he heard in his adopted land was “Everyone is entitled to his opinion.” But 40 years later it was “I am offended”.
What does this have to do with sustainable population policy? Everything.
Seventy percent of Canada’s population growth is driven by immigration, and the percentage is growing. Now the three major parties favour an annual immigration intake of 500,000+ in pursuit of an insane population target of 100 million (up from our present 40 million!). Trudeau’s agenda of stringent internet censorship and extreme punishment for thought crimes makes any challenge to this immigration policy risky to say the least. Especially when Canada’s version of the SPLC, the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, is looking for a xenophobe / Islamophobe / transphobe under every bed. In addition to the criminal charges that Trudeau’s proposed changes would involve, human rights charges under the various civil provincial codes could be applied.
It should be remembered that under the federal and provincial Human Rights code, the legal costs incurred by a complainant are picked up by taxpayers, however frivolous or absurd the change. Meanwhile, typically the defendant has to mortgage his house to mount a defence. In other words, a complainant has no incentive not to file a complaint and financially ruin you. How’s that for fair play?
What transpires over the next year or half a year is critical to the country’s future. At long last there are mainstream voices calling for a halt to over-immigration madness. Trudeau and his puppeteers on Bay Street understand that these voices must be stifled NOW. The backlash against hyper-immigration proposals must be nipped in the bud. Billions of dollars are at stake. Cheap labour employers, developers, the homebuilding industry and the major banks are counting on the windfall that will fall into their laps as runaway population growth proceeds.
I am very alarmed.
Related
Trudeau Wants to Criminalize Words with Canadian Hate Speech Bill, by Ezra Levant, Rebel News, 1 March 2024.
Liberals’ “online hate” bill contains $70K fines for speech and life imprisonment for hate crimes, True North, 26 February 2024.
Canada at 40 Million: Where Are We Headed? by Madeline Weld, Ph.D., President, Population Institute Canada, 15 July 2023.
Canada replaces the United States as number one country to admit the most refugees in the world, Geller Report, 9 July 2019.
Oh Canada! The Great Replacement, by Steve Sailer, Taki’s Magazine, 18 October 2023.
Canada is buckling under record immigration, by Peter Franklin, UnHerd, 19 January 2024.
