Guest Column
by
Rav Arora
Since
the election of Donald Trump in 2016, much has been made of the
threat of government tyranny from the right. In the US, Democratic
politicians warned incessantly of the creeping rise of 'fascism'
during the Trump administration. Mainstream media outlets, both in
Canada and the US, echoed and embellished these fears. And yet
cloaked under the liberal left's rhetoric of diversity, compassion,
and respect for the institution of journalism lurks the equally if
not more dangerous threat of authoritarianism.
In
Canada last week, Trudeau set a historic precedent by declaring a
National Emergency on dubious grounds. This act has existed for 34
years without once being invoked, and now the Trudeau government is
wielding it as a cudgel against one of the most organized displays of
civil disobedience in Canadian history.
Three
weeks prior, the Freedom Convoy rolled out of Vancouver. Media smears
proclaimed that they were a Covid convoy spreading a plague across
the land, or that they were a band of alt-right white supremacists.
Justin Trudeau called
them
a “small fringe minority” who held “unacceptable views” that
“do not represent the views of Canadians." These remarks
seemed to galvanize supporters of the Freedom Convoy. Large
demonstrations popped up across Canada, and on January 28th the
convoy arrived in Ottawa. Protesters clogged the streets of Canada’s
capital, rallying against nationwide vaccine mandates and other Covid
restrictions.
On
the ground, the reality of the movement starkly clashed with the
melodrama of the government's declaration of a National Emergency:
kids jumping
in bouncy castles, crowds merrily singing and dancing
(a relief in the bitter cold), protesters huggingpolice
officers, and youth playing
street hockey. In one video,
a group of Sikh Canadians can be seen preparing traditional Indian
meals to feed the truckers (an act of charity known as "seva"
in the Sikh tradition), all in the name of national unity and
freedom.
In
fact, Trudeau’s opponents bear more resemblance to Gandhi’s
satyagraha
movement than any terrorist faction. The truckers and their
supporters were brimming with national pride, and they appeared to be
committed to peaceful protest, non-compliance, and civil
disobedience.
Only
Trudeau and his media allies' warped, Machiavellian perception could
caricature this diverse coalition as a group of “swastika
wavers."
When the media was able to find a handful
of protestors
donning a Swastika, or spot a couple confederate flags in the convoy,
the predictable histrionics ensued, as Liberal and NDP politicians
attempted to defame
the intentions of the vast majority of those present.
In
a particularly striking example of the disconnect between the
dominant media narrative and the reality on the ground, a local gym
owner, Soungui Koulamallah, brought his mother, who "watches the
news religiously," to the protests where she was pleasantly
surprised
by the geniality of the demonstrators:
"I
don't know what they're talking about in the news — these people
are so friendly."
I
spoke to Koulamallah — whose family immigrated from Chad and Haiti
— about his experience at the protests.
"There
was nothing but love, joy, and friendliness,” he said. "I
did not experience any racism, or even witness anything that would
cause me to feel threatened or uncomfortable, and I am a black man.”
He
added, “I witnessed people dancing, smiling, saying hello,
shoveling snow, sharing food and warmth — someone even offered me
food.”
Koulamallah
later posed in a photo at the protests with an Indo-Canadian man and
an Asian-Canadian woman who held a sign that read, “Am I racist?”
The
diversity and jovial nature of the protesters were only presented by
independent and alternative media voices (such as Rupa
Subramanya
and Jamil
Jivani);
mainstream news outlets sensationalized
the truly fringe elements at the protests and ignored the sensible
grievances driving the movement. When someone draped a Canadian flag
over the statue of a national hero, the media lost their minds. There
was chaos, some unfortunate incidents of vandalism,
but the protesters quickly settled in, handing out food, protecting
monuments, and protesting in a manner that was peaceful and
quintessentially Canadian — though with significantly more honking
than is typical.
The
Canadian government reacted by freezing the flow of funds
to the protesters (as Greenwald covered in his recent piece),
and a court
order
silenced the horns, yet the protest remained impressively peaceful.
Police stole
the fuel
of truckers, and declared it a criminal act to supply them with food
or fuel, but the sheer number of protesters made enforcement of this
impossible, and it appears that the truckers had plenty of food and
fuel in reserve. Protesters blocked some border crossings, including
the Ambassador Bridge, and the government responded with court orders
that they move – which were largely ignored.
For
three weeks Trudeau attempted to deal with a “small fringe
minority” that seemed anything but small. Trudeau’s early
rhetoric had inflamed things, and security concerns forced him into
hiding. His media allies did everything they could to marginalize and
demonize the protesters, but they had lost grip on the narrative.
International media outlets were reporting on the protests, and
provincial
leaders were lifting mandates
and other unpopular Covid measures, pretending that these decisions
had nothing to do with the movement's demands.
When
Trudeau finally emerged from hiding, he decided to double-down on an
approach that seemed to be failing spectacularly. He leaned into his
remarkably undisguised authoritarian impulses and informed the nation
that "Everything is on the table because this unlawful activity
has to end, and it will end."
Trudeau
declared, "We hope these people will decide to go home.
Otherwise, there will be increasingly robust police intervention."
On Twitter, Trudeau warned,
“Make no mistake: The border cannot, and will not, remain closed.
Every option is on the table. So, if you’re participating in these
illegal blockades that are taking our neighborhoods and our economy
hostage, it’s time to go home – especially if you have your kids
with you.”
On
Valentine’s Day, Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act. The
absurdity of such a draconian intervention can't be understated.
According to the Emergencies
Act,
a National Emergency can only be declared in a situation that
"seriously endangers the lives, health or safety of Canadians
and is of such proportions or nature as to exceed the capacity or
authority of a province to deal with it."
The
various disruptions caused by the protests come nowhere near meeting
such a threshold. The Ambassador Bridge, the busiest border channel
between the US and Canada, reopened
just prior to Trudeau’s announcement after police cleared the
obstructive protesters. It is fully within the powers of law
enforcement to clear any further blockade that disrupts the economy
and cross-border travel, and this does not require any extreme,
federally mandated measures.
Provincial
leaders across Canada have voiced their opposition to Trudeau's
politically manufactured hysteria. Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe
tweeted,
“The illegal blockades must end, but police already have sufficient
tools to enforce the law and clear the blockades, as they did over
the weekend in Windsor." Premiers in Quebec,
Manitoba, and Alberta
also expressed their opposition to the emergency measure as current
law enforcement resources were sufficient to contain protests and
mitigate disruptions. Alberta’s Premier, Jason Kenney, is taking
the federal government to courtover
this abuse of power.
When
Trudeau announced the Emergency Act, Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister
Chrystia Freeland laid down the legal ramifications of the new
measures. Freeland declared the expansion of federal powers allows
the government to tow away vehicles, freeze truckers' bank accounts,
regulate cryptocurrency transfers to the truckers, and suspend the
insurance on their vehicles. Most egregiously, banks can now freeze
the accounts of those who donated to the protests, which can be
undertaken without
court orders
or protections from civil liability. They must then disclose
those individuals’ funds to either the Royal Canadian Mounted
Police (RCMP) or the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS).
As
CNN
reported, law enforcement swiftly started imposing financial
restrictions on those “believed to be involved” in the protests
this past weekend:
“The
RCMP froze 206 financial products, including bank and corporate
accounts; disclosed the information of 56 entities associated with
vehicles, individuals and companies; shared 253 bitcoin addresses
with virtual currency exchangers; and froze a payment processing
account valued at $3.8 million, Duheme said at a news conference.”
In
my own small British Columbia town, Chilliwack (about an hour and a
half away from Vancouver), a woman who donated $50 to the truckers
Convoy reported having had her bank account frozen. As our local
Member of Parliament Mark Strahl tweeted,
"Briane
is a single mom from Chilliwack working a minimum wage job. She gave
$50 to the convoy when it was 100% legal. She hasn't participated in
any other way. Her bank account has now been frozen. This is who
Justin Trudeau is actually targeting with his Emergencies Act
orders."
For
the sake of Briane’s privacy, Strahl has denied media requests to
provide further information about her.
On
the ground, law enforcement officers began their major crackdown
efforts on Friday, February 18th. Police marched in strength,
using stun grenades, pepper spray, and batons. More than 170
protesters have been arrested so far and clashes between protesters
and police led to more than 20 injured people being transported to
the hospital as reported
by CTV.
In
a press
conference on Saturday,
interim chief of Ottawa Police Steve Bell said law enforcement will
continue investigating those "involved" in the Freedom
protest for months to come:
“If
you are involved in this protest, we will actively look to identify
you and follow up with financial sanctions and criminal charges.
Absolutely. This investigation will go on for months to come."
Meanwhile,
the House of Commons' sitting to debate emergency measures on Friday
was shut
down
due to the police operation near Parliament Hill. As renowned
American law professor Jonathan Turley said, “The House of Commons
just postponed debating Trudeau’s emergency powers because he is
using his emergency powers near the Parliament to clear protesters.
It is like postponing a war powers vote because there is a war going
on.”
The
justification for these emergency measures has relied on elaborate
exaggeration. Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland defended the
government's actions due to Canada's democracy itself allegedly being
under threat. She said,
"A liberal democracy must be prepared to defend itself."
It
remains unclear how the Freedom Convoy demonstrations posed any grave
threat. They have not once risen to widespread violence, looting, or
civil unrest. They didn’t promote ideological extremism or
discrimination of any kind. They were oriented towards the opposite,
insisting that no one should be discriminated against based on their
vaccination status.
After
all, medical discrimination of this kind no longer confers any
societal benefit (as partially evidenced by the rise of
“breakthrough” infections). Vaccinations may provide immense
personal benefit, drastically reducing one's risk of death and
serious illness, but sound scientific justifications for vaccine
mandates are running thin. As CNBC reported last month,
double-vaccination (Pfizer or Moderna) is only about 10%
effective
at preventing omicron infection 5 months after the second dose.
In
light of the new omicron variant, Stanford medicine professor Dr.
Jay Bhattacharyatold
me he believes vaccine passports are no longer grounded in any
scientific rationale:
"Vaccine
passports serve no positive public health purpose. Both vaccinated
and unvaccinated people can get infected and infect others, and since
many unvaccinated people are also Covid recovered, they may be less
likely to spread the disease than vaccinated individuals. This is
especially true since the advent of the milder omicron strain, which
infects both vaccinated and unvaccinated people.
The
passports in Canada have created social division and a sense of
coercion about the vaccination decision that may violate patients’
right to informed consent. Vaccination remains important,
particularly for older people who have not previously had Covid, and
may have an elevated risk of severe disease if infected."
The
science has been updated, yet Canadian leaders have failed to make a
public policy or safety argument for continuing to bar unvaccinated
Canadians from working in federally
regulated industries
and traveling by plane
or train both domestically and internationally.
The
ubiquity of omicron could well have offered Canadian authorities the
excuse to lift mandates and end lockdown measures. Instead, omicron
was used to justify more intense measures. Instead of restoring
foundational freedoms to Canadians as the pandemic subsided, Trudeau
embraced authoritarianism. There appeared to be no attempt on his
part to understand the sentiments animating this national movement.
One
could imagine the justified outrage on the part of the liberal media
if President Donald Trump had decreed martial law and froze the
accounts of those who donated to Black Lives Matter. Yet conduct
during Black Lives Matter and ANTIFA rose to a much more threatening
level than anything seen in Canada during the trucker convoy. The
riots in 2020 left 25 dead, and arson, vandalism, and looting were
commonplace occurrences across American cities, causing $1-2
billion
in insured damages nationally — surpassing all previous records.
President
Trump had good reason not to respond with excessive measures. The
media was always eager to depict President Trump as a fascist tyrant.
They knew he would leave them free to hurl their insults, and he knew
the media would never let him get away with anything.
In
Canada, things are different. The media is in bed with Trudeau. Most
of the funding for the CBC comes from the taxpayers of Canada, and
the government has secured media sympathies with large
bailouts
and lucrative government ad buys.
Media
matters, and in a functioning democracy, it makes all the difference.
Trudeau is a darling of progressives, and yet the current tyrannical
regime in Canada is the nightmare scenario of every honest liberal
activist.
In
a concerning turn of events, Trudeau has brought to bear on the
Canadian public an authoritarianism that far exceeds what we were
propagandized to fear from Donald Trump. Only now, the much-vaunted
adversarial media is nowhere to be found.
