March 19, 2022
One day before Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked emergency powers to crack down on anti-vaccine mandate protesters, state media outlet CBC published material claiming that ‘freedom’ is now a “far right” concept.
A CBC article argues that freedom is now a “malleable term” and is “open to interpretation,” citing its use by the Canadian trucker convoy, which the piece suggests is a far right movement.
CBC quotes Barbara Perry, the director of the Centre on Hate, Bias and Extremism at Ontario Tech University, who claims freedom “is a term that has resonated…. You can define it and understand it and sort of manipulate it in a way that makes sense to you and is useful to you, depending on your perspective.”
Perry wheeled out the inevitable January 6th comparison, stating “I think it… maybe takes some inspiration from what we’ve been seeing in the U.S. over the last year and a half or so, leading up to the last election and events of Jan. 6.”
The article also quotes another “expert”, Elisabeth Anker, an associate professor of political science at George Washington University, who argues that “Freedom is a slippery concept.”
Anker states “On the far right, [individual freedom] is often translated into somebody who refuses to be bound by norms of equality, treating all people equally or norms to remedy inequality, whether that’s trying to remedy racial discrimination or gender discrimination.”
The “professor” also said that when right wingers exercise their rights it is “violent freedom,” that can easily lead to danger, discrimination and be anti-democratic.
CBC is the same network that has been pushing crackpot misinformation including the notion that the truckers are really Russian agents.
Another Canadian media outlet, the Globe & Mail also jumped aboard the ‘freedom is hate’ bandwagon with this piece:
The author Gary Mason states that freedom is “a word that has become code for white-identity politics and the far-right’s weapon of choice in the culture wars,” adding that it “has not always been a concept usurped for selfish, malicious purposes.”
Or maybe freedom is the right to protest and say no when a government attempts to force you to undergo a medical procedure?
The Canadian Civil Liberties Association reacted to Trudeau invoking the Emergencies Act, and reports of bank accounts of supporters of the convoy being frozen:
The statement also noted “The federal government has not met the threshold necessary to invoke the Emergencies Act. This law creates a high and clear standard for good reason: the Act allows government to bypass ordinary democratic processes. This standard has not been met.”
Conservative Canadian MP Pierre Poilievre slammed Trudeau Monday, calling for an end to COVID restrictions and to stop punishing people in Canada who are calling for their freedoms back.
The Truckers themselves have vowed to “hold the line” despite Trudeau’s efforts to criminalize them.
“No matter what you do, we will hold the line,” said organizer Tamara Lich, adding “There are no threats that will frighten us. We will hold the line.”
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