Canada’s Friendly Fascists
A Canadian Federal Court ruled that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau violated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms by invoking the Emergencies Act in response to the trucker’s convoy protest in 2022.[i] Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland says that the Trudeau regime will appeal the decision, and she remarked that they were justified in what they did, saying that “The public safety of Canadians was under threat, our national security, which includes our national economic security, was under threat. It was a hard decision to take.”[ii] The idea that Canada’s national security was under threat from the trucker’s convoy is preposterous and shows who the real authoritarians are, not the mythical far right, which included anyone right of Mao Zedong.
This ilk of despotism, that is enacted under the guise of politeness and careful adherence to the rule of law and norms, is far more dangerous than the morons who stormed the Capitol on J6 or the rioters in Brazil who protested Jair Bolsonaro’s loss to Lula De Silva. The main issue with this court ruling, and the Trudeau regime’s insistence that it will appeal it and that their actions were totally justified, goes far beyond Trudeau and his coterie of plush, insipid despots. The real issue, the graver threat, is the style of politics that Trudeau represents. It is a style of politics that exists to protect the entrenched political class who benefit from oppressing the lower classes and any who dissent from their illiberal liberal agenda. It is not leftism or communism, as many in the right-wing media suggest, nor are the opposition parties in Canada and elsewhere far right. Politics in Ottawa and other capitals is a giant, elaborate theater production designed to delude us into thinking that there are people fighting on our behalf, no matter which political party you are affiliated with.
The outrage over the trucker’s convoy at the time was not limited to the Canadian press. Across the West, there were pundits decrying the protestors as rabid anti vaxxers, even though most of the truckers were vaccinated.[iii] Trudeau may be to blame for cracking down on the trucker’s convoy through freezing bank accounts and deploying the RCMP to trample the protestors, but the notion that he was justified in his actions is shared by the entire illiberal liberal class. If/when he is removed from power, that notion will live on and continue to haunt our alleged democracy.
In 2021, amid the chaos and misery of the COVID-19 pandemic and the horrendous and counter productive policies enacted by governments across the world, I started writing a series on polite tyranny. The first post was to be titled “The Last Face of The Neoliberal Order and the Age of Benevolent Totalitarianism”. The following is an excerpt from this post, and I think this perfectly captures my thoughts on the Federal Court ruling and its implications for future dissent in Canada, under Trudeau and beyond.
In the past couple of decades, Western leadership has taken a noticeable shift in aesthetic and performance. Leaders like Justin Trudeau, Jacinda Ardern, and Joe Biden smile in front of cameras, assuring citizens that their interests are at the core of policy making, and that their opposition seek to destroy democracy and all that is good in the world. This existential crisis justifies censorship, uneven application of justice and the law, and the demonizing of millions of people who dissent from establishment narratives on the Covid-19 pandemic, globalization, war, and other important topics. Behind the smiles are horrible policies carried out by a political class under threat from people who bear the brunt of their policy making. The clownish antics of demagogues like Trump and Bannon are dwarfed in magnitude by the purge being enacted by the establishment wings of both major parties in America. In Canada, during the trucker convoy, Trudeau froze bank accounts and unleashed the mounted police on protestors. France, the zombified neoliberal Emmanuel Macron won the recent election, but by a much smaller margin than in 2017.[iv] In Britain, amid a cost-of-living crisis, the war in Ukraine is deemed worth the sacrifice of skyrocketing energy bills. There is no way to vote against big banks, wars, or corporatism.
The age of polite tyrants is upon us. Leaders like Barrack Obama and Trudeau embody a form of benevolent totalitarianism. Bloated, cumbersome bureaucracies at the centers of power determine what’s best for the citizenry. We saw this during the COVID-19 pandemic, where bureaucrats like Anthony Fauci were sainted as saviors of public health, and in his words, “when you question me, you question the science.”[v] The doctors who signed the Great Barrington Declaration, which warned against lockdowns and the potential consequences such harsh measures would have on young people, were mocked and made pariahs.[vi] The ‘experts’ are worshipped in all aspects of our lives. Any article that refers to ‘experts’ demands reverence and unquestioning loyalty, not rigorous discourse or debate. These experts who populate bureaucracies in all areas of government do not feel the consequences of their policies. They get everything wrong.
Those with good intentions and ambitious idealistic visions often carry with them grave consequences for many. People who propose idealistic visions, that are ideologically captured and motivated, see themselves as the drivers of revolution. They are the natural leaders of the revolution, whether it’s birthright, education, or social status, they are at the center of their vision. As Thomas Sowell argues on the tyranny of visions, “The vision of zealots is not just a vision of the world. It is a vision of them as special people in that world. The downside is that such a heavy ego investment makes reconsideration of the issues highly unlikely. Ego trumps mundane facts or dry logic.”[vii] Debate is discouraged or outright censored on certain issues as for the “experts” to reconsider their positions, they would have to compromise on their visions and admit that they are wrong on many issues. For many this is impossible, as the appeal of magazine covers, podcast and book deals, and television appearances, so long as you remain inside the realm of acceptable opinion and argument, is too attractive for most to give up in favor of the truth.
The “experts” can be wrong and not held accountable so long as scrutiny and debate are squelched. As Sowell notes, “Even in democratic nations, there are people who can impose their vision on other people, with no consequences for being wrong and no requirement that they prove themselves right.”[viii] This is one of the reasons Trump’s victory has never been properly reflected upon by the ruling class, and it’s why they continue to use authoritarian methods to prevent him from running for office again, they know that if the debate that needs to happen were allowed to happen, unfettered and unmediated, they would be shown for who they are, unable to produce a coherent argument or to justify endless wars, bigger and more unregulated banks, or a new form of corporatism that trumpets equity and diversity of identity over equality and diversity of thoughts and ideas.
The tyranny of visions is being won by an idealistic, identity obsessed worldview and under the smiles of leaders like Biden and Trudeau, the same crude and militaristic machinations are slowly killing us. Soon we will be unable to articulate our anger and frustration, as all language that is deemed harmful by mindless bureaucrats, meaning threating to the establishment line of thought, will be excised from our vocabulary. A form of Newspeak will be imposed, like in 1984, where Winston observes that they are incapable of articulating their oppression.[ix] Soon we will be similarly incapable of articulating ours. We will look upon people who do engage in outbursts of vulgarity and frustration with the same disgust as the people in the film Demolition Man look at John Spartan in the future where cursing is a crime.[x] Like all people, we assume it will never happen to us. We believe that dystopias are the stuff of science fiction, however, it is happening to us right now. The tyranny of friendly fascism is upon us. This is not to refer to any leader as a fascist. Friendly fascism and polite tyranny refer to an ideology taken on by the Western political class to hold onto power in an era of disillusionment manifesting in ways that threaten them, like in the election of Trump, the vote for Brexit, or the trucker’s convoy. This is the form of fascism that is the final act of the neoliberal state.
[i] Tunney, Catharine. “Ottawa’s Use of Emergencies Act against Convoy Protests Was Unreasonable, Violated Charter, Court Rules.” CBC, January 23, 2024. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/emergencies-act-federal-court-1.7091891.
[ii] Walsh, Marieke, and Sean Fine. “Invoking Emergencies Act Wasn’t Justified and Infringed on Charter Rights, Federal Court Rules.” The Globe and Mail, January 23, 2024. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-emergencies-act-federal-court-decision/.
[iii] Of the many ridiculous articles that lambasted the trucker’s convoy as a dog whistle to the global far right, the most absurd are Badham, Van. “The Global ‘Freedom Movement’ Is a Carnival of Crank and Conspiracy – and Very Dangerous.” the Guardian, February 11, 2022. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/12/the-global-freedom-movement-is-a-carnival-of-crank-and-conspiracy-and-very-dangerous., Ganguly, Arushi. “Freedom Convoys: The Spread of Misinformation across Borders — AIIA.” Australian Institute of International Affairs, March 2, 2022. https://www.internationalaffairs.org.au/australianoutlook/freedom-convoys-spread-misinformation-across-borders/., and Scott, Mark. “Ottawa Truckers’ Convoy Galvanizes Far-Right Worldwide.” POLITICO, February 6, 2022. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/02/06/ottawa-truckers-convoy-galvanizes-far-right-worldwide-00006080.
[iv] Amaro, Silvia, and Matt Clinch. “Macron Beats Far-Right Rival Le Pen in French Presidential Election.” CNBC, April 24, 2022. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/24/france-election-2022-result-emmanuel-macron-vs-marine-le-pen.html. and Chrisafis, Angelique. “The Rise and Rise of France’s Far-Right Marine Le Pen.” the Guardian, April 4, 2022. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/04/the-rise-and-rise-of-frances-far-right-marine-le-pen.
[v] Sullivan, Peter. “Fauci: Attacks on Me Are Really Also ‘Attacks on Science.’” The Hill, June 9, 2021. https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/557602-fauci-attacks-on-me-are-really-also-attacks-on-science/.
[vi] Sodha, Sonia. “The Anti-Lockdown Scientists’ Cause Would Be More Persuasive If It Weren’t so Half-Baked.” the Guardian, October 11, 2020. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/11/the-rebel-scientists-cause-would-be-more-persuasive-if-it-werent-so-half-baked.
[vii] Sowell, Thomas. The Quest for Cosmic Justice. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002.
[viii] Sowell. The Quest for Cosmic Justice.
[ix] Orwell, George. 1984. 1949. Reprint, Toronto: Penguin Books Canada, 1949.
[x] Demolition Man. Warner Bros., 1993.
References
Amaro, Silvia, and Matt Clinch. “Macron Beats Far-Right Rival Le Pen in French Presidential Election.” CNBC, April 24, 2022. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/24/france-election-2022-result-emmanuel-macron-vs-marine-le-pen.html.
Badham, Van. “The Global ‘Freedom Movement’ Is a Carnival of Crank and Conspiracy – and Very Dangerous.” the Guardian, February 11, 2022. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/12/the-global-freedom-movement-is-a-carnival-of-crank-and-conspiracy-and-very-dangerous.
Chrisafis, Angelique. “The Rise and Rise of France’s Far-Right Marine Le Pen.” the Guardian, April 4, 2022. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/04/the-rise-and-rise-of-frances-far-right-marine-le-pen.
Demolition Man. Warner Bros., 1993.
Ganguly, Arushi. “Freedom Convoys: The Spread of Misinformation across Borders — AIIA.” Australian Institute of International Affairs, March 2, 2022. https://www.internationalaffairs.org.au/australianoutlook/freedom-convoys-spread-misinformation-across-borders/.
Orwell, George. 1984. 1949. Reprint, Toronto: Penguin Books Canada, 1949.
Scott, Mark. “Ottawa Truckers’ Convoy Galvanizes Far-Right Worldwide.” POLITICO, February 6, 2022. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/02/06/ottawa-truckers-convoy-galvanizes-far-right-worldwide-00006080.
Sodha, Sonia. “The Anti-Lockdown Scientists’ Cause Would Be More Persuasive If It Weren’t so Half-Baked.” the Guardian, October 11, 2020. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/11/the-rebel-scientists-cause-would-be-more-persuasive-if-it-werent-so-half-baked.
Sowell, Thomas. The Quest for Cosmic Justice. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002.
Sullivan, Peter. “Fauci: Attacks on Me Are Really Also ‘Attacks on Science.’” The Hill, June 9, 2021. https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/557602-fauci-attacks-on-me-are-really-also-attacks-on-science/.
Tunney, Catharine. “Ottawa’s Use of Emergencies Act against Convoy Protests Was Unreasonable, Violated Charter, Court Rules.” CBC, January 23, 2024. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/emergencies-act-federal-court-1.7091891.
Walsh, Marieke, and Sean Fine. “Invoking Emergencies Act Wasn’t Justified and Infringed on Charter Rights, Federal Court Rules.” The Globe and Mail, January 23, 2024. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-emergencies-act-federal-court-decision/.
Not Without Incident: Questioning Big Brother's Platitudes 
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