Tag: canada

Once a liberal democracy, Canada is now an authoritarian state

Two decades ago, when I was 4 years old, my parents immigrated to Canada from India in search of greater freedoms, autonomy and economic opportunities. They’re core Canadian values — enshrined in our national anthem, which gloriously heralds “The True North strong and free.”

However, the past two years have seen a near complete erosion of the foundational liberal values that have attracted millions of immigrants like myself to this country.

Under the once-righteous guise of COVID safety and online protections, the Canadian government has taken its power to extreme levels once only imaginable — let alone permissible — in a dissent-stifling authoritarian state.

The control has extended to nearly every element of Canadian society, but nowhere more so than in our everyday personal lives. Take my own case contending with Canada’s COVID bureaucracy a few months back. 

I was returning to Canada from the US when multiple Air Canada employees refused to let me on the plane. Although I had a negative COVID test, the government was suddenly requiring even returning citizens to be vaccinated (unvaccinated foreigners were already barred from entering). 

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University Will Only Give Tenure Position To ‘Women, Transgender, Non-Binary, Or Two-Spirit’ People

A tenure track position at a Canadian university is only available to individuals who self-identify as “women, transgender, non-binary, or two-spirit” people, according to a job bulletin.

The University of Waterloo’s Faculty of Environment is looking “to fill a Natural Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) Tier 2 Canada Research Chair and tenure track position at the rank of Assistant Professor” to “address the underrepresentation of individuals from equity deserving groups among our Canada Research Chairs,” according to the advertisement.

“Because this is a special opportunity for a specific member of the four designated groups, applicant self-identification information will be used for the purposes of screening and consideration,” it said.

The public university can implement “special programs” which are allowed to assist “marginalized groups … who experience hardship, economic disadvantage, inequality or discrimination,” according to the Ontario Human Rights Code.

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Canada’s new budget includes regulating crowdfunding after Freedom Convoy support

Canada’s new budget announced On April 8 includes restrictions on crowdfunding platforms and an investigation into cryptocurrency. The two provisions are some of the sanctions the government imposed under the Emergencies Act to stop the Freedom Convoy Protest.

While announcing the new budget, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said that there would be stricter regulations for crowdfunding platforms and payments processors and a “legislative review” of cryptocurrency.

“In the last several months … there have been a number of high-profile examples — both around the world and here in Canada — where digital assets and cryptocurrencies have been used to avoid global sanctions and fund illegal activities,” the government said, citing the use of crypto to evade sanctions imposed to end the Freedom Convoy Protests.

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Criticism of Canada’s Digital ID is dismissed as based on “misinformation”

There is pushback in Canada against the introduction of digital ID programs – but proponents of these schemes are referring to criticism based on civil liberties and privacy concerns as, “digital ID misinformation.”

Reports to this effect are appearing, spurred by a petition launched by the Ontario Party, that calls for “zero tolerance” toward the implementation of such programs in the province.

At the same time, IdentityNORTH – which says it brings together Canadian and global leaders to discuss “the big ideas and innovations” driving digital transformation – was holding its spring workshop.

The petition, meanwhile, calls on the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to prevent the planned introduction of a comprehensive Digital ID program, that would centralize citizens’ personal, financial, business, medical, and social information, and assign each an ID number.

In view of the fact that Canada’s central banks, and others around the world, plan to also introduce their own digital currencies, these would eventually also become part of digital IDs, the Ontario Party warned.

And that, in turn, spells trouble for civil liberties and privacy rights, creating “clear opportunities” for abuse by the authorities, the party believes.

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Canada’s Heritage Minister says online censorship bill will help free speech

To advise the Heritage Minister on regulating Canada’s internet, a panel of experts, most of them academics, has been appointed. One of the government’s internet regulation plans, alongside the online censorship bill, is to create a federal internet censorship agency.

When announcing the panel of experts, Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez said, “We are open to all ideas. The only thing we want is to do the right thing, is to make it right, is to make it happen.”

The minister was asked if it was a priority for the internet censorship bill not to infringe Canadians’ rights. He said that freedom of expression is a fundamental right and is “at the core” of the bill.

“But I’ll tell you something else,” Rodriguez said. “Actually there are a lot of people who don’t want to share what they think anymore, who are afraid of going online to speak freely because of the negative and violent reaction they may get. I think in some ways this will really help freedom of speech.”

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Home Depot hammered for shaming employees for their ‘white privilege’

A Canadian branch of Home Depot sparked outrage after it posted a notice to employees about the benefits of “white privilege” and included a checklist for those who are “white, male, Christian, cisgender, able-bodied, and heterosexual.”

The notice, which is titled “Leading Practices — Unpacking privilege,” was posted in an employee lounge at a Home Depot in Calgary, Alberta.

A spokeswoman from Home Depot’s US headquarters confirmed to The Post that the white privilege notice was material from its Canadian division. She said it hadn’t been approved by the company’s diversity and inclusion department. The flyer had a Home Depot logo at the top.

The Canadian staffers who were apparently given the learning material were encouraged to acknowledge “societal privileges that benefit white people beyond what is commonly experienced by people of colour under the same social, political, and economic circumstances.”

Workers at the Home Depot branch were also urged to discuss their “white privilege” while being told that “the word ‘white’ creates discomfort — especially when individuals are not used to being defined or described by their race.”

Hoping to celebrate Christmas? The flyer says: “If you can expect time off from work to celebrate your religious holidays, you have Christian privilege.”

Staffers were also told in the notice that “if you’re confident the police exist to protect you, you have white privilege.”

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Russia’s RT television network can no longer be legally broadcast on Canadian screens, CRTC rules

Canada’s federal broadcast regulator has ruled that RT, a Kremlin-controlled network, can no longer legally be carried on Canadian television screens.

“Freedom of speech and a range of perspectives are a necessary part of our democracy. However, it is a privilege and not a right to be broadcast in Canada,” the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission wrote in its decision on Wednesday.

The CRTC statement added that the regulator is “concerned with programming from a foreign country that seeks to undermine the sovereignty of another country, demean Canadians of a particular ethnic background and undermine democratic institutions within Canada.”

The decision came after an expedited hearing into whether the English-language channel and its French service, RT France, should be allowed on Canadian TV screens, following Russia’s recent invasion of Ukraine.

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Top Doctors at Vancouver Coastal Health Say Covid-19 Vaccine is Not Effective at Preventing Infection or Transmission of Omicron Variant – Calls on to Drop Covid-19 Restrictions

In mid-February, top doctors at Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH)  sent a letter to the University of British Columbia (UBC) to end its mandatory rapid testing and  Covid-19 restriction, claiming that these measures may cause more harm than good.

VCH Chief Medical Health Officer Dr. Patricia Daly and three other medical health officers urged the UBC to discontinue mandatory rapid testing for students, employees, and staff, claiming that rapid antigen testing is ‘unreliable in identifying infection with the Omicron variant.’

“While we applaud UBC for its work to protect and promote the wellbeing of students, staff and faculty, we believe some of the measures in place on campus – such as ongoing mandatory rapid tests for unvaccinated students and staff, and related employment/academic sanctions – are not useful in preventing the transmission of COVID-19 on campus. Not only is Rapid Antigen Testing of asymptomatic people unreliable in identifying infection with the Omicron variant, but we have no evidence that those who have not complied with UBC policies have posed any public health risk to their fellow students, faculty, or staff, even during circulation of other variants.”

The doctors also insisted on discontinuing the university’s intent to deregister students who have not complied with the mandatory testing and those who failed to declare their vaccination status.

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Canada Freezing Bank Accounts is Child’s Play Compared to the Coming ‘Central Bank Digital Currency’

It is not a conspiracy theory. Earlier this month, Canada’s Prime Minister began freezing the bank accounts of protesters who stood against tyrannical mandates and arresting them. Not only did they go after the protesters, but the government went after the bank accounts of those who provided monetary support in the form of donations as well.

For practicing their free speech, Canadians were persecuted and driven into financial ruin by the government who claims to protect them. This was all carried out with zero due process and without any democratic input at all.

Last week, holding no punches Deputy PM Chrystia Freeland announced that “…all crowdfunding platforms and the payment service providers they use must register with Fintrac, and they must report large and suspicious transactions to Fintrac.” This, she said, is a way to “mitigate the risk” of “illicit funds” and “increase the quality and quantity of intelligence received by Fintrac and make more information available to support investigations by law enforcement.”

When the American political class watched as the Canadian government began financially persecuting individuals for their freedom of speech, it was crickets from the mainstream. This was one of the most tyrannical moves in recent Western history and instead of standing against it, the establishment actually supported it.

In fact, a poll by Trafalger Group for Convention of the States recently found that a super-majority of Democrats, 65%, actually thought Trudeau’s authoritarian move to arrest people and confiscate their life savings — for practicing their freedom of speech — was a good thing.

Just 17% of the establishment left disapproved of it.

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