Why There Is No Canadian Exceptionalism

Look no further than the "natural governing party" and its idiot supporters:

The Canadian Constitution Foundation (CCF) challenged the Trudeau government’s secrecy around the invocation of the Emergencies Act in the Federal Court of Canada on Monday.

CCF lawyers are demanding that the federal government release unredacted documents from cabinet and incident response meetings prior to the Act’s use in February to quash the peaceful Freedom Convoy.

“If the government made better decisions about what record to put before this court — a proper record — then we would not be here,” said lawyer Sujit Choudhry. 

“We are here because the government has left us no choice to try and get the truth.”

**

In a country heading towards authoritarianism, there is by definition a moment where most people are free to speak their minds, and then a moment where most are not. That moment is often the result of a specific piece of legislation being passed. Additionally, there are many moments leading up to that moment, where the freedom to speak our minds is slowly but surely curtailed.

 

To wit:  

My tweet thread response notes that the disconnect between the government’s professed intent and the actual text in Bill C-11 has been a persistent issue:

• government claims intent isn’t to regulate user content (contradicted by the CRTC chair),
• government claims intent isn’t to include algorithmic manipulation (contradicted by the CRTC chair)
• government claims intent is to help digital creators (contradicted by the creators themselves),
• government claims intent is to avoid content regulation (undermined by the CRTC engaging in content regulation in the Radio Canada case)
• government claims intent is no Cancon quotas (undermined by the possibility of display quotas)
• government claims intent is to exclude video games and other similar content (currently included in the bill and will require policy direction the government won’t release to exclude)
• government claims intent is to leave regulations to an independent CRTC (yet it regularly seems to have pre-determined what the outcome will be)
• government claims intent is to ensure Bill C-11 is consistent with its trade obligations (the U.S. has now raised concerns with the bill and potential CUSMA violations)
• government claims intent is to help independent production sector (experts now concerned the bill will undermine decades-old policy that support the sector)

All of this raises the question of whether the government’s intent matters if the bill itself does not reflect those intentions. I would argue that it does not. Courts frequently examine legislative history, but what matters aren’t tweets from officials or best intentions, but rather the actual record. When a court examines the actual record of Bill C-11, they will find CRTC chairs, experts, and numerous creators identifying what the bill actually contains rather than what the government said it wants to accomplish. In fact, groups such as Music Canada and Digital First Canada specifically discussed the government’s stated intent and urged it to amend the bill to ensure those intentions were reflected in the legislation.

 

 

Only one party is evil and we were always at war with Eastasia:

Ottawa was careful to avoid admitting abuses Indigenous children suffered at residential schools happened "at the hands of the federal government" in remarks prepared for a Liberal cabinet minister after the discovery of unmarked graves last year, documents show.

The Canadian Press obtained documents through the Access to Information Act that show a draft version of a speech written for Carolyn Bennett, who was then minister of Crown-Indigenous relations, originally contained those words before they were edited out.

 

 

French would die off if the government stopped supporting it.

So ... :

Cabinet must consider steps to “secure a foothold for French in the public realm by way of political, cultural and economic status,” says a guide issued by Languages Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor. Staff complained after 53 years of federal bilingualism only seven percent of English-speaking Canadians know French words: “There is a decline in French across Canada including in Québec.”

 

Why does this sound familiar?:

Hundreds of scientists and researchers are expected to gather on Parliament Hill today to call for a raise.

Organizers of the “Support our Science” rally say they will present an open letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Science and Innovation Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne that has been signed by thousands of scientists and measures more than 60-metres long.

The group says many graduate and post-doctoral scholars receive funding from three federal agencies, but often the scholarships amount to less than minimum wage.

They also say graduate students have not seen a raise since 2003, and post-doctoral scholars have only had wages rise by 12.5 per cent in those 19 years.

As a result, many researchers leave the country or leave their fields altogether.

 

Twenty years to fix Afghanistan:

With a famine looming in Afghanistan, a coalition of humanitarian agencies want the Canadian government to lift prohibitions preventing them from doing business in the country, to help millions avoid starvation.