There seems to be a strange disconnect between what Conservative leaders say about freedom and rights and what it is they actually do once they have their hands on the levers of power and find those hands constrained by those very rights and freedoms.
We can all recall the spectre of opposition leader Pierre Poilievre meeting with the protestors who had locked Ottawa residents in a transport horn-infused hell for weeks on end and caused billions of dollars in economic damage while blockading border crossings while the Ontario provincial agencies inactive (under the purview of a Progressive Conservative government) charged with keeping the peace stood by. We are sure the fact that those protestors, ostensibly outraged by the imposition of mandates aimed at protecting public health but clearly fueled by an antipathy to the current prime minister, played an integral role in that decision.
It is an interesting sidenote that the largest portion of the “mandates” the so-called “Freedom Convoy” protesters were purportedly incensed over were actually provincially mandated by the provinces.
It was then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Mr. Poilievre’s predecessor atop the Conservative throne, who authorized spending over $1 billion rounding up of thousands of citizens, journalists and innocent bystanders and placing them in cages during a world summit that had previously cost other nations $128 million to host all-in. Perhaps that could all have been avoided had those protestors been waving F*ck Trudeau banners.
These are the same tough on crime “get those damn Natives off the train tracks and out of the valuable timber stands and pipeline path” crew who railed at those “illegal” occupations threatening our economic freedoms. Maybe those protesters should have invested in some banners aimed at fornicating with the nation’s leader—but not-so-fast and hold on a minute.
Mr. Poilievre, like his Conservative or conservative-minded provincial colleagues, has threatened to ride roughshod over our nation’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms should that odious liberal standard complicate his chosen path (It is important to note that the Charter has never been invoked at the federal level).
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been castigated by the Conservative opposition for invoking the Emergency Act in order to return peace and order to the streets of Ottawa (He did so without resorting to invoking the notwithstanding clause to override any pesky court challenges to his reach). Much has been made of the fact that this was the first use of the Emergencies Act since its inception—but the Emergencies Act replaced the much more draconian War Measures Act when it was deemed to be too heavy a hand.
In hindsight, one investigating commission has said the Liberal government’s invocation of the act was justified, one lower level of the courts has determined it wasn’t (although admitting that the federal government did not have all of the information at the time the court had), the Supreme Court has yet to weigh in on the matter. Meanwhile the residents of the nation’s capital can sleep through the night—thanks to the soft-on-crime Liberal leader.
When it comes to the rights and freedoms of Canadian citizens, Conservative leaders are quite willing to pick and choose those instances where the Charter is simply “inconvenient” and stand ready to pre-emptively override its provisions for expediencies sake.
Governing a country as diverse and geographically dispersed as Canada is challenging at the very best of times, and the temptation to clutch at simplistic and kneejerk reactions in order to “lock them up” when it comes to finding solutions to those challenges is dangerously addictive for those on the right of the political spectrum.
After years of dealing with a global pandemic and the ongoing challenges presented by the continued disruption of supply chains and poor-to-no provincial action in response to crisis (note housing falls squarely on the provincial beat, as does health and with it the addiction crisis) our nation is angry, frustrated and, if current polls are any indication, not going to take it anymore.
Given that the nation may well have another year in order to weigh the respective merits of the potential changing of the guards over our collective rights and freedoms, it would be a wise exercise to place into the balance beam what the contenders say they will do and view the results of what they did (or didn’t do) when they had their hands on the levers of power.
