When is a Canadian No Longer a Canadian

“A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian.” That is what Liberal leader Justin Trudeau said, interrupting Prime Minister Stephen Harper during the Munk Debate on September 28, 2015, three weeks before he would defeat the Conservative leader in the election of October 19. Harper was defending, and Trudeau was condemning the government’s “Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act” that had come into effect in June, which revoked the citizenship of naturalized Canadians who engaged in terrorist activities. 

“You devalue the citizenship of every Canadian in this place and in this country when you break down and make it conditional for anyone,” Trudeau berated Harper. 

“A few blocks from here, he would have detonated bombs that would have been on a scale of 9/11,” Harper replied. “This country has every right to revoke the citizenship of an individual like that.” Harper was referring to Zakaria Amara, one of the ringleaders of the “Toronto 18” bomb plot and the first person to be stripped of Canadian citizenship under the new Act. Amara had come to Canada from Jordan as a young boy and held dual citizenship. The Toronto 18 conspirators were, among other things, planning to detonate truck bombs, open fire in a crowded area, storm the Parliament Building and behead the prime minister.  

It is noteworthy that in the aforementioned Munk Debate in which the leaders of the three major national parties –  Conservative, Liberal, and NDP – butted heads, that Trudeau declared in praising the legacy of his father, Pierre Elliott Trudeau:

First and foremost is the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which has defined Canada as a country that stands up for individual rights, even against governments who want to take those away.

Fast forward to 2021, and those rights are no more. When it comes to getting vaccinated for Covid, it’s get the jab or get lost. Far from standing up for individual rights, Justin Trudeau’s government is snatching them away and redefining them as privileges that the government will deign to give back once a person has obeyed its edict and gotten jabbed. In August of that year, he announced that his government, if re-elected, would spend a billion dollars to help provinces create their own vaccine passports for domestic use. Trudeau also said he wouldn’t force anyone to get a Covid shot but would restrict the “privileges” of those who refuse to get one without a medical reason (which is so narrowly defined as to make it almost impossible to get an exemption). So, per Trudeau, people were free to “choose” to get the jab or lose their “privileges” of holding a job and earning a living, going to “non-essential” venues like restaurants, gyms, and theatres, and traveling on planes, trains or cruise ships. No “force” to see here, folks, move along. 

So much for “standing up for individual rights, even against governments who want to take those away.” The current government’s edicts on forced vaccination violate the right to “security of the person” as defined under Section 7 of the Charter and the concept of “informed consent” as understood both in Canadian law and the United Nations’ Nuremberg Code. The Nuremberg Code was created following the Nuremberg trials of Nazi officials who conducted medical experiments on prisoners. Given that the current vaccines, employing a novel technology of mRNA encased in lipid nanoparticles or DNA carried in an adenovirus, are being used only under emergency Interim Orders, people who have them injected into their bodies, whether willingly or for fear of losing their newly defined “privileges” of holding a job, earning a living, and participating in society, are indeed participating in a medical experiment. But regardless of the state of development of the vaccines, no one should be subjected to a medical treatment they don’t want.   

Trudeau did not hide his contempt for the unvaccinated during his election campaign of 2021.  In a campaign speech on September 1^st, he referred to a nearby group of protesters as “anti-vaxxers.” Emphasizing the importance of vaccine passports, he said the federal government would pay for “the development of those privileges that you get once you get vaccinated.”  “Everyone needs to get vaccinated, and THOSE PEOPLE,” he said, turning around and pointing at the demonstrators, “are putting us all at risk.” (“The science” – to use the current phrase – concerning Covid infections does not bear him out, but that’s another discussion.) Trudeau then contemptuously refers to his Conservative opponent Erin O’Toole as “siding with THEM” as he pointed backward with his thumb. He dismisses O’Toole’s expressed concerns about “personal choice.” “What about my choice to keep my kids safe?” He berates O’Toole, “You need to condemn those people; you need to correct them.” 

Had Harper referred to terrorists or terrorist wannabes as “THOSE PEOPLE” during that Munk Debate in 2015 and said they needed to be condemned and corrected, Trudeau would no doubt have given him an earful. In fact, Trudeau is remarkably reluctant to condemn terrorists. Following the beheading of Paris school teacher Samuel Paty by a Muslim incensed that Paty had shown the Danish Mohammad cartoons in his class while discussing free speech, Trudeau said, “We will always defend freedom of expression…But freedom of expression is not without limits… In a pluralist, diverse and respectful society like ours, we owe it to ourselves to be aware of the impact of our words, of our actions on others, particularly these communities and populations who still experience a great deal of discrimination.” He said not a word about needing to “condemn” and “correct” people who kill when they’ve been offended.

But when it comes to expressing his opinions about those who decline to be injected with an experimental mRNA or DNA product, Trudeau does not seem much concerned about the impact of his words on others. For example, on a French-language TV program in September 2021, Trudeau claims that many vaccine-decliners are racist and misogynist and wonders if they should even be tolerated. Such was his diatribe that People’s Party of Canada leader Maxime Bernier tweeted a video titled “Psychopathe fasciste” (fascist psychopath). 

RAIR Foundation USA has provided English subtitles to Trudeau’s rant, the transcript of which reads as follows: 

“Yes, we will emerge from this pandemic through vaccination. We know people who are still making up their minds, and we will try to convince them. But there are also people who are vehemently opposed to vaccination.” “They’re extremists,” interjects the program hostess helpfully, and Trudeau continues, “who do not believe in science, who are often misogynists, often racist as well. It is a small group, but they are taking up space. And here we have to make a choice, as a leader, as a country. Do we tolerate those people? Or do we say, let’s see, most people because 80% of Quebeckers did the right thing, they got vaccinated, we want to get back to the things we like doing, and those people are not going to block us.” 

Clearly, when it comes to the unvaccinated, no longer is “a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian.” The 20% of Quebeckers and other unvaccinated Canadians whom Trudeau is slandering as tending to be racists and misogynists are not an insignificant number. The logic of how refusing the vax makes one a racist or misogynist is elusive, especially since minorities and women can be counted among the gene therapy refuseniks. 

One almost wonders whether Trudeau’s words would be considered incitement if applied to another identifiable group. He says the unvaccinated take up space (that presumably could be better used?) and raises the question of whether we should even tolerate them. The unvaccinated (“those people”) are blocking “us” from doing the things we like, he says. With his finger pointing, Trudeau seems to be trying to make his assertion that Canadians are angry with the unvaccinated a reality. He blames the unvaccinated for the consequences of his own misguided policies of fearmongering and lockdowns, which have a devastating impact on businesses and an already inefficient and underfunded healthcare system. (How did Sweden somehow manage without lockdowns?) Unfortunately, many Canadians have been sufficiently frightened or browbeaten to believe him. Many do blame the Covid-unvaccinated for the upheaval in their lives. Other leaders in history have used scapegoating and incitement with unfortunate results. Let’s hope that here in Canada, history doesn’t rhyme, to paraphrase Mark Twain. 

Trudeau’s words raise troubling questions about what he plans to do about “those people” to keep them from blocking the rest of “us.” I admit to feeling uneasy when our prime minister speaks that way about a segment of the population that includes me. The government has shown no compunction about using Covid as a reason to forcibly “quarantine” travelers for extended periods and at their own expense. In January 2022, not five months after Trudeau promised not to force people, the federal health minister was putting pressure on the provinces (under whose purview healthcare falls) to make vaccinations mandatory for everyone. If any province had succumbed to that pressure, (and Quebec was planning to fine the unvaccinated) or if the federal government had used the Emergencies Act to force them, what would be the fate of Canadians who still refused the vaccine?  Would they be jailed, fined, or forced into long-term quarantine camps? Would Trudeau say that he wasn’t forcing Canadians to get the vaccine, but if they wanted to retain the “privilege” of not being interned or fined, they’d better “choose” to do so?  (As Bill Clinton might say, “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘force’ is.”)

As it happens, a convoy of trucks that arrived in Ottawa on January 29 and for almost three weeks “occupied” Parliament Hill and the surrounding downtown area rendered many of the above questions hypothetical. The Freedom Convoy attracted tens of thousands of people from across the country to the nation’s capital, and its journey there was cheered on from overpasses and along roadways by many thousands more. Yet, although the anti-vaccine mandate, anti-lockdown message, and concomitant demands of the truckers clearly resonated with large numbers of Canadians, Trudeau dismissed them as “a small fringe minority with unacceptable views,” demonized them based on a handful, if that, of offensive flags which were probably “false flags,” and refused to meet with them. 

Despite governments at the federal, provincial, and municipal levels refusing to meet with the truckers or even recognizing their demands’ legitimacy, interesting things began to happen in Ottawa and across the country. Enforcement of mask mandates, still theoretically in effect, plummeted. Provincial governments announced dates when wearing masks, and proof of vaccination for access to “non-essential” venues would no longer be required. Quebec announced that it had dropped plans to impose financial penalties on the unvaccinated. Some provinces announced an immediate end to Covid measures.  

On February 14^th, Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act. Then, on February 18^th, militarized police forcefully and sometimes brutally put an end to what had been an extraordinarily peaceful protest, imbued with an atmosphere of joyfulness and celebration. Truckers and demonstrators were arrested, trucks were towed away, and bank accounts of people who had been doxxed as donors to the truckers’ GiveSendGo fundraising platform were frozen. The last action should be unthinkable in an allegedly free country like Canada but is permitted under the Emergencies Act. 

The Constitution requires that both the House of Commons and the Senate pass “a motion for confirmation of a declaration of emergency,” If that occurs, the Act remains in effect for 30 days. On February 21^st, three days after the protest was essentially over and one week after he had invoked it, Trudeau’s minority Liberals in the House of Commons dutifully passed the motion with the help of the New Democrat Party. Things didn’t go quite so smoothly in the Senate, with a large number of Senators eloquently expressing their concerns about the implications of the use of this draconian measure for a situation that did not meet the threshold of threat to national security demanded by the Act. On February 23^rd, before the Senators even voted on the motion to confirm and just two days after the House of Commons had passed it, Trudeau revoked the Emergencies Act.

Or at least that’s what officially happened. But things are not nearly back to normal.  Vaccine mandates for civil servants and others, including cross-border truckers, are still in effect. Unvaccinated Canadians can still not board a train, plane, or commercial watercraft. As the letter from Ontario Health to physicians, shown below, indicates, medical practitioners are still under heavy pressure from health bureaucrats to locate their unvaccinated patients and persuade them to take the mRNA shot. And parts of the Emergencies Act remain in effect: Bank accounts were still frozen long after it was revoked, and finance minister Chrystia Freeland announced that the financial aspects of the Act (giving the government enormous power over the finances of its citizens) would become permanent. What gives the government the authority to do such a thing does not seem to concern her. Moreover, the interim Ottawa police chief (who replaced the police chief who resigned during the protests) and Trudeau’s justice minister have threatened financial penalties for the supporters of the Freedom Convoy, in the words of the latter, to stop “terrorist financing.” Fortunately, several constitutional and legal groups are challenging the ongoing mandates and the newly acquired financial powers. 

Will, that allegedly wonderful Charter, the legacy of Trudeau’s father that he likes to flaunt, protect me from Trudeau’s vaccine mission and his government’s increasingly authoritarian control over its citizens? Section 15 – the part about equal protection before the law without discrimination, mentions race, national or ethnic origin, color, religion, sex, age, and mental or physical disability but says nothing about Covid vaccination status. And does it matter? Do Canadians even have “rights” anymore, or is everything now a “privilege” doled out to fearful and compliant citizens by politicians and health bureaucrats? Various challenges to vaccine mandates and other government overreach are in the works.  Let’s hope they are brought before a court soon, and go all the way to the Supreme Court and that the Supreme Court makes the right decision based on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms as many of us once understood it – a document that actually protects our rights and freedoms. Otherwise, let’s rename it the Canadian Charter of Privileges Doled Out by the Government. 

Justin Trudeau’s words may praise the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but his actions are obliterating it. 

Read Selected Articles at RAIR Foundation USA:

• BOMBSHELL: Owner of Ottawa’s Iconic Cafe – ‘Police’ Intruders in Viral Video Are Not Canadian (Exclusive)
• Canadian Frontline Nurse Co-Founder Responds to Brutal Political Persecution by Fighting Harder (Exclusive)
• ‘They Wanted to Break Teeth’: First Trucker Arrested at Freedom Convoy Speaks Out (Exclusive)
• Truckers Freedom Convoy: RAIR on the Ground in Ottawa – Trudeau’s Lies Exposed (Live Thread)
• Uprising: Truckers Freedom Convoy is a Beacon of Hope for the Entire World (Live Thread)
• ALERT: Antifa Group in Ottawa Menaces Driver (Exclusive Video)
• ‘News Literacy Program’: American Children Taught that Canadian Truckers are ‘Rooted in Extremism’
• ALERT: Trudeau to Freeze Bank Accounts of Pro-Trump ‘Freedom Convoy’ Supporters (Video)