Drastic things are happening in Canada

Commentary

According to Aldous Huxley, the tyrant of the future will use drugs and propaganda to convince the individual to “love his slavery”. In a 1958 interview with Mike Wallace, Huxley explained, “You have to get the permission of the governed. And this they will do partly through drugs, as I foresaw in ‘Brave New World’, and partly through these new propaganda techniques.” Huxley believed that these two weapons would realize the tyrant’s dream of an obedient society.

It is Canada’s strange fate that these things, drugs and propaganda, are hot-wire issues in 2023. Today’s drama is so intense that one wonders if Canada is fulfilling Huxley’s terrifying prophecy.

Canadians live with a national government that, more than any other, is committed to instructing and educating its people. In first place is the government’s agenda in the areas of climate action, gender politics anddiversity, equity and inclusion” (DEI). Almost daily, these agenda items infiltrate federal directives large and small. With a unique voice, the supporters of these ideas declare: the planet is on fire, transgender women are women, and DEI should be the bible of every institution.

Along with the CBC, this is dutifully supported by Canada’s mainstream media, which received $595 million from the federal government in 2019, and more since. According to Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez, this money is paid to so-called “Qualified Canadian Journalism Organizations” to guarantee “reliable and credible information”. Some may believe this, but many critics call mainstream media echo chamber news — and occasionally propaganda.

Today, many Canadians are critical of climate action, gender ideology and DEI. Many sensible people think that these issues have often become radical and illogical. But it seems the government has little tolerance for dissent and no interest in robust and wide-open debate, and so these opponents now find themselves in the crosshairs of a censorship attack. As the saying goes, propaganda is impossible without censorship.

In their party platform, the Liberals stated that they intend to “end harmful content online” and “address extreme and harmful speech”. The Western Standard reports that Secretary Rodriguez remains “determined to suppress statements the Prime Minister described as ‘destabilizing to democracy'” – a surprising remark. It turns upside down Statement of the US Supreme Court that “government should not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or distasteful.”

These censorship promises have been put into practice. In 2022, the Twitter Files revealed more than 200 episodes in which the government asked social media companies to delete data, sometimes complaining about the material was “offensive”. More substantially, the government rolled out censorship powers in 2023 in the Online Streaming Act and the Online News Act. And there’s more to come. Before the end of the year, Canadians can expect the Online Harms Act along with the ominous Digital Safety Commissioner.

Freedom of speech in Canada is under threat. So much that Elon Musk recently pleaded for “a new government in Canada” that would respect freedom of speech. Musk believes in a marketplace of ideas, or as George Orwell said, “If freedom means anything, it means the right to tell people what they don’t want to hear.”

Meanwhile, as if to follow Huxley’s prediction, the Canadian government has also become a world leader in legalizing and distributing illegal drugs. Indeed, the government will not condemn drugs and drugs has declared it will invest millions in “public education to reduce stigma”.

Cannabis was legalized in 2019 and today more than 3,700 stores sell the products all over the country. Before long, drugs like fentanyl were decriminalized in British Columbia. And just as quickly unfolded a radical policy for the so-called “safer delivery” of drugs and “safer injection sites”. A recent National Post op-ed said these policies “could have been invented by the drug cartels.” Likewise the Washington Examiner says Canada’s drug policy is “overseen by a cabal of ideologically driven researchers who simply don’t believe rehabilitation is possible” and who “press for hyperlibertarian policies that minimize exposure to restorative-based treatments.”

Canadians are now seeing an avalanche of drugs, all sponsored by a government that claims more and better drugs can cure addiction, and that empowering addicts is a form of healing. Drastic things are happening in Canada.

But this liberalized drug policy goes hand in hand with the oppressive censorship policy. Two dystopian novels predicted that drugs, such as censorship, would be used to suppress opposition. In Huxley’s “Brave New World”, the drug “soma” is distributed to create conformity and “stability”. And in Lois Lowry’s novel “The Giver,” drugs are handed out to prevent strife or “unrest.” The novels present a depraved but simple message: a fried society is an accommodating society. Or in the Canadian context: drug addicts don’t organize freedom convoys.

Most recently, drugs and censorship have swept over Canadians like a swift tide. Each of these weapons tries in its own way to make Canadians more docile and less resistant. But in reality they are attacks on fundamental principles. These are turbulent times and Canadians are looking for answers. John F. Kennedy may have diagnosed the mindset of the current Canadian government when he said“A nation afraid of letting its people judge truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation afraid of its people.”

The views expressed in this article are the views of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.