The Gag Reflex: PMJT's Transparent Censorship

Sherlock Holmes observed “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains—however improbable— must be the truth.”

Using this barometer, what was once impossible in Canada must now, improbably, be truth under Justin Trudeau and his illiberal Liberals. And called transparency.

This government, buttressed by the supplicant NDP, continue to completely redefine truth in public discourse as we have known it. To accomplish this the Liberals will— wait for it— create boards to regulate minority content, appoint unelected tribunals to determine hate speech and use the federally appointed CRTC to enact government policy in the content Canadians see.

Hefty fines and de-regulation face any of the impertinent who disagree with this social engineering. For having a contrary take you may pay up to $20,000 to your  accusers, plus up to $50,000 in fines. So criticizing government policy might now be criminal under the new regulations Trudeau wishes to jam through before his mandate expires in 2025. 

Much of this will not adhere to legal standards. As Josh de Haas reports, “the tribunal would have only needed to find that the speech was hateful on a balance of probabilities, as opposed to the higher standard of beyond a reasonable doubt.” That would extend to the idea that a person might commit “an offence motivated by bias, prejudice or hate” in the future to threaten the would-be hater with up to 12 months in prison.”

That likely means pointing out the myriad operational and professional failures of this PM will be labelled as hate speech in the Utopia being imagined in the PMO. We wrote about the move to censor in March

“Canada’s proposed Bill C-38 is a product of morally panicked people who think “too many people in Canada are victimized by hate speech and hate crimes and we have to make sure we are tackling this”. Whose hate? What is hate? Hands up if this reminds you of the U.S. Supreme Court trying to decide what constitutes pornography in The People Vs. Larry Flynt? 

“in a time of C-38 moral panic, when people are mortified to remove their face diapers, we now must have disclaimers when we leave our safe spaces to duel with contrary opinions. That’s if we duel with them at all. The bullies have cleansed public discourse.”

There was a time when a free press backstopped the public’s access to  expression. But that wall has been demolished by the Liberals, too. Under the premise that it’s better to have your friends close but your enemies closer, Trudeau has gutted the integrity of the fourth estate by simply paying them off. 

The government’s remedy for helping today’s Canadian media is not to make them better, make them widen the focus of the lens. According to Trudeau the solution is to pay them to keep doing what they market has already rejected.

This soft bribery has always been dilemma for CBC, getting its funding from government. But in recent years the hand-to-mouth existence has become disqualifying as the Corp took down $1.5 billion in government slush (largely to Bigfoot social media in the nation). CBC has done little to counter its image as a lapdog for the Liberals, providing spin for Trudeau in the recent Truckers Convoy, advancing positions in the moment they were later forced to admit were wrong.

Most telling, CBC’s backers have no idea they’re been compromised in the public’s eyes by taking the PM’s gelt. They truly believe they’re above reproach. It doesn’t stop with CBC’s wilful blindness. The rest of the media corps think they can be credible with their hands out, too.

Under the claim of financial distress, 159 private media outlets are now seeking to lap up government “bailout” money in a handout process that is both secret and disqualifying. As CanadaLand has reported a panel of “ˆfive people… decide which news orgs are Qualified Canadian Journalism Organizations…

The names of the news organizations currently funded by taxpayers is a secret. The amounts they receive are a secret.  The names of those rejected are a secret.  The reasons why they were rejected are a secret.The board meets in secret. There are no videos online of their meetings, no minutes you can read.” And the PM grandly calls this “transparency”.

As J.J. McCullough writes in the Washington Post: “At the end of the day, this government will never abandon its fundamentally authoritarian conviction that it is the job of the state to force Canadians into consuming the sort of entertainment the political class believes their lumpenproletariat lives will be improved by viewing.”

So Facebook and Google will now be funding stilted CanCon to achieve quotas decided upon by the PMO. And the public will be told what it’s allowed to say and hear in both traditional and social media. 

At its heart this explosion of controlling expression is about one thing: Justin Trudeau’s next job. Whether it’s being wind therapist for The Great Reset or concierge at the Climate Hotel, hushing Canadians is all to the greater glory of the most vain person to ever be PM. As the Irish expression goes, #PMJT has to be “the bride at every wedding; the corpse at every funeral.” 

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster (http://www.notthepublicbroadcaster.com). The best-selling author was nominated for the BBN Business Book award of 2020 for Personal Account with Tony Comper. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, he’s also a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. His new book with his son Evan Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History is now available on http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx