It should come as little surprise that Tucker Carlson is a bridge too far in the cozy world of Canadian journalism. While there are notable exceptions, most of  Canada's media bien pensants have no idea that touching the third rail, as Carlson did, was journalism. At best, what they do is filling space between the commercials.

When it was Anne of Avonlea or even The Beachcombers there were recognizable Canadian themes and performers. Now, however, with the success of international marketing, Schitt’s Creek and Hallmark films are exemplars of a uni-culture, a smash-up of comedic tropes, romantic plots and cop shows that could come from anywhere. Gradually, CBC management began to see its real audience as a market like Hollywood or New York City, not Thunder Bay.

From Dr. Fauci to the fools on SNL or the smug laptop class at the Toronto Star, they closed ranks around a lie to bolster their importance. You paid. They skated. That’s one truth you can’t mask.

Before anyone ponders the Dylan Mulvaney/ BudLight nexus too deeply it’s best to remember that petrified corporations don’t advertise products anymore. Nor do they fixate on shareholder value. That’s so last week. Guided by their armies of high-priced gender and race consultants they now advertise attitudes and empathies. They promote virtue and inclusion. Sturm und Drag.

Look, every movement has its loonies. (Witness TrumpWorld.) But the percentage of progressives who have suddenly gone from “I love Benny Hill” to deciding trans rights is a hillside for them to die on is stunning. But such is the nature of hysterics. The Salem Witch Trials were generated by Christian fervour, the current fervour is driven by secular liberals casting about for quasi-religious meaning.

There was a time when live-and-let-live guided society. Or, as they like to say, the Good Old Days. Now, the needle monitoring live-and-let-live swings like a Hillary Clinton polygraph. If you’re with safe-space generation, no micro aggression is too small, no affront to LGBTQ-2 too slight to put off national calamity, no enemy too small to to squash. 

We got approved messaging this week from the Ottawa consultant class that examining in-depth how the PM and provincial premiers cratered democracy is a loser in the next federal election. We are told the public has no appetite for exposing the politicians and bureaucrats. Move on, we are told. They want other shiny objects.

As has been noted before, justice must not just be done, it must be seen to be done. And this patch-up job excusing a high-handed episode will reverberate for generations as leaders grasp at a life preserver to crush opponents’ rights and liberties. It was a decision to send a chill down the back of any civil libertarian. 

It was hoped that the gross overreach  in the Emergency Measures from this time last year might have swayed Mr. Trudeau and his faculty lounge of compliant stooges from another attempt at locking down more of what was once a liberal, free society. Guess again. Like all good party members and fellow travellers Trudeau’s constituency is elsewhere, not in Canada. 

Guess which Canadian political leader is not having his statue toppled, his likeness removed from schools and his reputation sullied? That would be Justin’s daddy Pierre Trudeau. As PM in 1968 he proposed in a white paper to eliminate native status and turn indigenous people into ordinary Canadians, thereby abrogating all the treaties they’d signed in good faith with the Crown. 

Not to be outdone by the NAC, Toronto’s Theatre Passe Muraille has its own Black Out Nights when even those willing to absorb the turgid agitprop onstage may not enter if they are un-black. Should someone wish to “self identify” as black they must undergo a gauntlet of staffers who will instruct them in the proper right-think.

Free speech and freedom of movement are being subordinated to elite cadres of the unelected State in public and private spheres. Digital ID that would have made Erik Honeker jealous is being pushed by Canada’s PM. People who wish to express opinions or dissent with the ruling class must pass through a Checkpoint Charlie gauntlet of apprehended disloyalty and suspected subversion.

You could tell just how vexing the dilemma was by the fact that Notley took 15 days to respond to Trudeau’s provocation. She had to find the right line— in the right time— to make room for herself between the PM and the premier. Room the Alberta voters— particularly the women’s vote in Calgary— are comfortable voting for. 

Overall, males kill themselves at rates that are four times higher than females begs (approximately 30,000 people commit suicide each year in the U.S. and 80 percent were men.) With the advent of legal MAID the numbers are likely to grow exponentially.

The restored health of Buffalo Bill DB Damar Hamlin will be one positive outcome of this frightening incident. The second might be the restoration of active public debate on healthcare. Both are to be celebrated. 

It takes a lot to toss aside a third year of Covid, a threat of nuclear war in Ukraine and the death of Queen Elizabeth II in the consideration for top news story of 2022 at Usual Suspects. But one should never underestimate the ability of Justin Trudeau to hog a spotlight.

As 2022 flickers let us resolve to clarify the language and, by doing so, clarify the culture. There’s lots to unpack here. In fact, let’s pack “lots to unpack” off to oblivion as our first assignment in 2023. There is plenty more Newspeak to toss out.

Liberals know that, fundamentally, their urban base that determines federal elections doesn’t give a flip about much that happens beyond their driveways or their condo elevator shaft. Their homes are cash boxes. The high-handed Covid restrictions were seen as cleansing exercises. The Leafs are winning. $32 B CRA over payments? Yawn.

The runaway freight train that is liberalism the past decade has come to affect virtually every part of life. Now the moveable goal posts have come to impact death, too. As usual, the best intentions of cozy liberals have become an ugly bureaucratic beast.