Below is my column in the Hill on the resignation of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his anti-free speech legacy. The collapse of free speech in Canada is a cautionary tale for Americans. It shows how Trudeau and the Liberal Party used faux rhetoric of tolerance and inclusion to justify intolerance and exclusion.
Here is the column:
With Justin Trudeau’s announcement that he will step down as prime minister, Canada is now looking for a new leader after a decade under his policies. The question is whether anyone will look for the remnants of Canadian free speech in the wreckage of the Trudeau government.
In my book “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” I write about the collapse of free speech in Canada under Trudeau.
Canada has long been a country caught between two influences: the United Kingdom and the United States. It has shared DNA with both nations. Unfortunately, it has largely followed the British approach in treating free speech more like a privilege than a right.
That dubious tradition was magnified over the last decade by a wholesale attack on free speech deemed hostile, insulting or triggering for different groups.
In many ways, Canada has been a cautionary tale for many in the U.S., as the same voices of censorship and criminalization grow on our campuses and in Congress.
Indeed, BlueSky, a social media site that offers a safe space for liberals who do not want to be triggered by opposing views, has apparently embraced Canadian-style standards for censorship as part of its pitch for those with viewpoint intolerance.
For over a decade, Trudeau has been the cheerful face of modern censorship. While exuding tolerance and inclusivity, he hammered critics with draconian measures and perfectly Orwellian soundbites. In the name of tolerance, he proudly proclaimed intolerance for opposing views.
Trudeau shows how speech codes and virtue signaling are now chic on the left. In a town hall event, Trudeau chastised a woman for asking a question that used the term “mankind” and instructed her, “We like to say ‘peoplekind’ … because it’s more inclusive.” (He later claimed he was joking. If so, many of his policies have the same punchline and are no joking matter.)
In many ways, Trudeau’s true colors emerged in his crackdown on the trucker protests opposing COVID-19 mandates in 2022, a campaign widely supported by an enabling media. Trudeau invoked the 1988 Emergencies Act for the first time to freeze bank accounts of truckers and contributions by other Canadian citizens, powers long condemned by civil liberties groups in Canada.
The anti-free speech apple did not fall far from the tree. It was Trudeau’s father, Pierre Trudeau, who as prime minister used the predecessor to the act for the first time in peacetime to suspend civil liberties.
Trudeau was widely criticized for his anti-free speech policies, including his move to amend the Criminal Code and the Canadian Human Rights Act to criminalize any “communication that expresses detestation or vilification of an individual or group of individuals on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination.”
It was used to prevent “social media platforms [from being] used to threaten, intimidate, bully and harass people, or used to promote racist, anti-Semitic, Islamophobic, misogynistic and homophobic views that target communities, put people’s safety at risk and undermine Canada’s social cohesion or democracy.”
Under Trudeau, human rights commissions became virtual speech commissars in Canada. A conservative webmaster was prosecuted for allowing third parties to leave insulting comments about gay people and minorities on the site. Federal Court Justice Richard Mosley insisted that “the minimal harm caused … to freedom of expression is far outweighed by the benefit it provides to vulnerable groups and to the promotion of equality.” Even a comedian was prosecuted for insulting jokes involving lesbians.
Recently, a Canadian mayor and a town were prosecuted for not hoisting an “LGBTQ2 rainbow flag” in celebration of Pride Month — even though they did not have a flag pole.
Despite crushing the trucker protests, the Canadian parliament extended Trudeau’s emergency powers to allow him to continue to harass and threaten those on the right. Despite broad opposition, the Liberal Party, the NDP and other allies were able to muster 181 votes to keep authoritarian powers alive in Canada. (The Canadian courts later, belatedly, declared the Trudeau powers unconstitutional).
Many of the same legislators would later push to increase the penalties for certain speech crimes to life imprisonment.
One of the most tragically ironic moments for Canada came last year, when Trudeau’s government blocked the citizenship of Russian dissident Maria Kartasheva because she has a conviction in Russia. She had been tried in absentia by a judge sanctioned by Canada for her exercise of free speech in Russia in condemning the Ukrainian war. The Canadian government informed Kartasheva that her conviction in Russia aligns with a Criminal Code offense relating to false information in Canada.
Think about that. Canada was concerned because she violated anti-free speech laws that are similar to its own. The Russians convicted her of disseminating “deliberately false information,” and Canada convicts people under laws like Section 372(1) of the Criminal Code of Canada for efforts “to convey, cause, or procure to be conveyed false information with the intent to alarm or injure anyone.”
That is why some of us spit out our soup in 2022 when Trudeau’s government condemned Cuba for its own crackdown on protesters, claiming that “Canada strongly advocates for freedom of expression and the right to peaceful assembly free from intimidation.” Trudeau also condemned China for cracking down on protests over COVID-19, the very subject of his own crackdown on the truckers.
Yet Trudeau has been a darling of the Canadian and American press despite a disapproval rate of around 68 percent among Canadian citizens. The media clearly approves of his position that “freedom of expression is not without limits” when others seek “to arbitrarily or unnecessarily injure those with whom we are sharing a society and a planet.”
So the question is: Now that Trudeau is heading out, where do Canadians go to get their free speech back?
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
No, Canada doesn’t deserve any free speech and they should continue to be ruled by Marxist leaders who oppose free speech. Canadians are stupid Marxists themselves and have no common sense or any intelligence to speak of. They are as dull, dumb and stupid as the inhabitants of California, Colorado, New York, and Washington D.C., or even dumber, if that’s possible. If Canada wants to do an exchange program, where Marxist Justin Trudeau will take over for Marxist Gavin Newsom and Marxist Newsom will become Canada’s Marxist Prime Minister, that would be fine and dandy. Well, at least fine or dandy, even if not necessarily fine and dandy.
Just like the nearly half of Americans who also stupid Marxists who support Biden and Harris, our current Marxist leaders who also oppose free speech.
The embarrassing thing is that a greater percentage of Americans voted for Biden and now Harris than Canadians who voted for Trudeau.
Trudeau got 33% of the popular vote in their last election and needed to buy the seats from the other Marxist party to have the votes to survive as prime minister.
In comparison, our Harris just got 48% of the popular vote – 15% more votes from Americans than Canadians gave to her fellow Marxist, Trudeau?
Now is that embarrassing for you and America as well, or what?
Good news! In British Columbia a Dairy Queen is celebrating Trudeau’s resignation by offering $2 “Trudeau resignation special,” burgers and “Poilievre 4 PM poutine” for $5!
How marvelous!
We are, unfortunately, watching the strange suicide of California.
Misplaced priorities, yes. But those are shifting and correcting as we speak. Does anyone think Karen Bass could be reelected Mayor of LA at this point? Newsom is termed out in ’28. All we need are moderate, service-oriented Repubs (no zealots need apply) for state offices. Maybe Kevin McCarthy for Gov.?
OldManFromKS,
Gross mismanagement, putting DEI as a priority, promoting people to positions to make major department decisions who should never been promoted, just another long trend of bad decisions made by CA politicians and in some cases, the voters.
I was horrified when my Canadian cousin in Montreal wondered on FaceBook if she should report her neighbors to authorities who had more than 10 people over for Christmas during the height of Covid. Sadly, she is the norm rather than the exception in Canada. I don’t know how they put up with Trudeau as long as they have…but will it really change or be more of the same? My hope for them is Pierre Poilievre. But the greater question is–are the Canadians too far gone?
It is not just Trudeau, its the entire bureaucracy, thats what a new PM has to deal with. The sickness is deep in the b ureaucracy. How to purge it?
thru elections….duh!
Surrender pronto or we’ll level Toronto!
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayOlQ9If_cA?si=Ed7mM-fEC4pcl_27&w=560&h=315%5D
Derek Chauvin should receive a pardon
https://www.thefallofminneapolis.com/
Not a pardon–absolution
OT,
The quasi-president is weighing general pardons for Cheney and Fauci.
Poisoned chalice.
There was little likelihood they would be prosecuted anyhow but they can be sued and they would no longer be able to refuse to take the stand and testify. No 5th when no possible crime for which their testimony would be incriminating. O J Simpson could refuse to take the stand at his criminal trial but after he was acquitted he had to testify in the civil suit brought against him.
“So the question is: Now that Trudeau is heading out, where do Canadians go to get their free speech back?”
******************************
History affords a consistent answer: Precious liberty lost by tyrannical dictate to a passive population must be won back by their children through blood. It’s a lesson as old as the story of Moses. We’ll see if the Canucks have it in them.
Hey everybody (you especially Mr. Turley), Justin Trudeau DID NOT resign as Prime Minister. He resigned as head of the Liberal party, he remains Prime Minister until there is an election. He also prorogued Parliament until the next session begins on March 24th to avoid another non-confidence vote that would have triggered an election if it passed.
Nothing has changed in Canadian politics with his announcement. The ruling party is still corrupt AF, the business of Parliament is still at a standstill because of Trudeau’s refusal to produce documents relevant to the corruption within his Cabinet – and also now the prorogation of Parliament – and he and his Cabinet still refuse to answer questions about their corruption and whacko policies that have brought this once great country to its knees.
All of Eastern Europe (and at the time, Russia) cast off tyrannical bureaucratic dictatorships with any bloodshed.
Russia has regressed, but all the other nations of the Soviet empire are enjoying more freedom than ever before.
What about Chile? Argentina? Colombia? All had slippages into tyranny, and were able to reverse course peacefully.
It’s stupid to claim freedom once quashed can only be reestablished through bloodshed. It’s ignorant.
It will be a great comfort to the people whose homes are in danger to know that the LA fire chief will send a diverse team to fight the wildfires. The team will include LGBTQ firefighters so there will be a lower chance of catastrophic fire damage since the fires, knowing this, will stay away. Likewise the FBI is using a diverse investigative team to get to the bottom of the New Orleans attack (I would have said terror attack but the FBI said it wasn’t one). Meanwhile the UN is a terrorist organization.
https://nypost.com/2025/01/08/world-news/unrwa-knowingly-let-hamas-infiltrate-per-un-watch-report/
OT
Are Big Al Bragg, Fanny Willis, Leticia James, Tanya Chutkan, Obama’s boy, Jack Smith, et al. going to charge Emmanuel “Manny” Hostin with fraud including Sunny Hostin as an accomplice—how could she possibly not have had knowledge of a crime, been involved, and obstructed justice?
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“The View co-host Sunny Hostin’s surgeon husband Emmanuel accused of insurance fraud in bombshell lawsuit”
– Daily Mail
Back when I lived in Canada, it was not like this. There were Mounties riding actual horses thru town, and the people were proud and hard-working. I remember the Queen coming to town, too. There was hockey, and Chinese food, and fish.
Poor Canada! The populace is timid, obedient and overly reliant on authority and government oversight. The various governments control and regulate everything in daily existence, from the construction of your house to the food you consume. While free health care is great, it gives far too much authority and sway to the government, controlling both doctors and patients. Canadians are suspicious of innovation, creativity and eccentricity, they rarely complain about restrictions and fall in line quietly. The history of the Avro Arrow is a great example. Also, the story of the young musician, Glenn Gould, who conquered the hearts of Russians on a trip there in 1958, opening a possibility for communication and exchange with Russia. We did nothing. Trudeau aside, we embarrass ourselves regularly, never more, in my opinion, than when the NHL played the Soviets in 1972 in Montreal for the first game of that famous series. When the Canadians to their horror lost the game, they refused to shake hands with their worthy opponents. Scandalous behaviour, but no one noticed. Nothing, of course, was more shameful than when all 338 Members of Parliament stood to applaud as a “Canadian Hero” (because he fought Russia) a man who had been a SS Nazi in WWII and an enemy of Canada. Ignorance, shame and stupidity combined, but no one but the Speaker resigned, no one was held to account. Canada has a foreigner as head of state, not only that, but a monarch. What is Canada then? The answer cn be found in the name of one of the Provinces: British Columbia. The name acknowledges Britain and America (Columbia, the personified symbol of the US), nothing Canadian in the name at all… by the way the main newspaper in the city of Victoria (another British monarch) is The Colonist… Canadians revelling again in their subservience. And we are subservient! subservient to the Atlantic cabal between the US and Britain. Trudeau is irrelevant, he was in their thrall, as is Freeland, a descendant of a Ukrainian Nazi, who is happy to cry “Slava Ukrainii” at any opportunity to connect to that glorious past.
If Canada wants new leadership, the people must first create a Canadian identity, and not rely on sycophantic leaders, obedient and loyal to external powers. In the cesspool of Canadian politics, I see no emerging persona of quality, courage and conviction to make any meaningful change.
Why don’t you become a Canadian and run for Parliment?
@JOHN DANN Poor Canada! The populace is timid, obedient and overly reliant on authority and government oversight.
Like California, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Oregan, Hawaii, etc here at home?
Or our years during Wuhan Flu were we sat silent as doctors, nurses, military, border patrol, etc were fired for not going along and we sheepishly obeyed and accepted the six foot rule and repeated promises that experimental vaccines were necessary, mandatory, and would protect us from infection?
An unknown nobody Nazi having a brief moment in the Canadian Parliament was an eternal marker for that country- but Obama/Biden allowing Putin into the Middle East, allowing him to invade Ukraine, and empowering and enriching Iran’s Mad Mullahs when they were busily murdering Americans in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as through their terrorist proxies is No Bid Deal?
How about Biden allowing his ChiCom family business partners to float a spy balloon across the USA for days without interfering?
Want more examples?
Attempting feeble Whataboutisms and Moral Equivalencies as a supposed argument can be a b–ch to carry off successfully.
Old Airborne Dog
Need we remind that Canada is a constitutional monarchy with executive authority vested in the Crown? As became immediately evident to all during the Covid convoy? Canadians truthfully have no more rights today than our ancestors fleeing the so-called “star chambers” did 400 years ago. Historians may reference the Magna Carta, but as a descendant of several Sureties let me tell, you, historically speaking, the Magna Carta ensured the rights of no one. Yet the words “constitute” in respect to laws of the “civil body politic,” and “constitutions,” appear in the Mayflower Compact itself, don’t they? All of this in stark contrast to our constitutional republic which vests power in the People. And so it was that religious mission, as freedom of conscience, freedom of opinion, translates to freedom of expression and freedom of speech – a wellhouse, all else springs from here.
Same goes for the Virgin Islands. Del. Stacey Plaskett of the U. S. Virgin Islands complains that she isn’t a voting member of Congress, but meanwhile in the British Virgin Islands they have a Governor appointed by a King and no representation in Parliament.
betuadollar wrote: Need we remind that Canada is a constitutional monarchy with executive authority vested in the Crown?
For more important than that distraction, and as a lesson of history, we need a reminder that “the Crown”, whether in the UK or any Commonwealth nation, is merely the representative of the freely elected government of Canada. A government comprised of Canadians elected by their fellow Canadians in their districts throughout the the provinces and territories of that nation.
That freely elected majority party in parliament passes (or rejects) bills by the majority vote of those members of Parliament. And then enforces them as the majority government of the day dictates to the unelected bureaucracy how they will do that.
“The Crown”‘s job is to put it’s signature on all bills put in front of it by that elected government, whether they be good or bad. The Crown does not propose new laws, new taxes, make treaties, declare war, etc. All of that is done by the freely elected parliament. The Crown does not even offer an opinion on what is put before it to sign.
“The Crown” has not attempted to meddle in or supplant the affairs of parliament in over 350 years – that was when the last monarch who attempted to do that promptly found himself on his knees under the headsman’s axe held by a mere commoner, in the public square in front of parliament. No ceremonial execution carried out by a knight or a lord of the privileged classes. A commoner serving as public butcher.
Ever since then the Crown’s role is to be the ceremonial traditional representative of that elected government. And they’ve stuck to that.
The lesson so many continue to need a reminder of is that, it isn’t “the Crown” or any monarch making and enforcing these laws: it is the freely elected government made up of their elected fellow citizens.
Just as it wasn’t Evil King George that placed those taxes on the Colonists, abused their rights in violation of the EBR and Magna Carta, and ultimately made war on them. That was all the elected government.
The danger isn’t “the Crown”, “the Monarch”, etc. It’s our fellow citizens we freely elect to rule us that are the danger.
All of this is being done in Canada, the US, the UK, etc by freely elected governments, their fellow citizens elected by their fellow citizens.
Those who sit there going “those damned monarchs” are suffering terrible tunnel vision at the country’s peril.
Canadians truthfully have no more rights today than our ancestors fleeing the so-called “star chambers” did 400 years ago.
You would be equally as accurate to say that about Trump, General Flynn, many of the J6 rioters, etc. You could argue whether Pelosi’s first impeachment of Trump was Star Chamber or Soviet… or perhaps a mixture of both.
That some survived being hunted by Democrat police state fascists modelling their prosecution after Stalin’s Lavarentiy Beria doesn’t mean that being in second place in a race to the bottom should be comforting. Especially when a lot of what is happening in Canada used what was going on and being gotten away with in the USA as it’s inspiration.
Old Airborne Dog
Old Cowardly Airborne Dog will attempt to steal valor but he won’t reveal how, where and when he was a courageous and decorated warrior.
Old Cowardly Airborne Dog will attempt to steal valor
There you are, cowardly Anonymous pedophile little gun bunny. Like every day, the same insinuation – but never a quote and paste from my posts of the day to back up your daily allegation. The alter ego of Gigi in action. Or maybe you’re her twin brother!
Almost like there’s nothing but the accusation because you think I’m the one who told the MPs you were molesting the base brats. I wasn’t – but I would happily turn you into your probation officer for using the internet when your release conditions say no access to the Internet due to fears you will go back to luring little boys.
You were probably the worst loser in the Airsoft Gravy Seal Six Chairborne Commandos as well.
Old Airborne Dog
It’ll take us a good long while to undo all of the damage of the modern democrats in America, I don’t know how Canada saves itself after decades of Trudeau and all of his awfulness. And I hate to be a cynic, but I agree with the other cynics here – I doubt this will amount to much in our lifetimes; the damage done by modern, leftist globalists is incalculable. It will take longer than the restoration after WWII. I wish them well, but I also have to say, ‘Good luck.’, and I thank God we did it without bullets this time. It is the same, nevertheless. The modern left are a plague.
*That is, similar awfulness. He is part of a dynasty as are many of our dem aristocrats, and Canada has suffered worse and longer than we have; our Constitution has been our safe haven, they don’t have that. Neither does any Western European country.
Canada does indeed have a Constitution (a rather poor one because numerous provinces demanded carve-outs before signing in a different form of our Constitutional Convention), modeled on several of their other and still included Constitutional documents): Magna Carta, the English Bill of Rights, the Canadian Bill of Rights, etc. Just as we have the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
They share the same problem we have, except far worse: their government blatantly ignores constitutional protections and courts choose to allow them to do that to the point it becomes a precedent. The Sparrow decision soon after their new Constitution was adopted said that if any existing rights were extinguished, that had to be done by an act of parliament. Free speech rights are just one example where the government has trampled over all those rights without any Parliamentary assent – or court intervention.
The UK has done the same and preceded both the USA and Canada in doing this.
The country where it was common for commoners to walk the streets with a pocket pistol in the early 1900’s without so much as a permit for protection against foot pads is now a country where ownership of any handgun for any purpose is essentially illegal. Canada was essentially the same with concealed carry, handgun hunting, etc. up until the first Trudeau arrived on the scene in the 1960s and was made the Liberal justice minister. He quickly put Canada in lockstep with the UK to start his version of protecting Canada.
If you think you have fourth Amendment rights, ask Trump and everyone hunted by Democrats with their Russia Dossier, where Obama sent his Attorney Generals and FBI Directors to perjure themselves to FISA courts to get fraudulent counterespionage warrants to dig up and go through every written and electronic communication they ever had and anyone within two points of contact with them.
If you think the 2nd Amendment applies to you as an American, try and get a concealed carry PERMIT to exercise that right in places like Hawaii. If we point out Canada is worse off in that respect, it doesn’t change the fact that freely elected governments in both countries ignore constitutional rights and courts to varying degrees have become their willing accomplices.
Monarchies, family political dynasties, etc don’t mean jack squat. Neither Obama nor Biden have anything remotely like a family political dynasty, and each has done tremendous damage to our Republic. The same can be said for the original Democrat racist totalitarian, Woodrow Wilson – no political dynasty.
We are freely electing the people doing this to ourselves, and we were on the verge of electing the next Democrat to continue the police state fascism that Obama began long before Trump decided to run for office.
Whether in a column or in a comment, proclaiming that we aren’t in the lead in a race to the bottom is little more than a comforting distraction. It’s the worst kind of moral equivalency.
The Canadian fascists can claim the objective of their constitutional documents is “rule for the common good”, however they want to define that. Our American fascists are openly operating against a constitution that is specifically intended to protect individual freedoms and liberties, not some amorphous “common good” as in Canada.
Old Airborne Dog
Kanadian’s beware! Federal & Provincial Conservative governments have a poor track record of reversing & rolling back odious polices from former bad governments. Case in point: Stephen Harper’s Conservative Federal government had six (6) years in majority government, failed to extinguish incredibly bad Liberal policies.
Incredibly, most Kanadian Conservative partys’ have succumbed to ‘Sullivan’s Law..
https://babylonbee.com/news/trudeau-to-be-humanely-euthanized
“It’s the Canadian way, eh?”
I have volunteered to award Marxist Justin Trudeau with a Gift Certifcate from the Jack Kevorkian Clinic, all expenses paid.