EDITORIAL: The origins of political paranoia
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In a democracy that fears its own citizens, democracy itself is at risk.
Consistent with the views of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government that without federal Liberal governments forever, Canada will become a racist, misogynist backwater dominated by Conservatives, it’s useful to consider where such fears come from.
One indication may well be a“secret” and heavily redacted RCMP report revealed by the National Post last week entitled “Whole-of-Government Five-Year-Trends-for-Canada.”
Reported by Tristin Hopper, it became public because of an access to information request by Matt Malone, an assistant law professor at B.C.’s Thompson Rivers University.
Intended to be distributed inside the RCMP and to federal “decision-makers”, it sounds like talking points that the Trudeau Liberals make all the time.
That is, that in an era of declining living standards, unaffordable housing, climate change, the erosion of trust in government due to “paranoid populism”, the spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories on the Internet and political polarization, civil unrest in Canada is on the rise.
Indeed, the public portions of the document could easily be a federal Liberal handbook for candidates in the next election, containing approved talking points for a party anxious to deflect public anger with the performance of the Liberal government since 2015, away from the performance of the Liberal government.
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We agree that many Canadians are angry — although we’d call it frustrated and disappointed — with a Liberal government that has become increasingly tone deaf to their day-to-day concerns and economic struggles, and has presided over numerous financial scandals which suggest incompetence at best and corruption at worst.
All this while lecturing Canadians that whenever the Trudeau government screws up, it’s somehow a learning moment for all Canadians who didn’t screw up, instead of for the people who actually screwed up and who, inexplicably, kept their jobs.
Meanwhile, one for the greatest sources of civil unrest in Canada for more than five months has been the proliferation of so-called “pro-Palestinian demonstrations” deliberately targeting Jews where they live, work and worship, for the military actions of Israel in Gaza, following Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel on Oct. 7.
That’s classic anti-Semitism, which the Trudeau Liberals seem incapable of addressing with anything but motherhood and ineffective statements that anti-Semitism is wrong.
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