Commentary
Since lockdowns were imposed in March 2020, federal and provincial politicians (along with unelected bureaucrats) have violated Canadians’ constitutional rights and freedoms. Judges have often overlooked or even endorsed these abuses. However, courtrooms are not the only places where people can and should advocate for their Charter rights. This election gives Canadians an opportunity to elect candidates who understand and truly appreciate the principles of our free society.
Here are some questions that Canadians should ask their local candidates, as well as the leaders of political parties.
1. Will you oppose the re-introduction of the Online Harms Act (Bill C-63) or similar legislation? Child pornography, revenge porn, uttering threats, and wilfully promoting hatred against a racial, ethnic, or religious group are examples of what the Criminal Code already prohibits. We need better law enforcement,
not additional laws.
Freedom-loving, Charter-respecting candidates should reject (1) giving the federal cabinet new powers to regulate content on the internet; (2) creating a so-called “Digital Safety Commission” (more accurately: an Online Ministry of Truth) to enforce compliance with regulations that are created without any input from Parliament; (3) amending the Criminal Code to allow complainants who fear that a speech crime might be committed to obtain freedom-violating court orders against people who have not committed, and have not even been charged with, any crime; and (4) giving the Canadian Human Rights Commission new powers to prosecute and punish offensive but non-criminal speech.
2. Do you support complete media independence, without the government supporting and promoting its favourites?
The federal government gives more than
$325 million tax dollars to its favoured media outlets each year, plus another
$1.4 billion to the CBC. The
Online News Act, passed in 2023, forces “major digital platforms” to distribute money to Canadian news organizations, with Google now providing $100 million annually to a “news fund” with government appointees deciding how to allocate it. Further, the Income Tax Act provides preferential tax treatment to “qualified Canadian journalism organizations.”
These laws and subsidies undermine journalistic objectivity. A free and independent press that can hold governments to account is essential for the health and survival of Canada as a free and democratic society. A free and independent press is sabotaged by regulations and government funding that benefit chosen elites. Where the state uses its spending power and legislation to control media, democratic discussion is compromised, and public debate is distorted.
As the old saying goes: “He who pays the piper calls the tune.” When government funds newsrooms, the public can no longer trust journalists to work fearlessly and objectively to expose government violations of Charter freedoms.
3. Should trans-identifying males with fully intact male genitalia be prevented from transferring into women’s prisons?
Since 2017, trans-identifying male inmates with fully intact male genitalia can choose to be transferred to federal women’s prisons, after “gender identity” and “gender expression”
were added to the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code. Female inmates now face sexually inappropriate comments, lack of privacy, and the risk of rape by biological males.
Over 75 percent of incarcerated women have been victims of some form of physical, sexual, emotional or psychological abuse, primarily at the hands of men. Some inmates are so traumatized by their experiences that they are unable to deal with men at all. The advocacy group,
Canadian Women’s Sex Based Rights has brought a
Charter challenge in Federal Court to strike down the current policy because it violates women’s Charter right to security of the person, and the right not to be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment.
4. Do you support the right of Canadians to have the choice of using cash, and do you oppose Central Bank Digital Currency, by which the government would control all money in Canada?
A Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) paves the way for a cashless economy, in which all financial transactions can be monitored and controlled by government. A cashless economy would create severe hardship for people who are homeless, technologically illiterate, or without ready access to the internet.
Worse yet, in a cashless economy, Canada’s federal and provincial governments
could restrict our freedoms like China does with its “social credit” system to micro-manage the lives of citizens. Governments can use CBDC to restrict when, where, and what people are allowed to buy, and to punish Canadians who express the “wrong” opinions, or who donate to causes disliked by the government. A digital dollar would provide politicians, bureaucrats, and bankers with intimate access to our inner lives, thereby posing a grave threat to our Charter rights and freedoms.
5. Do you support the Charter right to bodily autonomy, and will you oppose mandatory vaccination policies that take away rights and freedoms from Canadians who choose not to get injected?
When Canadian politicians made vaccines mandatory in the fall of 2021, they had no evidence that the new mRNA vaccine would reduce the spread of COVID-19. Even after the majority of Canadians had been injected, COVID continued to spread everywhere. Without a medical or scientific basis, Canadians lost their jobs and students were kicked out of university over their decision not to get injected. This was contrary to the
Nuremberg Code, which stipulates that voluntary and informed consent be provided for any and all medical procedures.
6. Do you oppose the current Criminal Code provisions that prohibit parents from helping their gender-confused children accept their biological sex?
In 2021, MPs of all parties made it a criminal offence for parents to encourage their gender-confused child or teenager to embrace and accept the sex that she or he was born with. Under the
highly misleading slogan of “banning conversion therapy,”
Bill C-4 made it illegal for psychologists, counsellors, therapists, doctors and religious leaders to encourage children and adults to accept the sex they were born with. Helping a person to gain or regain comfort with her or his biological sex can result in a criminal prosecution. Right now, the only legal option for parents (and everyone else) is to obey the dictates of transgender ideology.
7. Do you support the right of Canadian adults to choose their own counselling path, and pursue the therapies of their own choice regarding their sexuality and gender identity?
This same Bill C-4 made it illegal for Canadians who are same-sex attracted, or who feel unhappy with their biological sex, to receive counselling that would align with their religious faith or deeply held convictions. The only counselling that adults can legally receive in Canada is
counselling that aligns with progressive ideology and post-modernist beliefs about human sexuality and gender. In 1967, Pierre Trudeau famously told us that the state has no place in the bedrooms of the nation. Today the government has barged into the offices of every psychologist, priest, rabbi, imam, pastor, counsellor, and therapist to stop adults discussing bedroom issues. Religious and traditional approaches to dealing with sexual issues are effectively illegal in Canada, even for consenting adults.
Canadians can and should ask their local candidates whether they support freedom of expression, independent and ethical media, the right to bodily autonomy, the right of parents to help their children deal with sexual and gender concerns, the right of adults to choose their own counselling options, the right of women in prison to be protected from male inmates, the right to use cash, and freedom from the tyranny of surveillance under Central Bank Digital Currency.
It’s up to freedom-loving Canadians to make our Charter rights and freedoms an election issue by asking these questions of their local candidates.
John Carpay, B.A., LL.B., is president of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (jccf.ca).
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
