Peter Menzies: We’re All Responsible for Toronto Principal’s Suicide by Not Standing Up to the Woke Mob

Peter Menzies: We’re All Responsible for Toronto Principal’s Suicide by Not Standing Up to the Woke Mob
The Toronto District School Board logo is seen on a sign in front of a high school in Toronto, in a file photo. The Canadian Press/Frank Gunn
Peter Menzies
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Commentary

Among the most chilling aspects of oppression is the passive manner in which people acquiesce to its advances.

These days, there’s no better example of that than Canada, which surely tops the charts of countries most inclined to submit to the tyranny of the “tolerant.”

Where else, after all, are radical shifts in society accepted as merely “moderate?” Is there another nation that comes to mind when you think of the easily herded and intellectually meek? I didn’t think so.

Take it further. In what modern, liberal democracy would politicians, media, and corporate leaders have stood mute while people like Richard Bilkszto were tracked down and hounded to death by radical Marxist “diversity” consultants engaging in high-level, unrepentant harassment and defamation? A former Toronto District School Board (TDSB) principal, Bilkszto—by all reports, a progressive liberal—took his own life after years of assaults on his reputation by the powerful extremists who have overwhelmed Toronto’s education system. Jonathan Kay provides a gripping overview of the tragedy in a July 21 article.

And is there a school board anywhere other than Canada where the response posted by a TDSB vice principal—a statement so bereft of empathy it draws a gasp of dismay—wouldn’t result in a prompt dismissal?

Is there another first-world nation whose “mainstream” media considers it self-evidently controversial for an MP to be photographed in the company of people standing up for a right enshrined since 1948 in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights? A parliamentary reporter was apparently so convinced that Calgary MP Jasraj Singh Hallan was misbehaving by having his photo taken at a Stampede breakfast with men wearing “Leave the Kids Alone” T-shirts, she simply passed moral judgment and declared the incident “controversial” without even bothering to source the allegation. Lazy, ideologically confused “journalism” indeed.
But what is most appalling are the despotic instincts of those denouncing parents for fighting not just the gender ideology indoctrination of their children, but for their basic human rights. Because right there in Article 26 (paragraph 3) of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it says: “Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.”

It’s unequivocal. No ifs, ands, or buts. But rights such as these and the freedom to believe whatever it is you believe and live your life accordingly are clearly inconvenient for those not just advancing radical agendas but imposing them.

Where else in the world do teachers—like the one recorded scolding students for adherence to their family’s faith—not result in school board, provincial, and national leaders denouncing their comments unequivocally? As detailed by True North, a teacher at Northwood Public School in the Greater Essex County District School Board told Muslim students who stayed home rather than participate in a mandatory Pride event that their and their parents’ actions were disgusting and fuelled by hate.

When a student protested that the kids weren’t “hating” but complying with their interpretation of faith and choosing not to promote through their participation, the teacher—in an astounding  display of intellectual confusion—responded by insisting that Pride and Islam (religion) are “the same thing.”

The destiny of one’s immortal soul, apparently, depends upon joining a parade.

It’s little wonder parents—according to reports there was a 75 percent absenteeism rate on the day in question—wanted to keep their children at home.

In which other so-called liberal democracy does the attorney general lamely nod and say he’s happy to consider a law making it a criminal act to question the accuracy of claims involving complex, contentious, and volatile issues such as residential school grave sites? Whatever happened to politicians who worked to calm the waters and say things like, “I’m confident that through respectful discussion and debate, the truth will always prevail?”

Can you think of leaders other than Prime Minister Justin Trudeau who sophomorically dismiss protests against virtually anything they do as something fuelled by the American “far right”—which these days is pretty much anything to the right of the far left?

Name another country led by people who exploit every divisive crack they can find in the nation’s social fabric to fuel resentment in order to advance their own ambitions.

This is no longer the nation of courage, ambition, and innovation it once was. We have become, for the most part, anxious people living under the oppression of our fears. People are afraid to ask a question in a corporate DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) training/struggle session. People are afraid to wonder out loud how it came to be that 32 percent of children in a Saskatchewan school identify as members of a sexual minority.

People are even afraid to contend, as Bilkszto did, that their race condemns them as a racist.

That’s how cultural revolutions are won.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Peter Menzies
Peter Menzies
Author
Peter Menzies is a senior fellow with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, an award winning journalist, and former vice-chair of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission.
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