An open letter to leaders in the Canadian Parliament who have the privilege to maintain the democracy of Canada:
I would like to draw your attention to the difference between a democracy, where citizens have the freedom to believe, speak and associate, versus a totalitarian government, which permits NO individual freedom and seeks to subordinate all aspects of individual life to the authority of the state.
“Thought police” is the tip-off that one’s leaders have drifted from democracy to totalitarianism. In other words, when the state begins to demand that I, in my role as a Citizen, conform to a particular way of thinking in order to acquire services available to me through the government, then it has gone too far in its requirements.
The Supreme Court of Canada has said that forcing someone to express opinions that they do not have “is totalitarian and as such alien to the tradition of free nations like Canada.”
“Forced speech is a violation of freedom of expression, protected by section 2(b) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In free countries, law governs actions rather than expressions of beliefs.” (Bruce Pardy, National Post).
But now, with the recent changes to the Summer Student Employment program, our own government is demanding that my thoughts and opinions about abortion must be the same as Justin Trudeau’s. This is not, as he proclaims, a Canadian value; it is his personal value. He already required that any member of the Liberal party must hold the same position on abortion as he does, thereby evicting party members who are pro-life. But now he is trying to force every Canadian to think his way. By making it a requirement that employers who are seeking grants for summer students must first ‘attest’ (meaning ‘agree’) to the euphemistic phrase of ‘reproductive rights’ (meaning abortion) Trudeau takes the step of imposing his beliefs through financial coercion.
There is no freedom to choose a different box on the application form that would come closer to my personal beliefs about the ‘reproductive rights’ of women to excellent maternal health care so that they can reproduce a healthy human being (baby) and if I omit a check mark in the only box given, then my application for student help at our local Crisis Pregnancy Care Centre will be denied.
But when Canada’s Employment Minister Patty Hajdu explains that Christians (collected under ‘church groups’) should have no problem with the requirement because it won’t contravene their “Core Mandate,” she exposes her abysmal understanding of what it means to be a Christian in the first place. A Christian’s core mandate is that we live our life in obedience to God’s commandments, also called the Ten Commandments, which were amplified by Jesus Christ. “Do not kill” is one of them, along with “Do not lie,” and they are summarised as “Love your neighbour as yourself.” This means that any Christian employer who wants to hire a summer student through the grant program for something as mundane as washing cars or cutting grass must first lie that he thinks killing babies in the womb is acceptable.
This government does not understand what the TRUE rights and freedoms are as enshrined in the Charter. I am allowed to have freedom of thought, expression and association but this Federal government is completely off its core mandate to run our democracy for the benefit of its citizens when it wants to control my thoughts by attaching a “thought” requirement to a summer job application that should serve ALL Canadian citizens regardless of their political affiliation, skin colour or religious belief.
To be told by my Prime Minister that my beliefs must fall in line with his because, as he said: “quite frankly, that is where we (he and his cohorts) are as a society” is blatant totalitarianism and must be vigorously opposed since it has no place in a democracy.
Standing up for Canada,
Betty Bandstra
Smithers