Last time I criticized what I called the Extreme Right in Canada, and today I’m going to talk about the Extreme Left.
And I’ll get right to the point. We have become a society that’s intolerant of alternate points of view and people are often afraid to say what they really want to.
A friend that I grew up with in Northern BC recently returned to Canada after living abroad for 25 years. He left an authoritarian country where speaking your true thoughts can get you thrown in jail, or worse. So he came back to Canada to raise his young family in a developed, safe place with strong democratic institutions.
But after living a year in Calgary, this friend of mine who is as left-wing as anyone can be in my opinion, is shocked by the political correctness here and how one has to be very careful of what you say or question in public and at work.
Similarly, I’ve had very progressive, left-wing colleagues confide in me how they can see free speech being consistently and systematically eroded in our society. This culture of, if you don’t agree with me, you don’t have the right to speak, has been perpetuated even at the highest levels of our current federal government.
Prime Minister Trudeau vilified and de-humanized the anti-vaxx community in 2021 in a futile electoral attempt to gain a majority government, right in the middle of the Covid pandemic, only two years into his mandate. This was extremely divisive, adding fuel to an already explosive situation.
The message from our Prime Minister was, you are either with Canada or you are against Canada… so was it really a surprise that much of the same community showed up on his doorstep a few months later with semi-trailer trucks and protest signs?
For meaningful change to occur in any way we must have open discourse and respectful dialogue. If you disagree with someone, you don’t shout them down or deny them their free speech.
You meet them head on, you challenge them with your ideas and your logic, and if your argument is truly better, you will triumph democratically, not by denying them the same rights you maintain for yourself.
Oh, and by the way, this is just my opinion, so you don’t have to agree with me, but you should hear me out.
Editors note: The views expressed in this column do not necessarily represent the views of Pattison Media.
