Reward your friends, punish your enemies and stay in power
Last week’s “update” postulated the existence of a definitive pattern that underpinned all operations executed by the current Government of Canada. It was simple enough and could be summarized as; reward your friends, punish your enemies and stay in power. This pattern was in full view this past week as the SNC-Lavalin scandal and the “United We Roll” convoy came together in the Nation’s capital. If there ever were two examples of the divergent treatment afforded to this government’s friends and foes, they were in full contrast with the too-big-to-fail, Laurentide construction giant and the western, pro-pipeline “convoy”. Good faith Canadians need to be concerned by this pattern as it speaks to the institution of two sets of rules and the follow-on erosion of their Charter Right to “equality before the law”.
The infrastructure magnate "friend" and the convoy "enemy" collide
In the case of SNC-Lavalin, we see a big-money political donor and vote-getter on the ropes fighting corruption charges. In the latter, we see everyday folk rallying dozens of trucks in -27o C weather to travel cross-country to the seat of national power in Ottawa. The contrast between the two could not be starker as the government is seen to lavish SNC-Lavalin with every indulgence to remedy their concerns and overlook their corruption, while the pipeline supporters are labelled as “haters”, bigots and “deniers” by their political and media elites. As stated last week, you are a friend of the government if you answer to the same philosophical narrative and can deliver votes to the ruling Party. The Laurentide, corporate giant, as perfect “friend”, opposed to the western convoy, as the “enemy”.
No soup for you "convoy" people!
SNC-Lavalin is a staunch supporter of government plans to use Canadian taxpayer funds to backstop the new $35 Billion Canadian Infrastructure Fund. As the “go-to” contractor for a slough of politically correct projects envisaged by this program, it has much to lose if it is punished outside of the protections afforded by the “Deferred Prosecution Agreement”. There can be little doubt that the firm is aligned with the Liberal Party’s political priorities with regards to this “slush fund”. More than this, the company’s biggest investor, the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, has billions of Quebec pensioner dollars in play with the firm and can ill afford to see the company penalized. No doubt, the political hit on any Party involved in such a loss of voter dollars would be disastrous.
Juxtapose this with the western convoy that sees the carbon tax, pipeline construction and open-door immigration policies as their major concerns. None of these issues speak to the Liberal Party’s “Agenda 2030” priorities of dealing with “climate change” and making worldwide migration a “human right”. Forget about intervening in the judicial process as, arguably, the Canadian government did in the SNC-Lavalin case. Indeed and in the case of the pipeline issue, the government accepted a negative Federal Court decision and made no attempt to take the matter up with the Supreme Court of Canada. No soup for you “convoy” people! As well, government officials and their minions in the mainstream media would pillory the “United we Roll” and “Yellow Vest” folks as xenophobes and racists for their outlook on unconstrained, internationally directed migration policies.
Naming, shaming and branding
As the enemy in this sordid play of political intrigue and preferred narratives, the “convoy” people need to be named, shamed and branded as disreputable folk who do not deserve a voice - let alone a platform. Their free speech rights can, therefore, be abrogated in the name of “hate speech”. After all, “haters”, be they proven as such or not, have no right to sully the public discourse. The means of establishing just who is a “hater” is quite simple: you employ fallacious tricks of logic to smear, and then silence, the unwelcomed voice.
Prime among the fallacies propagated by critics of the “convoy” and “Yellow Vest” communities is the “hasty generalization”. Hasty generalizations are broad-brush statements that lack sufficient evidence to support them and seek to stereotype on the basis of small sample populations. We see this in spades as, heretofore, professional media outlets lambast all “convoy”/ “Yellow Vest” folk as racists – this on the basis of a handful of tweets from nondescript individuals. As they did so, they bolstered these generalizations with ad hominem attacks designed to motivate the public to jump on their bandwagon. All this in the hopes of swaying the public to make it believe that folks such as these are hard-nosed radicals:
Forget the fact that these organizations are officially on record as denouncing any type of ethno-nationalism and challenge the “white nationalist” label that elitists try to smear them with. Forget about the fact that they are dealing with explosive growth with over 100,000 members registered within the past few months and forget about the fact that their leadership has already moved to eradicate those who would misrepresent their objectives. While you’re at it, also forget about the fact that “anti-hate” groups that oppose these organizations are made up of an eclectic mix of Marxists and anarchists that are never called to task for their thuggish antics.
After you forget all of these things, remember that political, media and academic elites did not do their research before issuing their ad hominem attacks. Why is that? Could it be that they are just too desperate to do so? Could it be that this desperation is based on a realization that the folks they are insulting are not part of a “radical fringe”? This being the case, could they also be realizing that their dreams of a post-national Canada, operating in consonance with a globalist agenda, is about to be swept away by a wave of Canadian common sense?
A very serious issue continues
The C3RF “Update” from 11 January, 2019 brought the formation of an “Islamic Party of Ontario” to your attention. Recall, as well, that the update requested your signature on a related petition that called upon Ontario’s Ford Administration to disallow the official registration of such a political party. The argument was a simple one, the Islamic Party of Ontario proposes to institute sharia law in Ontario as the law of the land and thereby abrogate the rights of its citizens to access the full and unconstrained rights of their own Charter. In short, the right to form a political entity needs to be limited by the right of all Canadians to be “equal before the law” – something that sharia law does not afford to women, non-Muslims and a host of other “identifiable groups”.
The petition, in conjunction with one other proffered by our friends at Canadian Citizens for Responsible Government (CC4RG), has been very successful with upwards of 30,000 signatures and has caught the attention of the Ford Administration. Now is a good time to capitalize on this success and augment it with a letter-writing campaign to further force the issue. Accordingly, C3RF plans to initiate such a campaign in the very near future. Please keep an eye out for it.
We need your continued support
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Major Russ Cooper (Ret'd)
Co-Chair C3RF
