Quite an accomplishment.
Take a moment and imagine that you flipped on the news, and saw the following headline about some foreign country.
“Amid surging inflation, government invokes emergency powers as protests spread.”
What image comes to mind?
What part of the world or what country do you imagine?
Perhaps somewhere in the Middle East?
Perhaps in Africa?
Perhaps in some authoritarian state you usually hear about whenever something horrible is taking place there.
All of this is to say, you usually wouldn’t think of a headline like that in a country like Canada.
But here we are.
In many ways, Canada now increasingly resembles the kind of authoritarian state that we usually watch on the news and feel some sort of distant sympathy for, while being grateful “that it couldn’t happen here.”
But of course, it is indeed happening here.
The two big events recently are both connected, in a way that is actually quite obvious but has been ignored by much of the media and political establishment.
Surging inflation, surging unrest
History shows that rising inflation often leads to significant civil unrest and deepening of political divisions.
This makes sense, because inflation – particularly when caused (as it is being caused now) by deliberate government policy and money printing – represents the state robbing the Citizens of their earning power.
Inflation is a way for governments to increase their own power, as they drain more and more wealth away from those who actually produce.
Governments love this for a few reasons.
First, it is able to weaken individual Canadians, families, and entrepreneurs, which helps to bleed away wealth and independence.
Second, it is often hidden, or at least not nearly as obvious as a tax increase.
When taxes are raised, it’s obvious, and people can directly see how much the government is taking away.
For example, when the GST was introduced, it was immediately obvious to Canadians that a new tax was taking away 7% of their money on every purchase.
It was politically toxic, so toxic that even the tax-hiking Trudeau Liberals haven’t raised it back up after Harper lowered it to 5%.
Yet, we are watching inflation surge in Canada, now hitting 5.1% according to government figures (the real rate is likely even higher).
Here’s what BNN Bloomberg had reported on the highest inflation since 1991:
“Canadian consumer price inflation accelerated to a new three-decade high in January, adding to pressure on the Bank of Canada to start raising interest rates as early as March 2.
Annual inflation was 5.1 per cent last month, up from 4.8 per cent in December, Statistics Canada reported on Wednesday in Ottawa. Economists were anticipating inflation would be unchanged in January.
The average of the central bank’s core measures — often seen as a better indicator of underlying price pressures — rose to 3.2 per cent, also the highest since 1991.
The report will reinforce expectations that policymakers, led by Governor Tiff Macklem, will start a rate-hike cycle at the next policy meeting. Markets are pricing in as many as seven increases in borrowing costs over the next 12 months.”
And even worse, not only is inflation surging, but it is surging in almost every category:
“Consumer price pressures aren’t just accelerating, they’re broadening — and that could spell trouble for the Bank of Canada.
It’s getting difficult to argue the acceleration of inflation to three-decade highs is transitory or being imported from abroad. Nearly 80 per cent of the 48 subcategories in Canada’s consumer price index are now rising by more than 2 per cent, according to Bloomberg calculations on data released Wednesday by the national statistics agency.
That’s the highest proportion since 1991, far exceeding the 50 per cent average. Around two-thirds of prices are rising more than 3 per cent, the upper end of the Bank of Canada’s targeting band.”
Now, just imagine if the government brought in a new 5% tax on everything.
People would be up in arms – especially considering how difficult it has already been for people to make ends meet.
Inflation is the exact same thing, except there isn’t a clear notice on your bill that says ‘inflation tax.’
This lets politicians get away with stealing your earning power.
And yet, that doesn’t stop people from being poorer, and it doesn’t stop the level of anger in society from rising. It just makes it more diffused and scattershot.
It’s why you see movements like the Arab Spring kick off amid surging prices, as people feel more and more fed up with what is happening.
That brings us to the protests we see in Canada.
Our country has been subjected to draconian restrictions for close to two years, restrictions that were much harsher and much longer-lasting than in many parts of the world.
When people pushed back against those restrictions, they were attacked and demonized.
Politicians with the courage to speak out were quickly booted out for ‘daring’ to go against the establishment orthodoxy.
Even the key ‘opposition’ party, the CPC, was suppressed by their own leadership, with Erin O’Toole refusing to listen to the party base or many of his own MPs, meaning opposition to Trudeau’s increasingly authoritarian agenda was almost non-existent in Parliament, at least until O’Toole was removed with Candice Bergen, who has been much tougher and stronger in her opposition to Trudeau:
https://twitter.com/SpencerFernando/status/1494438132762218498
All in all, Canadians have been suppressed in nearly every possible way over the past two years. That suppressed energy doesn’t go away, it simply gets bottled up, particularly when the social norm in this country (a social norm that is now thankfully being wiped out) was to never discuss anything controversial and cover up our differences with a fake veneer of ‘niceness’ and ‘politeness.’
That bottled up emotion was on top of the fact that Canadians have lost their jobs, lost their earning power, and lost their businesses in huge numbers. We’ve seen a growing mental health crisis, and a surge in drug overdose deaths. We are seeing ‘deaths of despair’ in this country.
During this entire time, government officials and politicians were insulated from all of this.
They didn’t lose their jobs.
They didn’t lose their earnings.
And they kept their cushy pensions that we all pay for.
State-run and state-funded media also got more and more money throughout this time, protecting their job security with your tax dollars.
And then, when Canadians started to speak up, Justin Trudeau demonized people in the most ruthless and brutal terms, seemingly trying to intentionally stoke more and more rage and anger in the nation.
Finally, after all of this, Trudeau refused to even speak with or acknowledge the protestors, and went directly from doing absolutely nothing, to imposing the Emergencies Act, an authoritarian power-grab that takes away our rights and freedoms and is completely out of proportion to the actual situation.
Trudeau is now being condemned worldwide for his dictatorial actions, and the Trudeau government is being taken to court by civil liberties advocates in this country:
“The Canadian Constitution Foundation (CCF) has announced it is launching a legal challenge to the federal government’s invocation of the Emergencies Act. The challenge will be by way of urgent application for judicial review at the Federal Court.”
The Canadian Constitution Foundation (CCF) has announced it is launching a legal challenge to the federal government’s invocation of the Emergencies Act. The challenge will be by way of urgent application for judicial review at the Federal Court.
— Christine Van Geyn (@cvangeyn) February 17, 2022
The Canadian Civil Liberties Association also announced legal action against the Trudeau government:
Canada looks like a third-world authoritarian country
So, we now have surging inflation, government policies that take away freedoms and crush the economy, and emergency powers being used against those who protest.
Under Justin Trudeau – a known blackface enthusiast and someone who has repeatedly praised Communist Dictatorships – Canada resembles a third-world authoritarian country where freedom and economic opportunity are stolen away from our Citizens by the government.
With Justin Trudeau’s anti-freedom attitude, and with his destructive economic policies, Canada will be keep getting poorer and poorer until Canadians take our country back by defeating the Trudeau Liberals in the next election.
Spencer Fernando
Photo – YouTube
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