“The information you need to fight back against media & government disinformation”
Today, I launched a newsletter providing long-form, exclusive political analysis of what is happening in our country.
The goal is to help provide you with the information you need to fight back against the rising tide of media & government disinformation.
I will continue to write here at SpencerFernando.com, as it is important to have a mix of short, rapid-response articles that are freely available, as well as more detailed longer-form content.
The long-form newsletter will be available on Patreon.
It will be released every weekend, and you can subscribe for $40 a month.
The first edition has already been released, and I’ve included a 3000 word preview (about half of the full newsletter) below so you can get a sense of what you are getting. (Please note that while there are ads on this website, there are no ads on the newsletter when viewed on Patreon).
Exclusive In-Depth Political Analysis: August 8th – 14th
“The information you need to fight back against media & government disinformation”
Key Issues:
1) The collapse of Canada’s socialized healthcare system, and what this means for Canadian identity.
2) The attack on Salman Rushdie & implications for freedom of speech.
3) The incredible deception that keeps the failed ideology of socialism alive today.
4) The state of the Conservative leadership race.
The collapse of Canada’s socialized healthcare system, and what this means for Canadian identity
For many decades, Canada’s ‘universal’ healthcare system has been an integral part of Canadian identity.
Unfortunately, this means it has largely developed into the status of a ‘national myth.’
National myths can be positive, particularly when they are based on events that are locked into the past, and are based upon the truth.
What I mean by that is building up a national myth around Canada’s involvement in World War Two, for example, is positive, since it is based on the true heroism and commitment to freedom our nation showed at that time, and since the events cannot be changed.
By contrast, building up a national myth around a socialized healthcare system is a big problem, because the myth is largely dishonest, and because the myth directly influences ongoing policy and events.
How is it dishonest?
Because even the ‘successes’ of our socialized system – which are few and far between –are largely based on the private sector.
As noted by SecondStreet.org, over 200,000 Canadians left the country for healthcare based upon 2017 numbers:
“SecondStreet.org used Statistics Canada data to calculate that Canadian patients made at least 217,500 trips to other countries in 2017 specifically for health care. However, if you include those travelling with the patients (eg. a spouse, family members, friend), the total rises to at least 369,700 people.”
While travel declined due to the pandemic and draconian restrictions in recent years, we can expect that the numbers of Canadians leaving the country for healthcare will hit record highs.
What makes this so ironic is that Canadians leaving the country for healthcare has been a key factor in stabilizing the socialized system.
With so many people leaving, pressure was taken off the Canadian healthcare system.
That pressure wouldn’t have been relieved unless other countries had successful, private sector healthcare delivery options.
This is a massive indictment of the socialized system.
It’s no wonder that with travel restricted the past few years the system completely buckled.
It was already stretched thin due to inefficiency and a lack of innovation. With the mix of higher numbers of patients due to covid and the inability of Canadians to easily leave the country, this meant we got to see how the system functioned under pressure, and the results were ugly.
Even the head of the Canadian Medical Association has admitted the system is collapsing, saying the following on June 15, 2022:
“What’s clearly coming is the collapse of the current health-care system,” said Dr. Katharine Smart in an interview. “We’re not seeing is the political will to take that seriously.”
“There doesn’t really appear to be any near solutions in the near term, which is really worrisome.”
The collapse of the system is merely the culmination of long-term trends, as our country has thrown more and more money at a broken model.
According to the Commonwealth Fund, Canada ranked second-last out of 11 peer nations in terms of our healthcare system:
“The Commonwealth Fund’s 2021 report comparing the healthcare systems of 11 developed countries ranked Canada in 10th place, ahead of the United States, which was at the very bottom. Finishing ahead of the U.S. is nothing to be proud of, contends Dr. Paul Woods, a former president and CEO of London Health Sciences Centre.
Because Canada finishes ahead of the United States, people say ‘ha, we’re better than the Americans,’ but we’re second last out of 11 countries. That is not acceptable, so taking this Commonwealth Fund report, removing the U.S. and recognizing that we’re dead last would be a great thing to do.”
Below, I’ve included an extended excerpt from CanHealth.com on the Commonwealth Fund report:
“The 2021 report, released in August, compares 11 high income countries – Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States – using 71 performance measures across five domains, including access to care, care process, administrative efficiency, equity and health outcomes.
The data used in the report comes from Commonwealth Fund surveys conducted in each country, as well as from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, and the World Health Organization.
Canada placed 10th in equity and healthcare outcomes, ninth in access to care, seventh in administrative efficiency and fourth in care process.
Dr. Woods, who describes himself as a “policy wonk” with an interest in health policy and system transformation, wasn’t surprised about Canada’s poor ranking in access to care, which reflects wait times and affordability.
“When I was at London Health Sciences Centre, I was shocked and dismayed to find how long it would take patients to obtain total hip and knee surgeries. It was an average of a year and in some cases just short of two years. Since the pandemic, I suspect it’s now even worse.”
Canada also scores poorly in access to primary care. “The Netherlands, which ranked first in access to care, has an incredible primary care model, where if you have a need, you can pick up the phone and have that need satisfied immediately, whether it’s a telehealth visit or after hours,” noted Dr. Woods. “The standard Canadian answer to a need at 2 am is to go to Emergency, which is a terrible answer.”
In the Netherlands, general practitioners are required to provide at least 50 hours of service between 5 pm and 8 am annually in order to maintain their professional licences, according to the Commonwealth Fund report.
Only 34.7 percent of Canadians reported they could get an appointment with a doctor or nurse either the same day or the next day, compared with 61.5 percent of respondents in the Netherlands.”
The Netherlands also went through a similar experience to Canada in terms of their system becoming more and more inefficient, and made market-oriented reforms:
“In the Netherlands, a national health insurance program was first rolled out in 1941, reflecting the German Bismarck model of public and private health insurers.1 Around 63 percent of the population was covered by public health insurance, while the more affluent could opt for private insurance or choose to remain uninsured.
At the turn of the century, concerns over inefficiencies and long waiting lists provided momentum for market-oriented reform based on the managed competition model proposed by American economist Alain C. Enthoven. The 2006 Health Insurance Act merged the traditional public and private insurance markets into one universal social health insurance program underpinned by private insurance and mandatory coverage.”
Thus, the Netherlands mixes universal coverage and private insurance, in a hybrid-system that achieves better results than the Canadian system.
Most peer nations do something similar, mixing public and private systems into a hybrid model that outperforms Canada’s socialist model.
As we consider this, we can see that Canada has everything we need to stop our healthcare system from collapsing. Everything except the right mindset.
Painful as it may be, Canada must abandon the national myth we’ve built up around our socialized healthcare system. We can’t fear the word ‘private’ when it comes to healthcare, and we must realize that the Canadian system and the American system aren’t the only systems that exist.
Decades of experience around the world have shown that hybrid public-private healthcare systems can achieve far better results, and that is the direction in which Canada must go moving forward.
The attack on Salman Rushdie & implications for freedom of speech
Salman Rushdie, the British-American writer best known for his novel The Satanic Verses which was seen by some Muslims as “blasphemous” and led to a fatwa against him, was stabbed in New York prior to a planned lecture.
24-year-old Hadi Matar was arrested for the stabbing, and charged with attempted murder and assault.
Rushdie remains in hospital, with severe injuries. Thankfully, it looks like he will pull through.
While some in the media are claiming the “motive is unclear,” the motive is obvious. In 1989 Ayatollah Khomeini, the Supreme Leader of Iran, issued a fatwa calling for Rushdie’s execution. Since then, Rushdie has lived under threat. That threat was nearly carried out.
The Iranian government is already celebrating the attack on Rushdie, claiming “Satan’s eye has been blinded” on the front-page of a state-run newspaper:
https://twitter.com/KMooreGilbert/status/1558574635213799424
The heinous attack against Rushdie has implications for freedom of speech around the world, and here I will discuss the implications for Canada in particular.
Let’s start with the response from the Canadian government which – in words – has been decent.
On Twitter, Justin Trudeau said “The cowardly attack on Salman Rushdie is a strike on the freedom of expression that our world relies on. No one should be threatened or harmed on the basis of what they have written. I’m wishing him a speedy recovery.”
https://twitter.com/JustinTrudeau/status/1558487509277065218
Again, those words are fine. But the man they come from has a long record of supporting the same kind of attitudes that would lead to the silencing of someone like Rushdie. Furthermore, Trudeau is at this very moment pushing legislation that will erode free speech in Canada. He has also shown a tremendous hostility towards freedom and towards different perspectives.
All in all, Trudeau has absolutely zero credibility when he talks about free speech.
Let’s delve more deeply into this.
When the Liberals pushed for M-103 regarding ‘Islamophobia,’ they faced widespread criticism by those – including some in the Muslim community – who warned that was a step on the road towards ‘blasphemy’ laws.
In 2017, Pakistani-Canadian Christian Peter Bhatti discussed the fear many had regarding the direction in which M-103 could lead:
“A religious freedom advocate whose brother was murdered for his Catholic beliefs told a parliamentary committee that legislation on Islamophobia could bring Canada the type of religious violence many people came here to escape.
Peter Bhatti, the founder of International Christian Voice, told the Heritage Committee Sept. 27 that Pakistani-Canadi-ans also worry that the government’s Islamophobia Motion 103 could put the lives of their relatives in Pakistan at risk.
“The fears of Pakistani Christian immigrants living in Canada are not imaginary,” said Bhatti, whose brother, Pakistan’s former Minority Affairs Minister Shahbaz Bhatti, was assassinated in 2011.
He said people are concerned that Motion 103 could be used to accuse a Pakistani-Canadian of being anti-Muslim, and such a label could have dire consequenc-es for their families in Pakistan, where “blasphemy law holds a sentence of life in prison or death.”
M-103, which passed last March, has led to a study of racism and religious discrimination in Canada by the Heritage Committee.
Bhatti reminded the committee that Pakistan’s blasphemy law is “misused to settle personal, economic and political disputes,” and has resulted in “murders of members of my family, friends and prominent members of our community.”
“We fear that M-103 will foster similar conditions of suffocation and oppression, while cultivating an environment of division and disharmony in our communities. These are the same situations we came to Canada to escape and avoid forever,” he said.”
The Liberals ignored the criticism, and pushed forward anyway, even with public opinion strongly against the passage of M-103.
Trudeau and the Liberal government have also often refused to criticize Islamist extremism.
Here’s what Trudeau said following the terror attacks in France against those who published ‘blasphemous’ comics:
Remember when you didn't support France when they were under attacks for having published cartoons?
What changed since then? Your poll numbers? https://t.co/hIOPoiQR41 pic.twitter.com/wMdBXi6G07
— Bryan Breguet (@2closetocall) August 13, 2022
The Liberal government has also often equated Islam with race, giving the impression that criticism of Islam is somehow ‘racist,’ despite religion and race being completely different things.
Trudeau has also found himself in ‘interesting’ company regarding efforts to combat what the government refers to as ‘Islamophobia’, as a media organization in Pakistan noted in response to comments Trudeau made earlier this year:
““Islamophobia is unacceptable. Full stop. We need to put an end to this hate and make our communities safer for Muslim Canadians. To help with that, we intend to appoint a Special Representative on combatting Islamophobia,” it read.
The Canadian PM joins Russian President Vladimir Putin, who on December 25 while addressing an annual news conference, had said that insulting Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) does not count as the expression of artistic freedom. “Insults to the prophet (PBUH) are a violation of religious freedom and sacred feelings of people, who profess Islam. These acts give rise to extremist reprisals,” the Russian president had said.
Prime Minister Imran Khan on Sunday welcomes Canadian PM Trudeau’s tweet and “unequivocal condemnation” of Islamophobia and plan to appoint a Special Representative to combat this contemporary scourge. “His timely call to action resonates with what I have long argued. Let us join hands to put an end to this menace,” it read.”
Pakistan is a country with brutal blasphemy laws.
Clearly, much of the world has the impression that Justin Trudeau isn’t a big fan of free expression. That’s because Trudeau has long taken the position that government power should be used to silence speech which ‘offends’ others, a position that is completely incompatible with freedom of speech.
The attitude of the Liberals towards free speech has closely mirrored that of authoritarian nations. China for example regularly claims that they restrict speech to prevent “harm,” language similar to what the left uses to justify free speech restrictions here:
“China’s constitution affords its citizens freedom of speech and press, but the opacity of Chinese media regulations allows authorities to crack down on news stories by claiming that they expose state secrets and endanger the country. The definition of state secrets in China remains vague, facilitating censorship of any information that authorities deem harmful [PDF] to their political or economic interests.”
This is an important point to make to counter those who claim that “Canada is free.”A country can have legal protections and laws on the books, but if governments use loopholes – like the fear-generated during a pandemic – they can override those legal protections and make them irrelevant.
And with legislation upcoming that will give the government more power over the internet, speech in Canada is going to become even less free.
The Liberals are currently seeking to pass Bill C-36, what they are calling an “online harms” bill.
On June 23, 2021, the Canadian Constitution Foundation warned that the legislation is dangerously vague. It will also put an unelected tribunal in charge of deciding what people can and can’t say:
“The Canadian Constitution Foundation (CCF) has issued the following statement in response to the government’s announcement of Bill C-36, a new bill dealing with “online harms”:
This government, and the Heritage Minister in particular, have proven again and again that they are anti-free expression and anti-technology. Today’s announcement of Bill C-36 is another example of the combination of the worst instincts of Prime Minister Trudeau and Minister Guilbeault.”
“The return of the civil remedy for hate speech combined with the expansion to include online content and an inherently subjective definition should make all Canadians concerned. For example, the proposed definition of hate speech as speech that is ‘likely’ to foment detestation or vilification is a vague and subjective standard.”
“This legislation will impact the ability of Canadians to engage in debate on subjects that are unsettled. Giving government and unelected tribunal bureaucrats even greater control over Canadian’s expression will erode our fundamental rights, which have already been struck a serious blow by Bill C-10. While hate speech is abhorrent and must be condemned, Bill C-36 will cause a whole new set of harms. The balance is all wrong, and this legislation should be rethought entirely.”
Of course, we also can never forget how the Liberals sought to shut down the bank accounts of convoy participants, the ultimate suppression and punishment of speech.
Combined with recent revelations of RCMP spying, and the government unwilling to say how many political opponents or elected MPs were spied on by the state, we see how the Liberals are drifting more and more towards “stealth authoritarianism,”.
Here’s how Ozan O. Varol described “stealth authoritarianism” in the Iowa Law Review:
“The Article discusses the primary mechanisms of stealth authoritarianism and how they differ from traditional strategies of authoritarian control. For example, instead of jailing journalists or shutting down media outlets, incumbent politicians sue them for libel, which raises the costs of critical commentary. Rather than imprisoning political opponents without due process, they prosecute them for violations of the existing criminal laws. They employ seemingly legitimate and neutral electoral laws, frequently enacted for the purported purpose of eliminating electoral fraud or promoting political stability, to create systematic advantages for themselves and raise the costs to the opposition of dethroning them. Often with the backing of international organizations, they adopt surveillance laws and institutions with the purported purpose of combatting organized crime and terrorism, but use those laws to blackmail or discredit political opponents. They rely on judicial review, not as a check on their power, but to consolidate power. To shape perceptions and deflect attention from anti-democratic practices, they frequently enact democratic reforms and invoke rule-of-law rhetoric. These practices permit the incumbents to retain their seats even in the face of changing political preferences by the electorate. That, in turn, undermines a core component of democracy: competitive, multi-party elections and the resulting alternation in government power.”
The same article discusses “non-political crimes”, and we can see many parallels with what has taken place recently in Canada:
“Another popular stealth authoritarianism strategy is the use of non-political crimes to prosecute political dissidents. Prosecution often involves selective, though legally accurate, application of the existing criminal laws that do not overtly concern political opposition, such as tax evasion, fraud, and money laundering. The prosecutions are also often supported with sufficient evidence of guilt, which makes it more difficult to detect whether the motive for the prosecution is political. A non-political prosecution of a dissident reduces the costs associated with overt repression, which might draw domestic and international opprobrium. It also allows the regime to portray the prosecution to domestic and global audiences as an application of the rule of law. The legitimacy provided by a non-political prosecution increases where the conviction is blessed by a supranational arbiter, such as the European Court of Human Rights.
This strategy is not new. Beginning in the late 1950s, segregationists in the Southern United States began to use laws unrelated to race to prosecute civil rights activists, including disorderly conduct, trespass, disturbing the peace, defamation, and tax laws. For example, Alabama prosecuted Martin Luther King, Jr., on charges of “tax evasion and perjury related to the filing of his tax forms.” Likewise, Virginia went after the NAACP under the façade of enforcing legal ethics requirements.”
Just look at how the system went after people like Tamara Lich, while vicious criminals get nothing but a proverbial slap on the wrist.
The system just released an individual in Vancouver described as a ‘high-risk sex offender,’ who then proceeded to almost immediately go missing from the halfway house he was supposed to stay at.
A system that punishes dissidents while letting actual criminals go free is a system that has been deeply corrupted. And when a government continues to make that system ever more lenient towards lawbreakers, while making it harsher on those who disagree with the current party in power, that government shows their deep and abiding hostility to free speech and free expression.
Bringing this back to the response to the attack on Salman Rushdie, we can see how hypocritical Trudeau’s remarks are.
The Trudeau government is an anti-freedom, anti-free speech, and anti-free expression government. This has been shown over and over again, and no amount of empty words can change that fact.
The Trudeau Liberals largely adhere to a far-left view of the world where “words are violence.”
They can’t claim Rushdie’s free-speech mantle now.
The incredible deception that keeps the failed ideology of socialism alive today
The ideology of fascism has rightfully been relegated to the ash-heap of history.
In an incredibly short amount of time, fascism – particularly the German & Japanese manifestations of it – racked up a horrific death toll.
The evil nature of fascism must also be considered in light of the fact that the fascists lost. Had they won, hundreds of millions more could have died. The German fascists plan for Eastern Europe would have – at minimum – resulted in 10’s of millions more dead, and 10’s of millions more permanently enslaved.
Tens of thousands of Canadians gave their lives in World War Two to ensure the defeat of fascism, along with millions more in Allied nations.
Canada, along with our allies, particularly the United States and the United Kingdom, understood that we could not allow fascism to dominate the world, and a free world and a fascist world were completely incompatible.
As a result, our society remains on guard for any signs of encroaching fascism, and it’s a level of vigilance we should maintain.
With that said, our society lacks the same vigilance when it comes to Communism and Socialism.
Many people are still open supporters of Communism, and many self-described ‘socialists’ are merely adopting a less threatening pose that would quickly evaporate were they to attain total power.
This is despite the fact Communism has proven to be the deadliest ideology in human history…
End of excerpt…
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Spencer Fernando
