If all criticism of the government becomes labelled as ‘disinformation’ or ‘misinformation,’ and if the government gains the power to silence ‘disinformation’ and ‘misinformation,’ you can imagine what will happen.
Human beings react much more to sudden changes than subtle ones.
That just seems to be the way our minds work.
So, if you wanted to turn a democratic country into a quasi one-party state, you would need to do so in piecemeal fashion, working towards your goal in fits and starts.
Whether that is the ultimate intention of the Liberals – or just a ‘coincidental’ consequence of their ongoing actions – is really irrelevant, since the trend leads to the same place.
Step by step, the Liberals have sought to make huge portions of the media dependent on taxpayer money.
At the same time, they are seeking to quash the rise of independent media and independent Canadian content creators on social media with legislation like Bill C-11 & Bill C-18.
Keep that in mind when you consider the two stories I reported on today:
In two profile moments in just the past few days, the Liberals have labelled legitimate, fact-based criticism as ‘disinformation’ and ‘misinformation.’
Seen in isolation, this would be concerning enough.
But when we combine it with the legislation the Liberals are trying to pass, and their media bailouts, a clearer and more disturbing picture emerges.
The inevitable and ‘logical’ result of the path the Liberals are on is the de facto criminalization of opposition speech, or the complete neutering of the opposition in a way that makes the term meaningless.
There may be some who feel that this couldn’t happen in Canada, but when a government is led by a Prime Minister who has repeatedly expressed admiration for the Chinese Communist Party, and when ‘safety’ has become a valid excuse in the minds of many people for restricting freedom, it’s not exactly a shock.
Once a government has the legislative power to define truth, has the media under their control, and has silenced/weakened alternative sources of information, they can turn a democratic nation into a country where democracy exists in name only, completely hollowed out of the accountability and real back-and-forth debate that is essential to giving voters a real choice.
So, if it wasn’t clear to Canadians already, these past few days should make it abundantly obvious why we can never trust the government to be the final arbiter of what is and isn’t ‘disinformation’ and ‘misinformation.’
Perhaps, if we lived in a world where everyone was perfectly virtuous, governments could be trusted with that power. But then, if everyone was perfectly virtuous, neither anyone in or outside the government would be dishonest in the first place.
Since we live in reality – where humans are flawed – the best thing we can do is limit centralized government control, embrace freedom of speech, and let different ideas and political parties compete in the marketplace of ideas.
Spencer Fernando
Photo – YouTube
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