Suspicion is enough!
At this very moment, anti-Semitism in Canada is surging.
Mobs are chanting genocidal slogans.
Jewish Canadians are being subjected to attempts to push them out of public life.
‘Pro-Palestinian’ activists are boycotting any store or event that seems vaguely connected to the Jewish community.
And some people are even expressing support for terrorist organizations like Hamas and the Houthis.
These aren’t pretend incidents.
These aren’t events planned in the future.
These are real things, happening in the here and now.
And what is the federal government doing?
Are they making an all-hands-on-deck effort to rally Canadians against anti-Semitism?
Nope.
Is the Prime Minister putting himself in public service announcements on the need to fight against this hate?
Nope.
Is the government actively pushing for the enforcement of already-existing laws against hate speech and against supporting terrorist organizations?
Nope.
In fact, the federal government often seems more interested in pandering to anti-Semites by demonizing Israel than they do in confronting the rising tide of hatred against Jewish Canadians.
And so, we have seen how serious the government really is about confronting the most brutal and aggressive manifestation of hate Canada has seen in a long-time.
At the same time however, the government is going all in on punishing people for ‘crimes’ they haven’t even committed:
“Justice Minister Arif Virani has defended a new power in the online harms bill to impose house arrest on someone who is feared to commit a hate crime in the future – even if they have not yet done so already.
The person could be made to wear an electronic tag, if the attorney-general requests it, or ordered by a judge to remain at home, the bill says.
Mr. Virani, who is Attorney-General as well as Justice Minister, said it is important that any peace bond be “calibrated carefully,” saying it would have to meet a high threshold to apply.”
This is incredibly concerning.
If someone has a long history of spreading hate, then they have already broken the law and should be punished accordingly.
If someone has expressed an intention to commit a hate crime, that is already illegal and they can be arrested and detained.
Again, this government has shown itself to be completely unwilling to actually enforce the laws on the books, and has stood by and watched as hate has metastized across the country.
As noted by Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner, this leads to absurdly unjust disparities in punishments:
In Justin Trudeau's Canada, you get the same sentence for actually committing a sexual assault OR if the government SUSPECTS you MIGHT commit a "hate crime" pic.twitter.com/Az7kT0U6TN
— Michelle Rempel Garner (@MichelleRempel) February 29, 2024
Yet, the expect us to trust them to impose ‘PreCrime’ punishments?
Did they watch Minority Report too many times?
Did they take the wrong lessons from the movie – which warned about how powerful people would abuse the power to arrest people on the suspicion a crime would be committed?
It would appear so.
The last thing we should be doing is trusting this government – or any government – with the power to detain people based on a suspicion that a crime could be committed in the absence of any evidence.
When a government refuses to enforce the powers they already have, and then says they need vastly expanded new powers to address a problem, it almost always means they have something different in mind.
The Liberal government has proven far too willing to abuse the power of the state and use it against their political opponents, while stepping back and allowing actual crime and hate to spread.
Trusting them with this new ‘PreCrime’ power would be a big mistake.
Canada doesn’t need a PreCrime Department.
Instead, we need a government that actually focuses on enforcing the law against criminals, anti-Semites, and terrorist sympathizers, rather than going after Canadians who happen to disagree with them politically.
Spencer Fernando
Photo – Twitter
