| Trudeau, like many members of the political class, treat the messiness of democracy as a bug when it is in fact a feature. The core purpose of liberal democracy, understood by any political science undergrad, is to _limit_ power - the tyranny of the majority, the executive branch etc... Yet this is poorly understood by a class of individuals who exclusively do politics as a way of earning a living (ex. Trudeau, Liz Truss, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and so on). Democracy is designed to make their jobs difficult. It is designed to force them to be thoughtful, measured, and generally non-extreme in any direction. Things like the right to free speech, the freedom to assemble (protest) and the act of civil disobedience are designed to hold elected leaders accountable and ensure healthy checks and balances (ex. emergency powers for... covid! storms! protests!). Trudeau and his ilk deeply envy China and their 'bug free' implementation of the political class free from a significant number of checks and balances. As such they have embraced the Rahm Emmanuel mantra of "never let a good crisis go to waste" - using any so-called emergency to radically curtail democratic freedoms with an end goal of generally making their diktats more easy to implement. Think this is an exaggeration? Any protest in Canada during emergency mandates related to covid was subject to pervasive (on the ground + drone + officer cams) video surveillance, facial recognition, cell phone geofence "warrants" and ultimately a "police contact" file opened with the local law enforcement branch and the CPIC database (shared with all five eyes and used for purposes such as to deny immigration / travel / visas). The result? Massive disincentive for the professional class (with something to lose) to engage in protest and a direct limiting of democratic features like the right to freely assemble, protest and engage in civil disobedience. |